Avery County is the only county in North Carolina that has absolutely no animal services – no animal control officers, no shelter, and no private rescue shelter contracted to take animals. Here is what happens when a county has no animal services: Despite good anti-cruelty laws, with nowhere to place animals, police officers cannot enforce…
I just can’t wait to get on the road again. At this moment in history, so many shelters are in crisis. And not just in the south, although things are undoubtedly worse there than anywhere. Which is why I can’t wait to get down there to help in any way we can. Ever since my…
After a week in North Carolina visiting 6 shelters, we learned a lot. Despite now visiting over 100 shelters, each visit teaches me something new about the challenges of saving dogs in the south and/or reminds me of some of the solutions. As exhausting as it can be, every single trip reinforces why we go…
Whenever we travel through Tennessee, we are lucky to have a homebase just outside of Nashville at the home of a rescue hero of mine. Laura Prechel is the mind and heart behind CASA Transport, which saved more than 2400 animals in 2022. Laura has been doing this for a long time and has saved…
Who Will Let the Dogs Out started after Nancy and I began visiting southern shelters to learn where all the dogs were coming from and why. We didn’t know how to fix the problem, but we knew we wanted to help. So we used the only skills we had – writing and photography. As we…
Our First Year! Thanks to you, in 2022, Who Will Let the Dogs Out: Your continued support and donations embolden us to travel further and do more to support the lifesaving work of shelters and rescues, AND find solutions to the crisis of too many unwanted dogs suffering. We believe the problem does not exist…
Private animal shelters often are built near public shelters to do the job that the tax-payer funded shelter is not. They literally rescue dogs from the public shelter. Why is more not expected from a government run shelter? Why do citizens pay for two shelters – one with their taxes and the other with their donations (and hearts)? And why, pray tell, do we allow this to go on?
A week from now we will be on shelter tour, hitting seven shelters in six states.
Polk County, Florida is ranked first in Florida and fourth in the nation for number of dogs ‘euthanized’ each year. The Polk County shelter killed 5000 dogs in 2020. Which is even more remarkable considering 2020 was the year so many shelters were emptied (momentarily). The only way a dog labeled a bully breed can…
“Are you a rescue?” This is the first question people ask when I tell them about Who Will Let the Dogs Out? I have to explain, that no, we aren’t a rescue, but we help rescues. We aren’t a shelter either, but we help shelters too. We don’t transport or train dogs. And we have…
