"Dying" for dogs!

The leaders of It Takes A Village Canine Rescue in Evansville, IN wanted to give our supporters some insight as to the daily operations of our rescue.  So, we begin this blogging journey so people will have a glimpse of what is it like to run a no-kill, mostly volunteer rescue.  The blog will be mostly be written by ITV President Susan Odoyo with the assistance of ITV Executive Director, Amber Boyd. We hope you enjoy it!

Our first blog shall begin with our near death experience! Our donated mini-van is having mechanical problems so we came up with a plan to get it to a mechanic.  Amber and I started the innocent journey across town in old Bessy.  About half way there, Amber lost all steering on the van and it started to die in the middle of a busy street.  She was able to pull into a side street.  The two non-mechanics had to make a decision - call a tow truck or risk life and limb and continue the remaining 2 miles.  As a non-profit, all our decisions are governed by money and we did not want to pay for a tow truck.  We called Amber's husband and he said try putting more oil in it.  So, off to the convenience store we went.  A quart of oil later, we headed back to the van.  Drink Bessy, drink your oil! We fired her up and she yawned and complained.  I thought, as President, I should be the one to go down with the ship so I took the helm on old Bessy.  We made it the rest of the way and our friend mechanic actually laughed at us as we hobbled our way to the garage.  We await a decision from him on whether Bessy can be salvaged.

Rescue work involves daily messages from various shelters asking for help.  Today was no different. One shelter had an owner surrender 11 lab puppies covered in fleas.  They are only 6 weeks old! A trip to the local animal control resulted in more sadness.  A 4-month-old pit puppy with hair loss from fleas or mange.  Only 4 months old and he already knows pain.  Another kennel had 3 dogs who the owner surrendered together.  One was 21 years old and another 18 years old.  Imagine living your entire life and reaching an old age only to be dumped at an animal control to be killed.  State law requires stray dogs to be held 7 days so the pit puppy was not beyond his "stray hold" and had to be left there.  Another rescue is working on trying to help the senior dogs.  We were able to take 2 dogs, but many more are still there.  We took the shivering dog named Alley and a cutie pie named Casanova.  Casanova went to a local vet tech school whom we partner with to vet dogs.  Alley does not have a foster yet, but how could we leave a dog who is shivering behind on a concrete floor?  Owner surrenders and dogs past their stray hold are the first to be killed if the kennels are full.  We do what we can, knowing that we do not have the resources or capacity to save them all.  So, you look each one in the eyes and hope they know how sorry you are that you cannot help them.  You also touch them just so they know that some kindness does exist. We left with the two we were able to help (one owner surrender and one past his stray hold), but we will be back.