Sick, Starving Puppy Gets Second Chance After Being Rescued Just In Time
The hairless, scabby puppy was walking down the middle of the road in an industrial area of Iberville Parish, Louisiana, looking for scraps of food as cars whizzed by. The woman who had seen her was concerned that she would not survive.
The dog was emaciated and scared when Alison Alvarado, the director of the Iberville Parish Shelter & Animal Control south of Baton Rouge, arrived, she wrote, “but had the sweetest eyes that were screaming for help.”
At a foster home later the afternoon of Aug. 12, the puppy now called Dobby had a warm bath, ate, and fell asleep for hours on a soft bed. Her ordeal as a hungry stray was over, and Alvarado could see her relief.
“You could see it all over her cute, hairless face,” Alvarado wrote. “The sweetest, most accepting, and loving puppy I’ve met in a long time.”
On Aug. 30, Dobby will be among more than 100 dogs and nearly 30 cats that will be flown from New Orleans Lakefront Airport to Morristown Airport in New Jersey. They will then be transported to one of several shelters, including St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in Madison, New Jersey, SAVE, A Friend to Homeless Animals in Skillman, New Jersey, the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees, New Jersey, the Delaware Humane Association and Faithful Friends Animal Society in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Pennsylvania SPCA in Philadelphia.
St. Hubert’s, in existence for more than 80 years, not only takes in animals without homes but also supports programs that assist animals in staying with their families. Its WayStation program has moved over 20,000 pets from needy areas via a network of more than 90 sheltering organizations, and it has invested more than $350,000 in communities dealing with pet overpopulation.
The Aug. 30 flight will conclude the annual Clear the Shelters animal adoption campaign from NBCUniversal Local television stations and Telemundo-owned and affiliated stations in the United States and Puerto Rico.
On Aug. 2, the first flight of the year took 155 at-risk cats from South Florida to the Northeast Animal Shelter, MSPCA-Angell in Massachusetts, and Monadnock Humane Society in New Hampshire.
The flights are a collaboration between Greater Good Charities’ Good Flights program and The Animal Rescue Site, as well as Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
Clear the Shelters started in 2015 and has helped more than 700,000 pets find homes.
Greater Good Charities, a fund-raising partner for Clear the Shelters, is a non-profit organization that works with people and pets. Its Good Flights program focuses on at-risk pets such as asymptomatic heart-worm positive dogs from shelters, homeless cats, larger dogs, and pets from disaster areas. Hill’s Food, Shelter & Love program provides nutrition to more than 800 shelters in the United States and Canada all year long.
Dobby, by the way, is also intelligent. On the first day, she discovered the doggie door in her foster home.
To learn more about Clear The Shelters 2022 and search for adoptable pets in your area, visit cleartheshelters.com. By visiting clearthesheltersfund.org, you can also donate to your local animal shelters and rescue groups.
