Huge day for Lucky Tails

About a month ago I posted that Claire and her friend Marlin had decided at our weekly project based session to organize to bring dogs about to be euthanized in the South up to Connecticut.  This idea came about because it is hard to find a variety of breeds in the kill shelters in our area which are mainly filled with Pitbulls.  Many extremely adoptable dogs are euthanized on a daily basis in the South and these are dogs Claire feels confident she can find homes for.  She has also found that many of the dogs she has rescued in Bridgeport have health issues which are expensive to treat.  In order to cover expenses she needs to get donations and/or rescue some dogs from the South.  Any profit she can make from bringing dogs up can enable her to rescue more local dogs.

Claire has been researching kill shelters across the country.  She found an animal control agency in Georgia with a large selection of dogs and a very high kill rate.  This shelter also has an all volunteer rescue organization affiliated with it that Claire developed a relationship with.  Claire looks at the list of dogs that are about to be euthanized and asks for them to be pulled and vetted on her behalf.  They are put in foster homes in Georgia while they are in quarantine, recovering from surgery and awaiting transport. The dogs are then sent to Lucky Tails on a transport.

For her first transport she organized to have 6 dogs brought up.  Four of them arrived today, two are delayed with one recovering from heart worm treatment and the other from pneumonia.

Claire has done a great job building her foster network over the past few weeks.  She now has 8 families willing to foster dogs for Lucky Tails.  She is also becoming very adept in marketing, actively posting descriptions, pictures and videos of the dogs in the Lucky Tails network.  Even before the dogs arrived today, some families had already filled out and signed adoption agreements after pictures and descriptions were posted on PetFinder, Adopt-a-pet and Paws.   References had been checked and Claire saw pictures of the areas the dogs will be living in.  Some of the families came to the transport to pick their adopted puppies home. 

It was all so exciting.  Claire had been coordinating with the shelter, the transport company, the foster and the adoptive families for the pst few days.  She and Marlin spent last night organizing the paperwork, the crates, collars, tags etc... that would go with each dog.  They were prepared, knowledgeable and all their preparations paid off.  It all went very smoothly.  

 Excited adopting families and foster families!

This dog was in need of fattening up! We were a little worried about Danni.  She is a large dog but obviously very thin.  Addie (our vet) checked her when we got home. We took a stool sample to check again for parasites.  She looks healthy and once she was cleaned up we got to know her a little better.  She has obviously come from a good home.  She is calm with beautiful manners, house trained and can do a slew of tricks. She has a very gentle demeanor and would let us take bones out of her mouth.  She enjoyed playing with toys and fetch.  She also got along beautifully with the other dogs.  Tuggles was sad to see her leave with her foster family.  She is a great family dog.

The puppies were all especially cute, loving and sweet.  I haven't held a small puppy for a very long time.  Of course being babies they are going to be very high maintenance.  Most of puppies already have adoptions pending or serious interest.  Claire has been on the phone non-stop organizing all the details. All of the dogs that came today are with fosters.  Star, our cute black and white mini Pitbull mix, is going to her adoptive family tomorrow in New York.  It is going to be quiet here.

"I'll write to you!"

The day could not have gone better.