Perhaps the biggest crisis we ever responded to was the 61st Street kennel situation, where over 118 dogs were being neglected, allow to attack and often kill each other, right in our own backyard, in South Central LA. To date, all of the dogs that we could rescue are safe and lots of them have been adopted. We are now down to the last few 61st Street kennel dogs that still need a forever home.

Seven days a week, twice a day, for many hours, I’m with the dogs. We do lots of things together, including, going to the park, going on walks, going on car rides, and of course, Billy takes dogs out several times a week for special long hikes. Just feeding and cleaning up after 20+ dogs every day is a lot of work but when you consider that each dog comes with a complex set of challenges. One of the biggest challenges is how to say, “no more dogs”, saying it and meaning it, otherwise, one runs the risk of becoming another 61st Street kennel where the president of the rescue could not say the word NO. She kept taking on more and more dogs, all in the name of no-kill. Larry was one of the dogs that went to her “no kill rescue”

Larry is a wonderful dog, super sweet, who loves all female dogs, is tolerant of male dogs but hates small dogs. He was chained 24/7 at the 61st Street kennel. He is definitely ready for a forever home but not one calls, not one e-mails and zero applications have come in for this great dog. Rather than running to rescue another dog, we focus on working with Larry, making his life, while at our kennel, the best possible life he can have. Larry was a dog that at one time, was an urgent plea from a shelter dog network, offering a rescue group money to take him, and look where he ended up, in hell. Sure he was rescued but he was chained up with 117 other dogs. Sure he wasn’t euthanized but the suffering that this dog endured at that kennel was so great that if we had not come into truly rescue him, being euthanized would certainly have been more humane.

Amanda is another challenging dog who is ready to be adopted. Not so hot playing with other dogs but can be with any dog. Her issue is all about energy. If her adopter allows her to get “crazy” with other dogs, lots of chasing or tackling, there will be a fight, guaranteed. She is loveable, smart, knows basic obedience, is house trained, quiet, a perfect apartment dog and yet, not one application for this former 61st Street kennel dog that was kept in the most filthy dog run that I have ever seen with another pit bull. Both dogs were starving to death and the kennel supervisor allowed them to fight over food repeatedly.

Charlie was a long shot for us to take. We had already pulled so many dogs out of the 61st Street kennel that I did not consider taking Charlie because I knew, he would be a long term project. Thanks to the wonderful Heigl Foundation, Charlie was safe, with five other 61st Street kennel dogs. Off to a boarding facility they all went but for how long? Billy goes once a week to walk the 61st Street kennel dogs. A couple were adopted but when one of our dogs was adopted, Billy and I decided to take Charlie into our kennel so that he could get more off leash exercise. Rather than rush to another crisis, we decided to give Charlie a little more than he was getting at the boarding facility so that he might be adopted quicker. My experience with Charlie has been great. He loves to play with a lot of our dogs. We are taking it slow with some of the hard head females and definitely taking it slow with introducing him to our male dogs. He is already making progress in less than a week. In fact, he went out to the Best Friends adoption event and did pretty well with Billy handling him all day. Charlie is still a Heigl Foundation dog but will live at our kennel until he is adopted.

There will always be a new crisis and new dogs that are scheduled to be euthanized tomorrow. However, we owe the dogs in our rescue, the ones that we have already saved, our best effort. With a couple more adoptions, I can take some new dogs but until then, we continue working with the dogs in our pack, helping them gain confidence, become more balanced with other dogs, and prepare them for a life in a home, which every dog deserves.