DEL.ICIO.USGeorgia shelter pets adopted - in Connecticut
A Christmas miracle comes for 139 dogs and 24 cats from Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Tracy Thompson and several of her staff stood around the pen of black Lab-mix puppies the first week of December and knew the time had come. They’d already been at the Paulding County animal shelter for weeks, and it was obvious on that Tuesday they weren’t going to get adopted. The decision was made to start putting the young dogs down on Thursday.
But then Thompson’s Christmas miracle came through.
DORRIE HARRIS/Special
Two Australian shepherds from Bartow County, now known as Max and Molly, went home with Ruth and Richard Matern of Morris, Conn.
DORRIE HARRIS/Special
The Hoople family — Betsy (left) and David and daughter Emily — with their new dachshund-Chihuahua mix. They’ll call the 12-week-old pup Lily.
DORRIE HARRIS/Special
Nina Sutton of Fairfield, Conn., adopted a 5-year-old flat-coated retriever that she was thinking of naming Scarlett.
“Southern Hope [Humane Society] called the next day and said they were looking for dogs to take to Connecticut for a Christmas adoption. I asked her if she’d take these eight black puppies and she said yes. We were going to have a bad Thursday, but instead we had a great one.”
The eight 4- to 6-month-old pups from several litters were part of 139 dogs and 24 cats that headed north from Georgia last week for a three-day pet “super adoption” sponsored by the SPCA of Connecticut.
Adoptable dogs are in short supply in New England, where more people spay and neuter their pets, and the harsh winters cut down the stray population. The adoption started Friday morning, and by Sunday night, half the cats and about 115 of the dogs were in new homes.
“It was just an incredible experience,” said Stacey Hall, president of Roswell-based Southern Hope Humane Society, which took up 72 dogs and puppies. “With the bad weather, we couldn’t get up there until Saturday morning, and when we got there, there were already people lined up waiting in the cold to adopt these dogs.”
One of those people was Ruth Matern, who drove 1 1/2 hours and waited in line for two hours wrapped in blankets to snap up two Australian shepherds from the Bartow County animal shelter.
“We’ve always had Australians and we’d been trying to find another,” said her husband, Richard Matern. The couple named the dogs Max and Molly.
The Hoople family of Simsbury, Conn., drove about two hours and waited in line another hour on Saturday to adopt Lily, a 12-week-old dachshund/Chihuahua mix.
“We just lost our dog, a golden retriever mix, a few weeks ago and we were feeling pretty lonely without a dog,” said Betsy Hoople. “We swore we weren’t going to get another puppy, but I picked up this little girl and she snuggled down into my arms and that was it.”
Colbert Veterinary Rescue Services, which works out of a veterinary office in Madison County, took up 67 dogs and 24 cats and a ferret in a loaned horse trailer. They left Wednesday and by Sunday afternoon 10 of the cats, the ferret and all but eight of the dogs had been adopted.
“There were 200 to 300 people waiting when we opened on Friday,” said Marla Farrell, who coordinated the transport for the rescue. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Farrell said they took some dogs from their rescue, but others were pulled from a number of county animal shelters around them specifically for the trip.
Fred Acker, director of the SPCA of Connecticut, said he had hoped to adopt out 200 pets, which included about 70 dogs from Puerto Rico. But the final tally for the weekend was about 160 dogs and cats. Several other groups stepped in to take the remaining animals, but Acker doesn’t expect those to last too long.
“My phones are still ringing off the hook and people are still wanting to adopt these dogs,” Acker said. “We didn’t quite make it this weekend, but I think we’ll generate 200 adoptions. Some of them will just take a few more days.”
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