Hallie, an irrepressible black, white and gray Australian shepherd-mix puppy with floppy ears, seems to have the nine lives usually associated with cats. She has survived homelessness and a near-fatal illness, and came within days of being euthanized in a Virginia shelter. Today, Hallie lives the good life with a loving family in Potomac, saved by the determined efforts of volunteers from the Potomac-based nonprofit PetConnect Rescue and a network of animal lovers across two states.
Hallie’s story begins in North Tazewell, a small town in the southwest corner of Virginia, where she was found wandering the streets last December and taken by local animal control officers to the Tazewell County Animal Shelter. Hallie wasn’t wearing a collar or a tag, so shelter manager Donna Murphy, 61,was unable to find her owner. When no one claimed Hallie within seven days, she became eligible for adoption. That’s when Hallie had the good fortune of meeting North Tazewell resident Lori Salyer, 48, the shelter’s volunteer rescue coordinator.
“Hallie was gorgeous—friendly, happy and playful,” Salyer recalls. “Certain ones get to me—the way they look at you. Hallie is one I definitely felt a connection to.”
But the dog, estimated to be between 6 months and a year old, began to change. “I didn’t know if it was the stress of the shelter or an illness, but she started to lose weight, her coat began to fall out and became dull, and her crystal-clear eyes dulled as well,” Salyer says. She managed to find Hallie a foster home with local resident Mary Brown, who had experience with special-needs animals. Hallie, however, became sicker and stopped eating. Thinking that the dog might have hookworms, Brown treated her with donated antibiotics and a special diet. Hallie was improving, returning to her playful self, when Brown’s husband died in his sleep. Too distraught to continue caring for Hallie, Brown returned the dog to the shelter just before Christmas.
In early January, PetConnect Rescue’s founder, Lizette Chanock, 53, of Potomac received an e-mail from Salyer pleading for help in finding Hallie a home. The clock was ticking, and Hallie was scheduled to be euthanized by the end of the week. It wasn’t an unusual e-mail for Chanock. Each week, PetConnect Rescue receives 20 to 25 e-mails from overcrowded, mostly rural animal shelters in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, West Virginia and Kentucky listing dozens of animals in need of homes and on the verge of being euthanized. Chanock knew she had to work fast.
PetConnect Rescue, which was founded in 2005, placed about 175 dogs and 25 cats in new homes in 2008. The organization has about 40 volunteers, primarily from Montgomery County, including a core group of eight board members who act as liaisons between pet foster families and potential adoptive families. PetConnect Rescue tries to maintain a steady roster of foster families, but loses about half of these temporary homes when the families decide to adopt their visitors. Without available foster homes, animals cannot be pulled from shelters to await adoption, thus increasing the likelihood that the dogs and cats will be euthanized.
The animals placed into new homes by PetConnect Rescue represent only a small percentage of the overwhelming number of pets they are asked to save, explains the organization’s director, Mary McAndrew, 44.“You feel a little like playing God when you pull a dog into rescue,” she says. After becoming director in 2008, McAndrew says she would open e-mails with photos of pets from shelters “and just cry looking at the ‘put-to-sleep’ dates.”
One e-mail reads: “Last plea from Caroline County Animal Shelter.…These sweet dogs have until 3:30 p.m. today. Please e-mail or call if your group would like to help.” The list included “a female black-and-tan-mix lab, 1 to 2 years old, very sweet and smiles” and “a female 10- year-old white-and-red hound with big ears, very laid back, loves everyone and other dogs.” Some weeks, a single shelter might have as many as 60 dogs on its put-to-sleep list, McAndrew says.
Road Trip
Fortunately for Hallie, the wheels—literally— are set in motion. She is to become a passenger in one of the weekly convoys that transport animals from shelters in the Southeast to points north along the East Coast. Volunteer drivers deliver the pets to a network of established rescue organizations that help secure homes for them.
At 6 a.m. on Jan. 10, Lori Salyer—in her beat-up Chevy Astro minivan with the duct-taped front bumper—picks up Hallie from North Tazewell veterinarian Steve Munsey, 53, who had spayed Hallie the day before at a reduced rate paid by PetConnect Rescue.
Stacy Pugh, 32, Munsey’s office manager, remembers Hallie vividly. “She had the sweetest, kindest eyes,” Pugh says. “She seemed to have a smile in her eyes. Some [animals] come in scared, shivering and shaking, but she was so open— she licked us and loved us. She even loved our three office cats and wagged her tail.” Salyer arrives in Roanoke, Va., at 9:30 a.m., and Hallie is transferred to a second van, which heads to Lexington, Va. Hallie is transferred again before finally arriving at a parking lot near Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax, Va., a regular pickup spot for PetConnect Rescue volunteers from Montgomery County. Chanock is waiting for her. It’s 2:30 p.m.
The 25-pound Hallie, still underweight from her recent illness, is in a wire crate that’s wedged among others carrying 11 more dogs and four cats. Hallie’s traveling companions continue on to transfer points in Baltimore, Newark, Del., and Fort Lee, N.J.
After placing a collar and tag around Hallie’s neck, Chanock offers the dog a drink of water and a dog biscuit, and then puts her into a wicker crate lined with a plaid blanket in the back of her SUV. Within moments, Chanock is back on the highway en route to a foster home in Potomac. Hallie, meanwhile, curls into a ball and immediately falls asleep, seeming not to have a care in the world.
Sanctuary
Forty minutes later, Chanock and her dozing passenger arrive at the Potomac home of Ellen and Pat Campbell. The Campbells are old hands at fostering: Hallie is the seventh dog they’ve hosted in the past 18 months.
“It’s always exciting to get a new one,” Ellen, 61, says.
Pat, 60, says the dogs they have fostered typically have been “kind of pensive at first—they’re serious about making a good impression. It floors me.” Hallie, however, is not the least bit shy as she greets the couple. With her tail wagging, she gently places her paws on Ellen’s legs in a clear bid to be petted, and proves irresistible.
Once inside the Campbells’ home, Hallie sniffs around the cozy family room, which is closed off from the rest of the house with baby gates. As the people talk about her, Hallie cocks her head, seemingly listening intently to every word. Before leaving, Chanock gives Ellen a folder with Hallie’s medical records, including a scribbled message from the Tazewell County veterinarian that reads, “Hallie is a sweetheart.”
