It takes a village

to save a dog. Animal rescue definitely is not a one-person, or even a two- or three-person, job. It takes people with big picture perspectives and close-to-the ground perspectives, and people with money, people with time, people with space, people with the skills to evaluate, train, and care for animals, and more.

Even a village doesn't always succeed, because the supply of homeless and neglected animals is presently much greater than the supply of good permanent homes for them. This means that spay/neuter programs are and will continue to be the most important component of rescue.

This long-term, structural change is happening, in the U.S. overall and in Alachua County, due to the increase in low-cost spay/neuter programs and education. The result is that presently millions fewer animals are euthanized in shelters than twenty or even ten years ago, and there is good reason to hope that the numbers will continue to drop. A few communities have come close to ending euthanasia of healthy, adoptable animals, showing that this is not an impossible goal.

For the present, though, millions of dogs and cats are already here and in need. Shelter volunteers come to love these animals and celebrate when they are adopted into loving permanent homes. On a regular basis, however, perfectly healthy, friendly, sane animals run out of time and are placed on the euthanasia list at our county shelter and at almost every public shelter in the country. When that happens, shelter staff and volunteers often advocate for the animals, looking for private rescues to take them into their adoption programs, where they will have more time to find the perfect match.

Sometimes these efforts work miracles. Parker got one this week. He and four other dogs were placed on the euthanasia list for Tuesday, and on that day, volunteers were able to find foster homes and rescues to take in Parker and Nadine.

That still left three dogs on the list, all healthy, sweet, even-tempered, perfectly adoptable young adults who had simply been at the shelter too long. (Three of the five were pit bull type dogs, mirroring the overall proportion of pit bulls among dogs in the shelter.) The shelter is required by law to take in all animals turned in by owners or brought in as strays. This means that the shelter is usually at capacity or close to it. When that happens, animals die -- not because anyone wants them too (certainly not shelter staff!) but because there is no place for them to go.

After Parker and Nadine were placed, several dogs were still on the list, but more miracles happened. Emily, a goofy lovebug who won volunteers' hearts, was supposed to be euthanized on Thursday morning, but instead she was pulled by the same rescue that took in Parker. This was made possible because fans of Emily committed funds for medical care and food as well as identifying a foster home.

Another dog on the list was adopted by an acquaintance of another volunteer. The hours of networking and shaking the trees for potential foster homes and adopters worked this time -- but not without heroic effort by a whole village of people.

Sometimes heroic efforts can't save the situation, because rescue groups just cannot take all the animals in need, and in particular, they cannot take too many animals who are difficult to place -- including kittens in kitten season, certain types of adult animals (black cats, pit bulls, seniors), animals in need of medical treatment or training, and so forth. This limitation is not because rescue administrators don't care -- they wouldn't do this for a living if they didn't care desperately. However, they have to take a big picture, in which taking in an adorable litter of kittens might turn into years of care for the adult cats those kittens become. Saying no to an animal in need breaks hearts all around.

We have a whole village of smart, compassionate, creative people working miracles daily. Every miracle has many different pieces -- volunteers who socialize animals in the shelter, vets who perform low-cost spay and neuter surgeries, foster homes, and people who advocate for shelter animals in various settings. We all need each other. We're pretty effective already. Maybe more conversations -- about what we want to achieve, how we think we can achieve it, how our work relates to the other pieces of the rescue puzzle -- can make us even more effective.