Two cargo planes landed on the Texas Jet tarmac in Fort Worth on Sunday afternoon packed with four-legged evacuees from Southern California.
The 161 dogs and 15 cats inside had been through multiple disasters.
The animals were already longtime residents of Los Angeles city shelters, which were so overcrowded last year that some dogs had been forced to live in crates in hallways. Then came the Jan. 7 wildfires.
The ongoing fires that have killed at least 27 people and displaced thousands also sent hundreds of pets into shelters — some that had gotten lost among the chaos and others dropped off for temporary care while their owners evacuated.
Welfare groups in California like Paws for Life K9 Rescue rushed to pull shelter long timers, including these 176 animals, in order to make room for pets waiting to be reunited with their families after the fires.
But the shelter veterans needed somewhere to go. Those rescues expect only more demand for space as more people struggle or run out of rentals that allow pets.
The Humane Society of North Texas coordinated with four other local welfare organizations to pickup the 176 Los Angeles animals on the tarmac Sunday and bring most into foster homes. As shelters in Dallas and Fort Worth deal with an overcrowding crisis of their own, the organizations said no local shelter animal will be displaced by the Los Angeles dogs and cats.
Senior Director Cassie Davidson said because other states regularly support Texas by taking animals out of its overcrowded shelters, helping Los Angeles “is the very least we can do.”
“When tragedy and disaster occurs, we unite as a nation,” Davidson said. “We are not separated by state and this is what the Humane Society of North Texas is all about.”
The Texas nonprofits providing refuge to the Los Angeles animals regularly pull animals from area shelters to adopt them out locally or transport them to northern states that don’t have the same overcrowding epidemic.
Dallas Animal Services this weekend was packed with 512 dogs in its 388 kennels, according to its online dashboard. Fort Worth Animal Services too is well above capacity with almost 700 animals, a spokesperson confirmed.
Last year the nonprofit Hearts and Bones pulled 1,300 animals from North Texas shelters, including Dallas, and transported many to the Northeast for adoption, said Executive Director Whitney Fang. The group took 17 of the Los Angeles dogs off the tarmac on Sunday with plans to place them into foster homes until Fang said their adoptions are finalized too.
SPCA of Texas took 50 dogs but will work with Hearts and Bones to transport a portion to the northeast next week. The rest of SPCA’s group will be ready for adoption at its Dallas shelter on Tuesday, said Maura Davies, vice president of marketing and communications.
“This is about helping during tragedy,” said Lauren Anton, founder of Saving Hope Rescue, which took about 33 dogs from the airport on Sunday and into foster homes to prepare for adoption. “We hope that if Texas was burning down, we would get outside help too.”
Texas and California are among the top states in the nation for shelter volumes and euthanasia, in part because of year-round breeding that takes place with milder winters. A lack of resources to help families keep pets also plays a role in the local crisis, according to Ed Jamison, chief executive officer of Operation Kindness, a shelter in Carrollton that was not involved in Sunday’s transfer. There is only one low-cost veterinary clinic in south Dallas, he said.
Davidson, of the Humane Society, said pulling animals from disasters like the Los Angeles wildfires also helps draw attention to the needs in Texas shelters. When the nonprofit made a call for fosters for the 70 animals it was picking up from the airport Sunday, Davidson said it received 400 volunteers.
The 70 Los Angeles animals that the Humane Society put into foster homes will be available for adoption from 12 to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday at its Saxe-Forte Adoption Center, 1840 E Lancaster Ave., Fort Worth.
When the wildfires began in Los Angeles, the six city shelters were already in crisis, with about 600 more pets than they could accommodate, said Alex Tonner, founder of Pets for Life K9 Rescue in Mission Hills, California.
Her organization pulls dogs from the city shelters monthly and works with incarcerated people in two California prisons to train them. Her 175-kennel facility hosts regular adoptions so they can keep saving dogs from the shelters while enriching the lives of incarcerated people.
As the wildfires raged, Tonner and a network of other rescues began arranging out-of-state transports to make room in the city shelters for fire victims.
“Normally we would never dream of sending dogs into Texas, we know Texas is in bad shape too,” Tonner said. “But this is an emergency… it’s a beautiful feeling that people want to help.”
With aviation charity Wings of Rescue, Tonner has also sent 54 Los Angeles shelter dogs to the Seattle Humane Society and 15 to two rescues in the pacific northwest since the fires broke out.
“Some of these dogs have sat in the shelter for a year,” Tonner said. “But since the fires started everyone just started jumping on board and rescuing.”
Since it launched in 2012, Wings of Rescue has transported more than 76,000 animals from overcrowded shelters and disasters to rescue groups for adoption.
Their flights are costly and depend on donors – the mission to Fort Worth on Sunday cost $75,000, according to President Ric Browde.
When the planes landed at Texas Jet’s tarmac at Fort Worth Meacham International Airport, dozens of volunteers with the five local rescue groups were waiting with transport vans in the 34 degree cold.
The cargo doors opened, and volunteers began pulling the crates off the conveyor belt one by one. There was everything from Huskies to terriers, puppies to mature dogs, all peering out of the doors of their individual crates.
Volunteers loaded them into transport vans for the next leg of their journey before adoption.
“These pets were at risk of euthanasia if we did not act,” Davidson said.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
