This year, Waitsfield-based For the Love of Dogs Vermont adopted out over 900 dogs throughout Vermont and in parts of New Hampshire. Most of the dogs that this all-volunteer rescue places are transported from the south.
Carole Moore and Melissa Goldberg are co-directors of the nonprofit who were interviewed separately but shared almost identical information about the extreme need the organization (and others like it) are seeing in terms of the need for adoption, foster, shelter placement and people surrendering their dogs and/or seeking help to continue to care for them.
“I’ve been with this rescue for four to five years. Starting locally, I’ve never seen this level of people begging for help rehoming dogs. We’re finding that humane societies and other facilities that take in animals are full with wait lists. It’s nearly impossible for people who have to surrender because they are moving and have until the end of the month to place their dogs,” Goldberg said.
Moore concurred.
“We had a significant increase in Vermont residents wanting to rehome dogs and in cases of abuse and neglect in Vermont. Animal control organizations from all over the state reached out to us to help take in abandoned dogs. Towns have very few resources to place strays or abused dogs except in some cases in unheated barns. We’ve taken four dogs from those situations and placed them,” Moore said.
The situation in the South is even worse than in the Northeast, both said. Goldberg said that the demand from placing dogs from kill shelters in the South has grown tenfold.
“We’re seeing, shelters and rescues full and they’re turning away litters of pups, beautiful, great dogs because no one has room. Most of those dogs are picked up by animal control, taken to shelter, put on stray hold, then euthanized. If I took my dog to a shelter that was full, my dog would be euthanized on the spot,” Goldberg said.
Moore said that her organization was receiving dozens of emails, texts and messages on social media begging her to help dogs at risk in Texas, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
“It is heart breaking. They’re all beautiful dogs. It’s a crisis,” Moore said.
The cost of spaying and neutering pets is one thing that is impacting rescuers and adopters in the South and the North. Vermont has a low-cost spay/neuter program – V-Can -- to help those in need, but people who have paid an adoption fee for a new dog are not eligible, Goldberg explained.
Spaying and neutering is expensive and can range from $600 to $800, she said. For The Love of Dogs Vermont adopts spayed and neutered dogs for $500 and unspayed and neutered dogs for $400 with adoptees signing a contract agreeing to spay as soon as the animal is old enough.
For the Love of Dogs Vermont has a healthy cadre of 25 or so volunteer fosters which allows the organization to continue to transport dogs from the South to New England. Goldberg said that not a lot of their fosters fail and many are repeat fosters who are provided with food, crates, collars and leashes as well as medical expenses.
“Fosters are our lifeline to adoption. Fosters save dogs from euthanasia,” Moore pointed out.
The transports, when the dogs arrive in Vermont and beyond, are joyful moments featuring people meeting their puppies and grown-up and foster dogs. The shine in the adopters’ and fosters’ eyes and their smiles are genuine.
“That’s our paycheck, seeing these puppies come off transport into peoples’ arms who are so thrilled to have them. When I see that collar go around the neck, there’s a feeling in my chest that these dogs are home. It’s a sign that they will be loved and cared for and have a family,” Goldberg explained.
