This reply is on how our rescue handles transport.  Volunteers generally Board members and their spouses) transport cats w/ our home based rescue in our personalized van that can transport up to 20 cats in carriers at a time.  We transport cats and kittens from our  Northern Neck foster home to cat cafes we partner with for fostering in Chesapeake and Newport News, VA, each  3 hour drives.  We transport cats for spay/neuter services to veterinarians to West Point, Hayes and Newport News, VA. Often one volunteer will deliver to the sites in the a.m., and another volunteer will pick up in the p.m. so the first volunteer doesn't have to wait all day before the cat can safely be discharged.  We ensure that our van drivers are insured under that insurance policy.  When private vehicle is used, that owner's own insurance covers liability.  In the summer months, like July, we have as many as 63 spay/surgeries in one month.  We spend a lot of time on the road and generate a very detailed monthly chart on how many S/N surgeries we have appointments for each day, with which veterinarian location, and drivers needed. To date only volunteers affiliated with our charity transport. We do not "farm" it out.  Does anyone know of reliable, reasonably priced transporters in our rural, Northern Neck, VA region?  

This post is about our Foster Sponsorship program:

Central Arkansas Rescue Transport (CART) developed this program a year ago; we only have 1 partner so far but hope to expand it to new partners before our next high season (November – May).

The program focus is on small foster-based rescues in states with greater demand than supply for adoptable cats, especially in the 'off' season (our high season); many times, these rescues have foster home capacity but struggle with the costs associated with vetting cats in geographical areas identified as 'vet deserts'.  In Arkansas, we are overwhelmed with our supply of cats, and due to low adoption rates locally, our local partners cannot save cats due to limited foster home capacity.  Some of our partners can afford to fully vet their cats but can't move them - they are drowning in wonderful, adoptable cats!  CART's program pays a $100 sponsorship per cat to participating destination partners for three months; ownership of the sponsored cats is transferred to that partner.  We do not charge pull fees and we do not ask to share in adoption fees.  The cats are ready for adoption but need further socialization or are a bonded pair.  Some cats may not show well in pet stores or can be shy with new people - but thrive in a foster home environment.  

We've sent 16 cats in the program's first year to our receiving partner in western Minnesota.  Their cost to vet and spay/neuter a kitten rescued locally costs more than their adoption fee; they have limited financial support locally. This rescue uses the sponsorship to underwrite the supplies for the foster home (or occasionally to lower the adoption fee), and they keep the full adoption fee – which helps fund their local operation.  Some of the cats we've sent needed more than 3 months in a foster home, so we pay an extension fee of $100 for another 3-month period.

To 'sweeten' the deal, we also send other friendly cats that they can put in the 2 pet stores they work with; these are also fully vetted, altered cats.  Whenever possible, we will send ones that will turnover quickly (kittens).  These adoption fees also supplement their revenue.

CART sends cats under the Foster Sponsorship program whenever our Coalition members agree to underwrite the fee and when our receiving partner has foster home space.

I've attached our Foster Sponsorship agreement form (it has 2 optional clauses we use as needed).  I'm attaching Word and PDF versions.

This reply is on how our rescue handles transport.  Volunteers generally Board members and their spouses) transport cats w/ our home based rescue in our personalized van that can transport up to 20 cats in carriers at a time.  We transport cats and kittens from our  Northern Neck foster home to cat cafes we partner with for fostering in Chesapeake and Newport News, VA, each  3 hour drives.  We transport cats for spay/neuter services to veterinarians to West Point, Hayes and Newport News, VA. Often one volunteer will deliver to the sites in the a.m., and another volunteer will pick up in the p.m. so the first volunteer doesn't have to wait all day before the cat can safely be discharged.  We ensure that our van drivers are insured under that insurance policy.  When private vehicle is used, that owner's own insurance covers liability.  In the summer months, like July, we have as many as 63 spay/surgeries in one month.  We spend a lot of time on the road and generate a very detailed monthly chart on how many S/N surgeries we have appointments for each day, with which veterinarian location, and drivers needed. To date only volunteers affiliated with our charity transport. We do not "farm" it out.  Does anyone know of reliable, reasonably priced transporters in our rural, Northern Neck, VA region?  

This reply is on how our rescue handles transport.  Volunteers generally Board members and their spouses) transport cats w/ our home based rescue in our personalized van that can transport up to 20 cats in carriers at a time.  We transport cats and kittens from our  Northern Neck foster home to cat cafes we partner with for fostering in Chesapeake and Newport News, VA, each  3 hour drives.  We transport cats for spay/neuter services to veterinarians to West Point, Hayes and Newport News, VA. Often one volunteer will deliver to the sites in the a.m., and another volunteer will pick up in the p.m. so the first volunteer doesn't have to wait all day before the cat can safely be discharged.  We ensure that our van drivers are insured under that insurance policy.  When private vehicle is used, that owner's own insurance covers liability.  In the summer months, like July, we have as many as 63 spay/surgeries in one month.  We spend a lot of time on the road and generate a very detailed monthly chart on how many S/N surgeries we have appointments for each day, with which veterinarian location, and drivers needed. To date only volunteers affiliated with our charity transport. We do not "farm" it out.  Does anyone know of reliable, reasonably priced transporters in our rural, Northern Neck, VA region?  

Thank you for selecting 'Transport' as the Resource Topic for the month!   I have much to ask and much to share on this topic!  First…

Central Arkansas Rescue Transport (CART) is a volunteer 501c3 organization with a unique approach to transport; we act as organizer and liaison - finding and developing transport relationships with destination partners. 2022 was our first year; we started with only one destination partner but added more, eventually transporting 244 cats out of Arkansas. 

In January 2023, we started the Arkansas Rescue Transport Coalition; we now have 6 Arkansas rescues / shelters as members. We work with the receiving partner to determine the animals that will move best in their market and find such animals at our Coalition members, then we coordinate the transport. We now have 10 active destination partners in five states.

Through this collaboration, CART can fill larger transports; we use vans and drivers from Coalition members and vans from our Best Friends Hub in Northwest Arkansas. Being a Best Friends Network Partner has been a major contributor to our volume! In the first 5 months, we've moved 476 animals (cats and dogs combined).  This phenomenal growth is partly due to our focus – our peak season is from November to May, when our destination partners are more likely to have capacity to take transported animals. 

Our biggest obstacle this year has been the lack of volunteers, specifically for the physical labor involved in preparation and clean-up.  In fact, we've moved the transport van/carrier prep and loading operation to a few of our member's locations, because CART hasn't been successful at volunteer recruitment. We don't have a Volunteer Coordinator to handle those tasks.  I pursued several suggestions without success (e.g., students that need volunteer hours, organizations that match people interested in volunteering to organizations).  Now that CART is entering our low season (last placement opportunities), I want to focus on how to recruit people for later in the year.

Thank you for selecting 'Transport' as the Resource Topic for the month!   I have much to ask and much to share on this topic!  First…

Central Arkansas Rescue Transport (CART) is a volunteer 501c3 organization with a unique approach to transport; we act as organizer and liaison - finding and developing transport relationships with destination partners. 2022 was our first year; we started with only one destination partner but added more, eventually transporting 244 cats out of Arkansas. 

In January 2023, we started the Arkansas Rescue Transport Coalition; we now have 6 Arkansas rescues / shelters as members. We work with the receiving partner to determine the animals that will move best in their market and find such animals at our Coalition members, then we coordinate the transport. We now have 10 active destination partners in five states.

Through this collaboration, CART can fill larger transports; we use vans and drivers from Coalition members and vans from our Best Friends Hub in Northwest Arkansas. Being a Best Friends Network Partner has been a major contributor to our volume! In the first 5 months, we've moved 476 animals (cats and dogs combined).  This phenomenal growth is partly due to our focus – our peak season is from November to May, when our destination partners are more likely to have capacity to take transported animals. 

Our biggest obstacle this year has been the lack of volunteers, specifically for the physical labor involved in preparation and clean-up.  In fact, we've moved the transport van/carrier prep and loading operation to a few of our member's locations, because CART hasn't been successful at volunteer recruitment. We don't have a Volunteer Coordinator to handle those tasks.  I pursued several suggestions without success (e.g., students that need volunteer hours, organizations that match people interested in volunteering to organizations).  Now that CART is entering our low season (last placement opportunities), I want to focus on how to recruit people for later in the year.

Thank you for selecting 'Transport' as the Resource Topic for the month!   I have much to ask and much to share on this topic!  First…

Central Arkansas Rescue Transport (CART) is a volunteer 501c3 organization with a unique approach to transport; we act as organizer and liaison - finding and developing transport relationships with destination partners. 2022 was our first year; we started with only one destination partner but added more, eventually transporting 244 cats out of Arkansas. 

In January 2023, we started the Arkansas Rescue Transport Coalition; we now have 6 Arkansas rescues / shelters as members. We work with the receiving partner to determine the animals that will move best in their market and find such animals at our Coalition members, then we coordinate the transport. We now have 10 active destination partners in five states.

Through this collaboration, CART can fill larger transports; we use vans and drivers from Coalition members and vans from our Best Friends Hub in Northwest Arkansas. Being a Best Friends Network Partner has been a major contributor to our volume! In the first 5 months, we've moved 476 animals (cats and dogs combined).  This phenomenal growth is partly due to our focus – our peak season is from November to May, when our destination partners are more likely to have capacity to take transported animals. 

Our biggest obstacle this year has been the lack of volunteers, specifically for the physical labor involved in preparation and clean-up.  In fact, we've moved the transport van/carrier prep and loading operation to a few of our member's locations, because CART hasn't been successful at volunteer recruitment. We don't have a Volunteer Coordinator to handle those tasks.  I pursued several suggestions without success (e.g., students that need volunteer hours, organizations that match people interested in volunteering to organizations).  Now that CART is entering our low season (last placement opportunities), I want to focus on how to recruit people for later in the year.

Amber – in answer to your first question – What vehicles are used and how are the animals secured in the vehicles.

CART and our Coalition use 2 different transport methods:

#1 – Direct transport to our destination partners (with possibly multiple pick up and drop off locations)

#2 – Participation in a rescue relay transport group, that has volunteers drive legs to move the animals from the initial pick-up location to multiple drop off locations.

I will post separate threads with more details on these 2 methods, but to your specific question…

We primarily manage our own large transports using a van from a Coalition member or one from the Best Friends Hub in Northwest Arkansas.  BF Network Partners can sign out a BF Hub for free (there is an authorization process); we only pay for the gas.  Most of the vans we use are a Ford Econoline van, primarily the 'tall boy' model.  Personally, I'm a bungee cord fan, but one of our Coalition members prefers to use ratchet straps and tie downs.  For our large transports, we can have up to 44 carriers, so how the carriers are stacked and secured is important.  We have had a few mishaps, but you learn best from applying lessons learned to your mistakes. 

Thank you for selecting 'Transport' as the Resource Topic for the month!   I have much to ask and much to share on this topic!  First…

Central Arkansas Rescue Transport (CART) is a volunteer 501c3 organization with a unique approach to transport; we act as organizer and liaison - finding and developing transport relationships with destination partners. 2022 was our first year; we started with only one destination partner but added more, eventually transporting 244 cats out of Arkansas. 

In January 2023, we started the Arkansas Rescue Transport Coalition; we now have 6 Arkansas rescues / shelters as members. We work with the receiving partner to determine the animals that will move best in their market and find such animals at our Coalition members, then we coordinate the transport. We now have 10 active destination partners in five states.

Through this collaboration, CART can fill larger transports; we use vans and drivers from Coalition members and vans from our Best Friends Hub in Northwest Arkansas. Being a Best Friends Network Partner has been a major contributor to our volume! In the first 5 months, we've moved 476 animals (cats and dogs combined).  This phenomenal growth is partly due to our focus – our peak season is from November to May, when our destination partners are more likely to have capacity to take transported animals. 

Our biggest obstacle this year has been the lack of volunteers, specifically for the physical labor involved in preparation and clean-up.  In fact, we've moved the transport van/carrier prep and loading operation to a few of our member's locations, because CART hasn't been successful at volunteer recruitment. We don't have a Volunteer Coordinator to handle those tasks.  I pursued several suggestions without success (e.g., students that need volunteer hours, organizations that match people interested in volunteering to organizations).  Now that CART is entering our low season (last placement opportunities), I want to focus on how to recruit people for later in the year.

Thank you for selecting 'Transport' as the Resource Topic for the month!   I have much to ask and much to share on this topic!  First…

Central Arkansas Rescue Transport (CART) is a volunteer 501c3 organization with a unique approach to transport; we act as organizer and liaison - finding and developing transport relationships with destination partners. 2022 was our first year; we started with only one destination partner but added more, eventually transporting 244 cats out of Arkansas. 

In January 2023, we started the Arkansas Rescue Transport Coalition; we now have 6 Arkansas rescues / shelters as members. We work with the receiving partner to determine the animals that will move best in their market and find such animals at our Coalition members, then we coordinate the transport. We now have 10 active destination partners in five states.

Through this collaboration, CART can fill larger transports; we use vans and drivers from Coalition members and vans from our Best Friends Hub in Northwest Arkansas. Being a Best Friends Network Partner has been a major contributor to our volume! In the first 5 months, we've moved 476 animals (cats and dogs combined).  This phenomenal growth is partly due to our focus – our peak season is from November to May, when our destination partners are more likely to have capacity to take transported animals. 

Our biggest obstacle this year has been the lack of volunteers, specifically for the physical labor involved in preparation and clean-up.  In fact, we've moved the transport van/carrier prep and loading operation to a few of our member's locations, because CART hasn't been successful at volunteer recruitment. We don't have a Volunteer Coordinator to handle those tasks.  I pursued several suggestions without success (e.g., students that need volunteer hours, organizations that match people interested in volunteering to organizations).  Now that CART is entering our low season (last placement opportunities), I want to focus on how to recruit people for later in the year.

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Liesse, I don't have a solution for you - we are located in Arkansas and only transport animals for our Coalition members.  But I can give you some tips.

Please keep in mind that transport placements for dogs is down significantly all over the country, especially for large dogs.  Our Coalition in Arkansas can't get placement opportunities with our existing destination partners for small dogs right now, including those that were taking them earlier in the year.  Dogs adoptions are way down (from what I've been told) in Minnesota and Illinois (where we send more of our dogs). Through the transport grapevine, I've heard the same for the East Coast and other mid-America states.

Also - many of the rescue transport organizations provide the means to get your animals from point A to point Z, but you have to have the relationship with the receiving partner.  CART uses 2 rescue relay transport groups that operate with this model; one departs every other Saturday morning from the Kansas City area, while the other one has the same schedule but departs from spots in eastern Missouri.  Plus, there are several Facebook Groups created specifically to post available relay 'legs' to volunteers to drive rescue animals along a route defined by the sending rescue to a receiving rescue.  Cost to participate in these rescue relays are minimal.  I will create a separate post with information on what I've learned from using these organizations.  But you have to find the destination partner.

I suggest you check around for any Coalition groups in Texas that work collaboratively on rescue transports.  That's what CART has done in Arkansas. CART is a separate volunteer charity that finds the destination partners and then handles the transport logistics; our members take care of the vetting and health certificates and pay $10 per carrier (dog or cat) to join the transport.  CART raises money through donations to pay for the transport costs. 

I've heard good things about Your Texas Rescue Connection, though we obviously aren't involved with them.

There are options for you but it does take some effort to track down these opportunities.  Good luck.

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Can someone tell me if there is an organization that matches shelters that need to transport to receiving shelters?  How did you all develop a relationship with a shelter out of your area?   I am looking into Vermont, and New England in General, but am open to other areas.  

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2023 08:36 AM
From: June Thomas
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Liesse, I don't have a solution for you - we are located in Arkansas and only transport animals for our Coalition members.  But I can give you some tips.

Please keep in mind that transport placements for dogs is down significantly all over the country, especially for large dogs.  Our Coalition in Arkansas can't get placement opportunities with our existing destination partners for small dogs right now, including those that were taking them earlier in the year.  Dogs adoptions are way down (from what I've been told) in Minnesota and Illinois (where we send more of our dogs). Through the transport grapevine, I've heard the same for the East Coast and other mid-America states.

Also - many of the rescue transport organizations provide the means to get your animals from point A to point Z, but you have to have the relationship with the receiving partner.  CART uses 2 rescue relay transport groups that operate with this model; one departs every other Saturday morning from the Kansas City area, while the other one has the same schedule but departs from spots in eastern Missouri.  Plus, there are several Facebook Groups created specifically to post available relay 'legs' to volunteers to drive rescue animals along a route defined by the sending rescue to a receiving rescue.  Cost to participate in these rescue relays are minimal.  I will create a separate post with information on what I've learned from using these organizations.  But you have to find the destination partner.

I suggest you check around for any Coalition groups in Texas that work collaboratively on rescue transports.  That's what CART has done in Arkansas. CART is a separate volunteer charity that finds the destination partners and then handles the transport logistics; our members take care of the vetting and health certificates and pay $10 per carrier (dog or cat) to join the transport.  CART raises money through donations to pay for the transport costs. 

I've heard good things about Your Texas Rescue Connection, though we obviously aren't involved with them.

There are options for you but it does take some effort to track down these opportunities.  Good luck.

------------------------------
June Thomas
President
Central Arkansas Rescue Transport


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2023 07:47 AM
From: Liesse Langlois
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2023 01:14 PM
From: Janice MacRossin
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

------------------------------
Janice MacRossin
Volunteer Coordinator
Helotes Humane Society


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2023 10:51 AM
From: Liesse Langlois
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter

If you haven't watched the video that Claire Callison recorded back in 2019 on finding transport partners, check it out. Claire is from AmericanPetsAlive!  She teaches the Maddie's University transport course and is the go-to Transport speaker for HASS and Best Friends conferences.

American Pets Alive! | Transport Programs: How to Find & Cultivate Successful Rescue Partnerships

Networking is key - most of our destination partners (more than 10 in 5 states developed in 2 years) came through FB Groups, Best Friends conference, Maddie's University course, acquaintances of acquaintances, etc.  

'Cold calling' methods don't work well, in my opinion, but you can try.  That's when you make a list of possible receiving rescues and contact them by phone or email hoping for a reply.  Our Coalition member just did that (300 rescues throughout the country); no leads.

------------------------------
June Thomas
President
Central Arkansas Rescue Transport
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2023 09:45 AM
From: Liesse Langlois
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Can someone tell me if there is an organization that matches shelters that need to transport to receiving shelters?  How did you all develop a relationship with a shelter out of your area?   I am looking into Vermont, and New England in General, but am open to other areas.  

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2023 08:36 AM
From: June Thomas
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Liesse, I don't have a solution for you - we are located in Arkansas and only transport animals for our Coalition members.  But I can give you some tips.

Please keep in mind that transport placements for dogs is down significantly all over the country, especially for large dogs.  Our Coalition in Arkansas can't get placement opportunities with our existing destination partners for small dogs right now, including those that were taking them earlier in the year.  Dogs adoptions are way down (from what I've been told) in Minnesota and Illinois (where we send more of our dogs). Through the transport grapevine, I've heard the same for the East Coast and other mid-America states.

Also - many of the rescue transport organizations provide the means to get your animals from point A to point Z, but you have to have the relationship with the receiving partner.  CART uses 2 rescue relay transport groups that operate with this model; one departs every other Saturday morning from the Kansas City area, while the other one has the same schedule but departs from spots in eastern Missouri.  Plus, there are several Facebook Groups created specifically to post available relay 'legs' to volunteers to drive rescue animals along a route defined by the sending rescue to a receiving rescue.  Cost to participate in these rescue relays are minimal.  I will create a separate post with information on what I've learned from using these organizations.  But you have to find the destination partner.

I suggest you check around for any Coalition groups in Texas that work collaboratively on rescue transports.  That's what CART has done in Arkansas. CART is a separate volunteer charity that finds the destination partners and then handles the transport logistics; our members take care of the vetting and health certificates and pay $10 per carrier (dog or cat) to join the transport.  CART raises money through donations to pay for the transport costs. 

I've heard good things about Your Texas Rescue Connection, though we obviously aren't involved with them.

There are options for you but it does take some effort to track down these opportunities.  Good luck.

------------------------------
June Thomas
President
Central Arkansas Rescue Transport


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2023 07:47 AM
From: Liesse Langlois
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2023 01:14 PM
From: Janice MacRossin
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

------------------------------
Janice MacRossin
Volunteer Coordinator
Helotes Humane Society


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2023 10:51 AM
From: Liesse Langlois
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Pilots & Paws and Greater Good do "free-to-the-shelter" plane transports for shelters in their programs.  Greater Good is typically only for big city shelters (and very hard to get into now), but they do massive plane transports from southern cities like New Orleans.  Pilots & Paws is better for little shelters.... BUT it's complicated to access.  It really helps to develop a reputation for sending GOOD dogs with appropriate behavior evals -- e.g., not undisclosed fear biters who will try to bite the volunteers --with completed health certificates, and have a super-organized transport coordinator who can stay on top everything needed, including getting the dogs to the airfield on time.  Shelters who say "it's too complicated, just do it for me" or refuse to give out a responsible employee's cell phone number to the air coordinator tend to get black-balled and never get to transport again.   So many shelters want their help that you have to be on your A-game and realize you're competing for their precious resources with many other southern shelters, so you've got to try to be the nicest person they talked to today so they'll want to work with you.   Ask them to teach you how to do it, keep copious notes, and then be a star student doing exactly what they ask.  Some breed rescues also do ground transports ("micro-transports"),  a dog at a time, but that adds up to a bunch a month if you're on the ball with rescues for several different breeds.  Some of them even cover the cost of paid transports for shelters they like working with (the ones who send them GREAT dogs -- including puppies that are easy to adopt up north).  Knowing your region's breed rescue folks is the best way to get into that network.  I would suggest developing a spreadsheet of active breed rescue contacts who are involved in transport, and try to activate them whenever you have THAT breed in the shelter.    That practice makes rooms for your mixes and PBs who don't have those resources, so don't "glom onto" fancy breed dogs and hold them just to "show off" that the shelter has fancy dogs too.  Get them out to make space for non-fancy ones so you don't have to euthanize the non-fancy dogs!   

For Texas and Deep South shelters, you also need to educate yourself on heartworm microfilaria  -- NO DOGS WITH CIRCULATING MICROFILARIA SHOULD BE TRANSPORTED.  Those animals are infectious, and we have ivermectin-resistant HW emerging in the Gulf states, so we don't want to send that stuff north!  It costs a few bucks for a shelter vet to mount a slide with a blood sample to check for microfilaria under a microscope.  Keeping them on Advantage Multi (not Heartgard) will kill the microfilaria the fastest, I think.

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Pilots & Paws and Greater Good do "free-to-the-shelter" plane transports for shelters in their programs.  Greater Good is typically only for big city shelters (and very hard to get into now), but they do massive plane transports from southern cities like New Orleans.  Pilots & Paws is better for little shelters.... BUT it's complicated to access.  It really helps to develop a reputation for sending GOOD dogs with appropriate behavior evals -- e.g., not undisclosed fear biters who will try to bite the volunteers --with completed health certificates, and have a super-organized transport coordinator who can stay on top everything needed, including getting the dogs to the airfield on time.  Shelters who say "it's too complicated, just do it for me" or refuse to give out a responsible employee's cell phone number to the air coordinator tend to get black-balled and never get to transport again.   So many shelters want their help that you have to be on your A-game and realize you're competing for their precious resources with many other southern shelters, so you've got to try to be the nicest person they talked to today so they'll want to work with you.   Ask them to teach you how to do it, keep copious notes, and then be a star student doing exactly what they ask.  Some breed rescues also do ground transports ("micro-transports"),  a dog at a time, but that adds up to a bunch a month if you're on the ball with rescues for several different breeds.  Some of them even cover the cost of paid transports for shelters they like working with (the ones who send them GREAT dogs -- including puppies that are easy to adopt up north).  Knowing your region's breed rescue folks is the best way to get into that network.  I would suggest developing a spreadsheet of active breed rescue contacts who are involved in transport, and try to activate them whenever you have THAT breed in the shelter.    That practice makes rooms for your mixes and PBs who don't have those resources, so don't "glom onto" fancy breed dogs and hold them just to "show off" that the shelter has fancy dogs too.  Get them out to make space for non-fancy ones so you don't have to euthanize the non-fancy dogs!   

For Texas and Deep South shelters, you also need to educate yourself on heartworm microfilaria  -- NO DOGS WITH CIRCULATING MICROFILARIA SHOULD BE TRANSPORTED.  Those animals are infectious, and we have ivermectin-resistant HW emerging in the Gulf states, so we don't want to send that stuff north!  It costs a few bucks for a shelter vet to mount a slide with a blood sample to check for microfilaria under a microscope.  Keeping them on Advantage Multi (not Heartgard) will kill the microfilaria the fastest, I think.

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

We are foster based and would love to get hooked in with Pilots and Paws or similar   We have tried in the past, but have not had success either with timing or getting a run put together.

That said. We tried Advantage Multi and although I understand why folks use it, we had several dogs have reaction to the Advantage part of it and lose all their hair  ( Have had that problem with just Advantage in the past as well).   We do use Pro-Heart for some dogs,  but it is cost prohibitive for every dog. We currently use generic Revolution (usually Selehold or Stronghold) as we have not had reactions to that . 

For shelters with a vet on staff checking a slide for Microfilaria is cheap and just takes a few minutes. For a foster based rescue an additional $30 or more per dog (which is what our vets here charge) is cost prohibitive if needing to do a large quantity of dogs, especially when monthly preventatives are more than 90% effective in eliminating Microfilaria.  We are in low income counties and do not have a lot of wealthy donors. Our donations are tough to come by and must be used wisely.   The other alternative is leaving dogs we could help to die so we can provide top dollar treatments and testing for every dog.  We provide treatments/testing as needed in a cost effective manner to help as many dogs as possible.  Maybe with grant funding for stuff specifically for stuff like that we could do more. 

------------------------------
ElizabethKadin
Heart of Texas Partners in Animal Welfare Services
Board President and All Around Volunteer
MexiaTX
903--875-5479
http://www.hot-paws.org
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-16-2023 01:00 PM
From: Maggie Thomas
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Pilots & Paws and Greater Good do "free-to-the-shelter" plane transports for shelters in their programs.  Greater Good is typically only for big city shelters (and very hard to get into now), but they do massive plane transports from southern cities like New Orleans.  Pilots & Paws is better for little shelters.... BUT it's complicated to access.  It really helps to develop a reputation for sending GOOD dogs with appropriate behavior evals -- e.g., not undisclosed fear biters who will try to bite the volunteers --with completed health certificates, and have a super-organized transport coordinator who can stay on top everything needed, including getting the dogs to the airfield on time.  Shelters who say "it's too complicated, just do it for me" or refuse to give out a responsible employee's cell phone number to the air coordinator tend to get black-balled and never get to transport again.   So many shelters want their help that you have to be on your A-game and realize you're competing for their precious resources with many other southern shelters, so you've got to try to be the nicest person they talked to today so they'll want to work with you.   Ask them to teach you how to do it, keep copious notes, and then be a star student doing exactly what they ask.  Some breed rescues also do ground transports ("micro-transports"),  a dog at a time, but that adds up to a bunch a month if you're on the ball with rescues for several different breeds.  Some of them even cover the cost of paid transports for shelters they like working with (the ones who send them GREAT dogs -- including puppies that are easy to adopt up north).  Knowing your region's breed rescue folks is the best way to get into that network.  I would suggest developing a spreadsheet of active breed rescue contacts who are involved in transport, and try to activate them whenever you have THAT breed in the shelter.    That practice makes rooms for your mixes and PBs who don't have those resources, so don't "glom onto" fancy breed dogs and hold them just to "show off" that the shelter has fancy dogs too.  Get them out to make space for non-fancy ones so you don't have to euthanize the non-fancy dogs!   

For Texas and Deep South shelters, you also need to educate yourself on heartworm microfilaria  -- NO DOGS WITH CIRCULATING MICROFILARIA SHOULD BE TRANSPORTED.  Those animals are infectious, and we have ivermectin-resistant HW emerging in the Gulf states, so we don't want to send that stuff north!  It costs a few bucks for a shelter vet to mount a slide with a blood sample to check for microfilaria under a microscope.  Keeping them on Advantage Multi (not Heartgard) will kill the microfilaria the fastest, I think.

------------------------------
Maggie Thomas
President
Red Stick German Shepherd Rescue


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2023 07:47 AM
From: Liesse Langlois
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2023 01:14 PM
From: Janice MacRossin
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

------------------------------
Janice MacRossin
Volunteer Coordinator
Helotes Humane Society


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2023 10:51 AM
From: Liesse Langlois
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter

Thank you Janice.  I should not have said "not pay" as in nothing.  We can do some at cost payments.  But for the people that do this as a money making venture, it is beyond our capability to pay.  We would gladly also work with a type of transport that does relay transport, if they have a shelter up north to take dogs to.  I have sent a contact request, so yes, please, when you get that, please do respond privately.

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2023 01:14 PM
From: Janice MacRossin
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Being from Texas I understand your dilemma.  In honesty getting a transport group to take a dog out of state for free is going to be hurdle number one. We have to pay the transporter. It costs them gas, van maintenance, insurance and payroll to take these dogs. One small group I know fundraise when they have a dog with a willing recipient lined up, to pay for transport costs. Feel free to reach out to me privately and I can give you some contacts in the area who might be able to help with ideas.

------------------------------
Janice MacRossin
Volunteer Coordinator
Helotes Humane Society


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2023 10:51 AM
From: Liesse Langlois
Subject: June 2023 Resource Drive: Transport

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

------------------------------
Liesse Langlois
shelter director
APET Animal Shelter

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Where do you usually need to transport the dogs to? What city to what city?

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Where do you usually need to transport the dogs to? What city to what city?

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Heron - we are in Central Arkansas and have a Coalition with other Arkansas transporting rescues/shelters.  We leave from Little Rock or Northwest Arkansas and drive a borrowed transport van to Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Kansas City area, the St. Louis area, the Chicago area and Cincinnati Ohio. We also have some smaller transports driven by volunteers in their own vehicles to Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago and Branson, MO.  Although we have a few partners that will take a van-full of animals (mostly cats) at one time, we primarily have two or three destination partners that will take animals on one transport trip.  For example, next week, we leave Northwest Arkansas and drop off 7 dogs and 5 cats in the St. Louis area, on our way to deliver 30 cats to Cincinnati (2 rescues).  The animals are coming from 5 different rescues/shelters in 4 areas of our state.  The logistics get complicated but it allows us to transport a lot of animals cost-effectively.  

Where do you usually need to transport the dogs to? What city to what city?

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Hi Liesse,

We are also a small shelter in a rural county and understand.  Have you tried to recruit volunteers via Facebook?   We use Facebook to recruit and retain our volunteers.  This works very well for us.  A lot of our volunteers are out of state.  We use email and Facebook to find volunteer drivers for our upcoming transport.  Have you thought about starting your own transport?  

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

@Laura Sherman (She/Her) You've been randomly selected as the resource drive winner for June! Thanks so much for sharing information and recommendations about Transport on this thread. Please be on the look out for a direct message from me so we can send you a gift card for participating in the resource drive. 

Hi Liesse,

We are also a small shelter in a rural county and understand.  Have you tried to recruit volunteers via Facebook?   We use Facebook to recruit and retain our volunteers.  This works very well for us.  A lot of our volunteers are out of state.  We use email and Facebook to find volunteer drivers for our upcoming transport.  Have you thought about starting your own transport?  

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

@Laura Sherman (She/Her) You've been randomly selected as the resource drive winner for June! Thanks so much for sharing information and recommendations about Transport on this thread. Please be on the look out for a direct message from me so we can send you a gift card for participating in the resource drive. 

Hi Liesse,

We are also a small shelter in a rural county and understand.  Have you tried to recruit volunteers via Facebook?   We use Facebook to recruit and retain our volunteers.  This works very well for us.  A lot of our volunteers are out of state.  We use email and Facebook to find volunteer drivers for our upcoming transport.  Have you thought about starting your own transport?  

Oh please please help Maddie's community!  We are a small, rural, not for profit shelter in a rural county in East Texas.  We are located outside a town of about 5,000 people.  We are no kill, and, because this county has no county wide shelter, we are the defacto animal shelter for people who need to bring in stray animals.  We need a transport to work with us.   Because we are no kill, we have a hard time convincing a transport/rescue group to work with us because they prefer to save dogs from a kill shelter.  Which is understandable, but...as a rural shelter, in arguably the worst state in the union for abandoned and neglected dogs, (and puppy mills) we need a transport to work with us on moving just one or two LARGE dogs north a month for us, so that we can have room open up to help more people and animals in our community.

I am new here, so I don't know if there is a section just for shelters in rural areas, but our needs are many.  There are just not the resources available to us, in manpower,money or services that is available in a large city.    And on the rare times we have convinced a transport to work with us, they only want puppies.  Puppies are easily adoptable, but the shelter and the county need a transport willing to take LARGE dogs and Senior dogs north as that is the greatest need in a rural county.  Dumped, fully grown dogs.

We are working with an outside group to try to get the county to build a taxpayer funded shelter to help with the need.  I keep a call log every day of people that call in reporting a dumped, neglected or injured animal.  Calls I repeatedly have to say "I can wait list you, that is the best I can do, currently".   We will give this data to our commissioners court in an effort to get them to proceed with building a county shelter, but that is much further down the road.  We need help, now.  We cannot get many fosters, and we only have about 5 volunteers, in spite of having posted the need for volunteers on local community pages.

So, we need a transport.  We need transports to consider that when they only help kill shelters, then the dogs at no kill shelters languish, and more puppies are born, and, the community can't do anything with the dogs, so they dump them or take them to kill shelters.  So only working with kill shelters is not having the effect of saving any more lives.  We don't even want all the spots on a transport, just one or two a month.  That is enough so that we can move more dogs thru.

We also completely vet the animal, worming, heart worm testing AND treatment if they have heartworms, vaccines, spay and neuter it, any medical care they need, including dental care and we microchip.  Our animals are ready to go.  The receiving shelter literally needs to do nothing.  Because of the money all going into the dogs, we cannot pay to transport.  So that option is out for us.  We need an established transport that is working with a northern shelter already to assist.

Please, if any of you know of any transport willing to take even one dog a month for us, that would be a lifesaver for this little rural shelter and the community we serve.

Cold Noses Foundation formed a collaboration called the Everglades Animals Coalition to help rescues in Southern Florida Everglades areas. Many dogs are dumped here in this very inhospitable environment.  The shelters are often closed for intake.  (too full) We supply an outfitted van that can take about 12 large dogs (many more puppies and /or cats). The local rescues can apply for a grant which can include a request to use our vehicle. We then review the rescue and decide if we will work with them. They provide the estimated costs for medical care, isolation, etc. to get the animals ready. They also provide the receiving shelter information to ensure the animals are going to no-kill situations. We have been working with a few different rescuers to move animals from the Everglades areas to the Northern US. Our biggest challenge is finding funding for enough transports. We also hope to get more rescues involved on both the sending and receiving sides so we can move more animals at one time. A very important aspect of the transport is communicating success stories to our social media and donors. Having pictures and stories to share with our donor base is very helpful in fundraising.