Last Sunday, I went down to the NKLA Adoption Event to visit Christy and the rest of the TAPS team at their booth. And of course, to wander about and say hello to anyone else I knew and check out the dogs up for adoption. The Super Adoption is for all the Los Angeles city and county shelters who bring a select collection of dogs and cats on death row to get adopted. There are a few rescues there as well, but mainly this is about clearing out the public shelters.
The idea is that everyone returns to their shelters with their trucks of cages empty—whether it’s through adoption or rescues taking each and every one, hundreds of animals that otherwise would have been killed on Monday morning have a second chance.
I found Patti, transporter extraordinaire at the National Brittany Rescue and she asked if I wanted to foster a senior for her.
“Nope. No fostering for me. Not now. I gotta fix up my yard, and the holidays are coming. No fosters for a while,” I told her with all certainty.
The next morning on Facebook, Patti discovered that I was a downright liar.
The lie was unintentional; I wanted it to be true, and why I couldn’t just let someone else step up the plate, I can’t explain; all I can say is that my gut told me to, and when I thought of not doing it, my eyes welled up with tears.
Dogs were brought up on the stage one by one and introduced by their shelter workers to give them a moment in the spotlight. Up on stage, there was a brindle pit bull mix, short and stocky, with a big goofy grin on his face. He had been at Castaic (a county shelter about 100 miles north) since September. This was his last chance.
I had seen a brindle pit bull puppy earlier at a rescue and a couple was there looking at him. Once this older brindle pit named Bruno came off the stage, that same couple stopped the shelter worker and started talking to her. Clearly they knew what they wanted. Good. Maybe this kid would get a home.
There was something about him, and after the couple walked away and I wandered around a little more, I went to Castaic’s booth to meet Bruno. He had been out and about a lot, so he was in his crate taking a break:
Terri, his handler, was the shelter worker who had taken him under her wing when he first arrived. She worked with him daily, helping to train him. He came in as a stray, and hadn’t had any real interest in almost two months. Each week, she fought for his life when it came time to red-list the dogs. The shelter manager wasn’t the biggest fan of pits, and Terri was always fighting for them. She even had to fight to bring him. The manager agreed and told her that if he came back Sunday night, there were no guarantees of his life lasting past Monday morning.
There was just something about him—this joyful spirit in his eyes that I couldn’t let be snuffed out. I went back to the TAPS booth and said that “I found this dog that I really like...”
Jen, who had photographed Lulu at the Strut Your Mutt event, said, “Hey I have a favorite too!”
We both took out our phones, and there on each of our phones was Bruno. “No way! Of all the hundreds of dogs here, we chose the same one! I was going to try to find a foster for him. Do you want to foster?”
“Yeah, I’ll foster, but I need a rescue behind me,” I said.
Shelley saw Jen and me getting all excited and she let me drag her over to Castaic’s booth to meet Bruno.
“You’re going to have to ask Christy,” she said.
It was a total parenting move: if Mom doesn’t want to say No, she diverts to Dad. Damn it.
Jen had walked away, so it was just me when Christy returned to the booth.
Shelley immediately said, “Stephanie has something to ask you.”
So I meekly presented my case. I had never initiated before. I was always asked to foster. I had no idea how to say, “Will you take this dog if I foster?”
Her answer when I got to “pit bull” was, “I’ll support you any way I can, but he’s going to be your responsibility. He’s yours. You have to find another foster when you’re away; you’re going to have to do this.”
The fact was, Christy had been financially destroyed by a pit bull just around the same time I was with Missy. Pits are hard to find homes for. But she could see this one was something special to me.
The other fact is that TAPS isn't primarily a rescue; it's a legal organization that only adopts out rescues when there's collateral damage--like all the dogs in a hoarding case... or like Lulu who was at the shelter while they were tending to some hoarding case canines.
Christy told me the top three rescues she thought might be willing to take him on, and sent me to their booths. One said, “I’m not so sure,” one had already pulled four dogs and was beyond capacity (even if they have a foster, rescues can only have so many animals on the books), and the final one, well, by the end of speaking with them, I didn’t want Bruno going there anyway.
Plan B was this: I would take his ID#, and if he ended up going back on the truck, I would put a hold on him, adopt him myself, and then find him a home. That was risky. A rescue isn’t just there as a possible reimbursement of expenses; it’s my legal foundation. If a dog needs to be rehomed five years from now, I don’t get the call. If there’s any legality down the road, I have an entity to protect me. And, it also makes it easier to get donations to pay for things. As I learned with Missy, a dog without a rescue is like a person without a country.
At 3:15, the “auction” began. First, Best Friends announced that they would be taking in every LA City animal not adopted by 4 o’clock. That left the county kids (including Bruno) on the major sell list. One by one, each of the remaining dogs went up on stage for one last push. People gave incentives. For the dog that needed medical treatment, one of the incentives was medical paid for a year… then, when no takers, medical for LIFE! Still no takers. Then, a rescue would take him if a foster could be found. A kind young woman in tears said she’d foster; and so the deal was done. This dog wasn’t going back on the truck.
Christy had said that I should put in the incentive that I would foster if a rescue took him. Money might have to be put up front as well, but start with fostering.
Bruno went up, and Terri tearfully told his story. The problem is that much like being in the security line at the airport, there are certain buzzwords that you are not allowed to say at a public shelter. “Putting a dog down,” “being put to sleep,” “killing,” and “he’ll be dead,” are all these things shelter workers and volunteers are not allowed to say. I can cause I’m not an official member of anything—there’s a lovely freedom in that. But Terri couldn’t. Only her tears could portray the harsh truth.
No adopters wanted him. The announcer said that there was a foster if a rescue took him. I saw a blonde woman in the crowd raise her hand. Bam! Rescue acquired.
Hanging with Friends is a relatively new rescue on the scene. They became a 501(c )3 just last year. They’re based in Hemet (about 100 miles east of Los Angeles.) No one in my circle of rescue friends had heard of them.
I introduced myself to Lisa, the founder, and Krista, the trainer and Hollywood-based partner. I filled out a form so they had my info, and I said to Lisa, “That’s a lot of trust. You don’t even know me,” thinking geez, how do they know I’m not crazy?
“Nah. I can get a good read on people. And anyway, someone would have whispered in my ear by now if they had a bad feeling about you. No, really, they would have.”
And so, with absolutely no plan, no prior knowledge of this rescue, no preparations done back home, I walked out of the NKLA Adoption with a new charge at the end of my leash.
And so begins my end of the year adventure. Goal: Bruno will be in his forever home before the holidays (Hanukah is a bit early this year, so let’s say Christmas.) I don’t have much of a plan, and I don’t have any guarantees it’ll happen. I’m only listening to my gut and going with it. There’s not a single part of me that believes I made a bad decision; I have no regrets. The only regret I would have had, was not stepping up to the plate. For some unknown reason, I’m supposed to be part of this kid’s journey. I’m supposed to find his forever person. Well, gut instinct, I say, “Challenge Accepted.”
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