Transport Tales:: True Stories From The Road

To all of the shelter workers and rescuers out there, fighting the good fight and working tirelessly to save lives. And to Nik, Audi, Danita, Debbie and Linda, thank you for your patience and your constant support. -- TC

All photographs by Teresa R. Cash, except as noted. Top cover photo and background photo on Since Rescuing Dogs ... on page 9 by Deana K. Wehr, Wehr Photography.

Photo of Sam the Loopy Dog by Grace Kelly Herbert.

Photo on page 93 by Susan Paige.

Text copyright 2018 by Teresa R. Cash

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.

ISBN #: 978-1-7328464-0-1 (paperback)

ISBN #: 978-1-7328464-1-8 (e-book)

First Edition

Edited by Teresa R. Cash

Designed by Teresa R. Cash

Published by Ingram Spark

One Ingram Boulevard

LaVergne, Tennessee 37086

Transport Tales

1.Introduction

2.You Get Back What You Give

3.How Many Dogs Can You Fit in a Buick?

4.My Tummy Hurts

5.P-Jack

6.The Chocolate Chips

7.There’s a Freaking Monkey on my Truck

8.Pat Ritz

9.Truck Puppies

10.Saints in a Rodeo

11.Me, God and a Deer on a Mountain

12.George The Dog

13.A Birthday Party with NuNu the Puppy

14.On A Mountain In Vermont

15.Dobermans In The Mist

16.Is That Your Drive Shaft?

17.The Senior Peke from Metro

18.Two Birddogs, Midas and Kid Rock

19.Finding Shelter’s Sprout

20.Frankly The Cactus

21.Kaja Mendy

22.The Blue Myrtle Aussies

23.Malachi

24.Something’s Wrong With Your Dog

25.Air To Spare - A Flat on I-79

26.The Texas Border Collie Bust

27.Alabama’s Donation

28.Underdog to Wonderdog

29.I Just Love Animals Too Much To Help Out

30.Pets Plus, the ASPCA and a Lost Beagle

31.Losing Jacob

32.Observations and Things We See In Rescue

33.The Party Favor

34.Towed From Winchester For a Key Code

35.New Spirit’s Rover

36.Explosion on the Highway

37.William the Dog

38.Spock’s Puppy

39.Happy the Dog

40.Old Friends & Snooty Giggles

41.Spay & Neuter

42.Epilogue

To Love a Rescuer

To love a rescuer you must love all of her. You must love the scars covering her body from panicked and hurt animals she was trying to help. You must love her fractured heart that has been broken so many times she no longer even takes the time to mend the pieces.

To love a rescuer, you must embrace her grit and determination, and know that although she fights a war she can never win, she can and does win a few battles. You must love the tears she will shed over those she lost. You must give her comfort that she refuses to accept, as she blames herself for things she could have never foreseen.

To love a rescuer you must acknowledge the rage she feels towards the world at times, and know that anger is driven by a love of life too few have. You must give her space and room to cry and mourn for the losses that others have caused out of carelessness or cruelty.

To love a rescuer you must understand her passion to heal and save is a calling, not a choice. You must accept that to save animals is part of her soul and without that she could never be happy.

To love a rescuer you must be patient. You must accept her work comes first. She will forgo sleep, forgo food, forgo her life for animals in need. She will work tirelessly until her body and mind fail her completely and she cannot go on.

To love a rescuer, you must be strong. You must not be threatened by her focus and love of animals. You must accept that the things you love about her, the strength and convictions and loyalty are also what drives her sense of duty to animals in need; you cannot have one without the other.

To love a rescuer you must never ask her to choose, because she will, and it will not be you.

Author Unknown

INTRODUCTION

Hi everybody! My name is Teresa Cash and I live in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Really, quite by accident, about seventeen years ago, I became a transport driver for our local Humane Society. I drive homeless pets wherever they need to go, in-state or, more often than not, to Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I’ve recently added New York City as another destination. These pets go to rescue groups who sponsor them and then adopt them out to new families, or they go straight to their new adopters.

The internet has been wonderful for animal rescue. There is a site called "Petfinder.com" and most every shelter in the country has a page on this site. People looking for pets can go to that site and can see what animals are in each shelter, starting closest to your zip code, or you can do a more specialized search, looking for a certain breed, young or older, male or female, housebroken or not, etc.

Seventeen years ago, our animal shelter began working with rescue groups in other states, and that’s where I come in. These rescues are carefully screened so we know what is going on with the animals in our care. I’m a bit of an insomniac, so driving long distances is easy for me. Over the years, we’ve worked with rescues much to the benefit of the animals in our care. You see, the northern states have much better and stronger spay/neuter laws on the books than we do, so they do not have the pet overpopulation that is so prevalent in the southern states. If you want to adopt in the north, the shelters aren’t overflowing with lots of animals, so you put in a request and/or you work with a rescue group to find the pet that fits your family. These groups then go to Petfinder, look to see what animals we have available and they then match their adopters with animals from our shelters.

All animals that go on our transports are spayed or neutered, brought up-to-date on vaccines, microchipped, given flea and heartworm prevention meds and socialized by volunteers that come out to the shelter to walk them or spend time with them, hold them, bathe them and show them what love is, so they are on track to become excellent pets. They all must be certified as healthy the week of the transport by a veterinarian, so no contagious maladies are passed along to other states.

On our very first transport, we took ten dogs to Maryland in the back of a little Nissan pickup truck and we couldn’t believe our luck that a rescue was willing to take TEN dogs. These days, I don’t hit the road with less than 90+ animals in our shelters 26’ box truck (the big truck) or 40+ pets in a cargo van. I drive a rented cargo van one weekend, with animals from multiple shelters in KY and TN on board, then the following weekend, I drive the big truck for the Bowling Green-Warren Co. Humane Society. The third weekend is my weekend off, usually.

We move 2500-3000 animals per year, animals that once would have been euthanized in our shelters because there weren’t enough adopters and there just wasn’t room for them all. We love saving lives and that is always our goal when creatures come into our shelter. Over the years, I’ve moved dogs, cats, bunnies, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, gerbils, degus, birds, ferrets and even the occasional pot-bellied pig. I’ve delivered puppies on the road multiple times, puppies that we didn’t expect to come quite as soon as they did.

I drive in all kinds of weather ... rain, snow, sleet, tornados, I even drove with a hurricane coming one time, because I knew that I could get in and out and be 3-4 hours back inland before it was scheduled to hit. I’m a bit of a nut like that.

It takes quite a team to make these runs happen. Our shelter has a rescue coordinator that works with the groups to pick their pets and a full veterinary staff to spay/neuter, vaccinate and microchip each pet. The shelter workers help with all the paperwork necessary for the animals to travel. We have volunteers and staff that come a couple of hours before each trip to walk all of the animals before they leave on their journey. And most importantly, there are our rescue groups and adopters who are willing to work with our animals and get them into great new homes. And there’s me. I drive the truck.

I won’t lie, the trips can be a bit brutal at times. Sometimes I’m on the road for 14 hours or so, other times I’m out there for 24 straight hours before I make it to my hotel. I cannot stop for meals or sleep while I travel, as I cannot leave animals on the truck unattended. I grab a bite here and there when I stop for gas. It’s a lot, but it is SO worth it when you hear the purrs and see the happy tail wags from these once-discarded pets, as they embark on their new life. If they are on my truck, they are safe and I always tell people, It’s a great gig if you can get it.

As you can imagine, I’ve had lots of adventures while driving these trips over the years as I journey back and forth. I meet interesting people and find myself in crazy situations at times. It is to that end that I write this book, to share my adventures, stories, heartbreak, happiness ... it’s been eventful, to say the least.

When we started out, we were pioneers in doing this kind of work, and we’ve made lots of changes and honed our skills as we go along. These days, there are lots of transporters for different shelters all over the country. It takes dedication and stamina, but I love this job and I’m proud to play a small part in the work done by the shelters, rescues and adopters. I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures.

YOU GET BACK WHAT YOU GIVE

Several years ago, I found myself at an extremely low point in my life, unable to work a regular job anymore due to several medical issues. I was a single mom and had always been a workaholic. Lots of people stepped up to help me during this time and I wanted to find a way to give back but frankly, I’m not really good with people. I am, however, great with animals, having grown up in a house full of pets and having once owned a pet store for a short time.

I ran across a site online that said you could be a foster home for dogs, which blew my mind because this was certainly something I could do. Everything was paid for, you just provide the love and care for the animal. We had pets of our own but I thought it would be a good way to teach my son a lesson in opening your heart to less fortunate, to show compassion. With that, we began to foster dogs, sometimes as many as four or five at a time. Our house was crazy full but there was a lot of love and adventures to be had.

Eventually I found my way to our local animal shelter, the Bowling Green-Warren County Humane Society. It was there that I met their newest shelter director, Lorri, and I asked about volunteering some time. She welcomed me with open arms and we tried to use my specific skills to help the shelter animals. Having been a graphic artist for over twenty years, I helped create and generate a shelter newsletter that we published every quarter and then I started to design t-shirts for fundraising events.

I continued to foster dogs on occasion. My favorite was to take on new moms with puppies or to raise bottle-baby puppies, newborns that came in without moms and took round-the-clock care. I was home 24/7 so caring for these babies was easy for me, where it would be difficult for others who worked full time. I began driving leg-transports on Saturday mornings, where I would drive animals 50 to 100 miles, then meet the next driver, who would drive them another 50 to 100 miles, and on and on until they arrived at their final destination with a new rescue group or adopter in another state. I donated two to three hours on a Saturday morning and I knew that the animals I drove were all safely out of the shelter and going on to great new lives. It was very rewarding.

As time went on, I helped upload photos and biographies for shelter animals to a website online so that people everywhere could access them and see what animals we had at any time available for adoption. Then one day, I was at the shelter when I heard Lorri say that a rescue group in Connecticut could take TEN of our dogs at once if we could just meet them in Maryland with them. I piped up and said, I’ll drive them, because frankly, my son and I were living on a shoestring budget since I was no longer able to work, and we never got to go anywhere, so I thought it would be an adventure and something we could do together.

They accepted my offer and that Friday, my son and I packed, we loaded ten dogs in the back of a little Nissan pickup truck that belonged to the shelter, and off we went. Everything went extremely well, we had a nice weekend away and we were thrilled that ten dogs got moved out of the shelter. Two or three months later, the group offered to take ten more and so we went again. And as time went on, other groups offered to take animals from us. They would look at our online site, see what we had, match our animals with adopters they had waiting for new pets, and it was a win-win situation all around. None of us had any idea how this would grow into what it is today.

Eventually we went from driving the little Nissan truck to driving a cargo van. From the cargo van, we moved up to a 16’ box truck, custom outfitted with heat and air in the back for the animals. From there, we had a truck custom built. At 26’ long, it has its own generator on the back for climate control, it contains nearly 70 stainless steel cages, has the capacity to carry nearly 130 animals at a time ... it is basically a temporary shelter on wheels. We routinely move about 3000 animals a year now to rescue groups up and down the east coast and to Wisconsin and Canada.

We are able to save so many lives, it’s just amazing. To see the joy of these animals when they come off the truck in a new state, when they see deep snow for the first time, meet their new families, makes all of the driving worthwhile. Our shelter has grown exponentially over the past fifteen years as well. Not only has the transport program grown and blossomed, but we have added a no-kill