Rescuing Bear the Lab
Courtesy of Lab Rescue of Florida. (reproduced with permission)
This is an amazing story of how, when people are willing to help one
another, good things happen. In this case, Lab Rescue was a great
help.
On Friday, the 8th of August, Donna Sager and her lab, Bear, were
traveling to NY when she was in a car accident in Florence, SC.
Unfortunately, her finances were such that she could not afford to
rent another vehicle to get back to her home in Coral Gables, FL.
She called Lighthouse Ministries, an organization that helps stranded
motorists and people who are in need. Joanne, who volunteers there,
helped by getting a bus ticket back to FL. Unfortunately, the bus
would not take Bear. Now Joanne had to find a way to get Bear back
to her owner. Her good friend and neighbor, Billie, was a volunteer
for Lab Rescue when she lived in FL, and so, the wheels started in
motion.
Billie contacted Pat Bayers to see what she could do and she
contacted me to see if I could coordinate this whole process, which
I, with a lot of wonderful help, was able to do. Through Pat's
contacts we came up with Cathy Ellsworth. Cathy does not volunteer
for Lab Rescue, specifically, but has been doing animal rescue for
many years and often brought labs from GA to put in our rescue
organization. Cathy now lives in Jacksonville, and offered to drive
to the border of GA and SC and pick up Bear. Billie and Joanne found
another volunteer, Allie, to drive Bear to the SC, GA border. This
occurred on Monday the 11th. So now, Bear was in Jacksonville.
Of course, the story doesn't end here because than we needed to find
a foster family for him for a few days. (Cathy couldn't keep him as
she already has 5 dogs and 6 cats.) I contacted Lauren Bush and she
found a couple of her volunteers, Lee and Joy Bellemare, willing to
foster Bear for a few days. We were lucky, once again, in that
Cathy's Dad was in Jacksonville and was heading to Tampa on Thursday.
By the way, while Bear was in Lab Rescue care, he received a bath, a
rabies and bordatella shot, got his ears cleaned and was sent along
to Tampa with some meds and a bag of "light" dog food because, I
understand, he is a bit of a "porker".
Well, Bear left this morning at 7:30 and met up with Pat Bayers who
then transported him to meet his last volunteer, Debbie Schuckman,
(thanks Laurie for finding her) who will deliver him back to his
owner. Door to door delivery too, how about that!
All in all, it took 11 volunteers to bring this dog home. Now isn't
this a feel good story? It restores our faith in humanity.
Submitted by
Barbara Smith (Transportation Coordinator)
Lab Rescue of Florida