From today's Herald
Dartmouth woman rescues U.S. German shepherds
In Atlanta area alone, more than 90,000 healthy dogs euthanized annually
By VINCENZO RAVINA Mon. Nov 30 - 4:47 AM
Doug and Joyce Lamb of Lower Sackville enjoy their German shepherd Max, who was rescued by Leah Parsons of Dartmouth from death at a shelter in Georgia. (Peter Parsons / Staff)
DARTMOUTH — She calls them "the Georgia 12."
Leah Parsons brought 12 dogs across the border to save them from being euthanized by overloaded and overwhelmed animal shelters in the United States.
Parsons runs the East Coast German Shepherd Rescue from her home in Dartmouth. She says German shepherds are a misunderstood breed, and for 3 1/2 years, she’s dealt with local
German shepherds that have been mistreated or end up homeless.
She says she’s found homes for over 100 of them. But this is the first time she’s brought dogs into the country.
Parsons says the situation for dogs is dire in Georgia, and the only way to keep many of them from death is to move them.
"For some reason, (the shelters are) just overflowing," said Parsons. "They can’t keep up."
Joan Sammond, the director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Georgia, says that in just the Atlanta metropolitan area, more than 90,000 healthy animals are euthanized each year. The euthanasia rate is higher in rural areas. And it’s getting worse because of the economic situation.
Donations to the SPCA have dwindled and foundations aren’t granting them as much money. People are losing their homes and giving up their pets.
"The inflow of animals has increased, but the amount of donations has not," said Sammond.
To bring so many dogs into Canada, Parsons had help from volunteers to transport the dogs, in several trips, and to take care of them when they got here. In an effort to save as many dogs as
possible, five of the Georgia dogs weren’t German shepherds.
Parsons says she has room for the dogs because dog problems are modest in Halifax Regional Municipality.
"We don’t have a huge overpopulation of dogs. The metro shelter is really good at moving dogs out of the shelter into homes."
The Georgia dogs are up for adoption on the East Coast German Shepherd Rescue website, www.nsgsrescue.com. Four of the dogs have been adopted so far, but Parsons says there are more dogs on the way.
( vravina@herald.ca)
Why have I been promoting this story? Are there no homeless dogs in NS? Of course there are .... but setting aside that fact that East Coast German Shepherd Rescue also does help NS dogs ( for a complete listing of the dogs they have available for adoption ... go to their website, or to their petfinder page, http://www.petfinder.com/shelterSearch/shelterSearch.cgi?shelterid=NS38 ) .... the important thing about any interesting story like this is that it garners publicity for animal rescue.
At the end of the day, its important to remember that publicity is the best way to get animal rescue out there in the public eye, eh?
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