Wednesday, April 04, 2007

World of Good, Trucks-N-Paws Style

Welcome to another World of Good (WOG) here at the Scratching Post! Thanks for stopping by. I think you'll like it.

Today I decided I wanted to look for volunteer trucking organizations and I came across this one. Trucks-N-Paws is a large network of animal rescue volunteer organizations. Essentially, it boils down to the animal rescue folks saving dogs and cats and other critters from death in the shelters and truckers volunteering to carry them to their new homes. The Yahoo! group linked above is an enormous confederation of groups and individuals that connects all of these kind-hearted people together to match needy dogs and cats with truckers. The extent of it is amazing.

For example, NEARR is one of the members. NEARR is Near East All Retriever Rescue. It's a volunteer group that takes in abandoned or orphaned retrievers of all sorts into foster homes and then finds them owners. These folks save the dogs from almost certain death in the shelters.


If kept outside, Colby could be used to keep away that most hideous of all things, other cats.

As an aside, I just have to say that this must be one of the most difficult things a volunteer can do. Everyone knows that dogs are noisy, smelly, unpleasant creatures that spend most of their time sniffing ghastly things and rolling in God only knows what. Very little of their time is spent laying in sunbeams or purring like a proper animal. My heart goes out to these hardy volunteers and the horrid creatures they care for.
The truckers are volunteers who carry the pets from one stop to another. A route is laid out to take the pet from its foster home to its new family. The truckers volunteer to carry the animals on segments of the route until the pet is brought to its new home.


With some work, Charlie could be rehabilitated to properly worship cats.

There's a great story of a rescued dog being taken to its new home on the Trucks-N-Paws website. Here's just a tidbit.

Roscoe sat back down and sized me up some more. All of the sudden, a look of rapture crossed his face. Not only was I his new best friend, but I had a truck, and for Roscoe from West Virginia, that made us kindred spirits. Even though he'd been neutered a few days earlier, I believe he had a sudden surge of hormones. He flung himself on me, slurping my glasses askew, his front paws locked around my neck in a choke hold. Then his hind paw flipped my travel cup of scalding hot coffee into my lap.

"AAAGHHH!!"

**Flashing blue lights behind me.**

"No, officer, I have NOT been drinking," I protested nervously. "This blast...blessed dog just dumped a cup of hot coffee on me at 75 miles per hour. You don't say? 55 mph, huh? Well, that's certainly good to know!"
If it doesn't make you smile, check your pulse. Read the whole thing.

Sifting through the messages on the Yahoo! group and surfing the various websites was such a pleasant experience. It's great to know that such a caring and kind-hearted network of people is out there giving of themselves to rescue pets and bring them to good homes.

There's a World of Good out there.


Legend says that reading World of Good (WOG) posts will lead you to be elected president of your Rotary club or at least find a five dollar bill on the sidewalk. If you're a blogger, linking to the WOG posts can increase your visitor count one hundred fold! (Notice I said can, not will.) Stop by this post to read more WOGs. There are lots and lots of them!

2 comments:

Kelly the little black dog said...

Some fine looking dogs on your site. Clearly you need more dog photos. ;)

K T Cat said...

What, the dogs dragging the sled through the snow in the Iditarod wasn't enough for you?

If I post any more pictures of those hideous beasts, I might get tagged as a site with inappropriate content!