As residents gathered to enjoy drinks out on Lucky Luke Brewing’s patio on a recent Saturday, they were surrounded by dogs of various breeds, sizes and even personalities.
Gina Murphy, vice president of Ollie’s Angels Animal Welfare Society, said the event was held in collaboration with Shepherd’s Paws Animal Rescue Inc.
“SPARI is a rescue founded by Lisa Korell, and she’s been in the rescue business for 17 years. She and I met when I fostered a dog back in February, and she kind of took me under her wing. I’ve been learning about her organization and then began to volunteer and help her organize some events,” Murphy said. “She will pull dogs from the shelter and either get them into foster homes, or if an adopter can’t make it to the shelter, the rescue will pull them and get them to the adopter.”
Murphy, along with her rescue partner and president of Ollie’s Angels, Tara Bennett, met in December when Murphy was in the process of fostering her first dog through the Castaic Animal Care Center.
“Tara volunteers at the Castaic shelter, and she helped me get my first foster dog through the shelter. We managed to get her adopted, and after that, we started our relationship and wanted to help dogs. We kept seeing a lot of rescues pulling dogs, but then the shelters would still get full,” Murphy said. “So we started this organization. We just received our [nonprofit] status in May.”
Murphy, who has fostered 11 dogs and “foster failed,” or kept, three, wanted to use her expertise in helping guide others who may want to adopt but are unsure of the next steps.
“We want to encourage them and give them support. If someone adopts a dog, we will set them up with what they need. We’ll provide a leash and a little care package, a collar and a tag, and then we’re there to give them guidance, whether it’s training or going through the decompression period. It can take a dog three months to fully adjust,” Murphy said. “Our goal is to keep the pets adopted and it comes down to helping educate and inform people on how to do that.”
The day’s event was a chance to have the dogs integrated by interacting with the customers, and anyone who was interested in adopting could later express interest.
“The rescues are very cautious about who they adopt dogs out to, so there’s usually a vetting process. One dog was adopted and picked up [Tuesday] morning,” Murphy said. “Saturday’s event was a nice opportunity, because there were a lot of families there, and the fosters were able to bring them and really interact with them. If a dog goes home, we want to make sure that they’re the right match.”
If the process doesn’t work out, Murphy encourages residents to find other avenues to rehome a dog, such as a rehoming website, rather than taking the dogs to shelters.
“The dogs can get overlooked. Most dogs are stressed out and scared, and it’s really hard to judge [in these environments]. They usually have to do all these things to be considered adoptable,” Murphy said. “If people could just give a shelter dog a chance, they have every breed, every size. There’s rescues for almost every breed. We not only want to keep dogs out of the shelter, we want to keep them in their homes.”
