Rescue #54, originally uploaded by Aldon.

#54, currently called Sweetie, not her real name, isn’t home yet. When she reaches her forever home, her new humans will give her a name to cement their relationship. For today, myself and friends on the doggie railroad will call her Sweetie.

I’m not sure how I ever got tied into the doggie railroad. I know that last December, I received an email from Sherry, and animal control officer in Hartford. It has a picture of a puppy in urgent need of a home. I posted it as a Wordless Wednesday post and received a bunch of comments. I spoke with Sherry and discovered that the pup had found a new home. Sherry kept sending me information about other dogs in urgent need of rescue.

This week, I received a few different emails about dogs needing rescue. It seems like there are a lot of them this summer. One of them was Sweetie. A woman in Maine found a potential foster home for Sweetie. Her sister would be driving from New York to Rhode Island, and could go out of the way to get Sweetie to Rhode Island on Monday. This presented a couple of problems.

First, Sweetie would need to find a place to stay for the weekend. I spoke with a friend who has a farm and has helped rescue several dogs. She said that Sweetie could stay on the farm, if we could get her from Hartford down to Woodbridge. Then, at the last minute, the Sadie Mae Foundation found room for Sweetie at their facility in Bolton, CT. Another person involved with doggie rescue said he could take the dog from the pound to the Sadie Mae Foundation. From there, she could get a ride to Rhode Island, and the person from Maine could drive down to Rhode Island and pick her up.

However, the person from Maine has been driving all over the northeast rescuing dogs and was hoping to find someone that would be willing to drive Sweetie up to Maine. I have volunteered and on Sunday will stop at the Sadie Mae foundation, pick up Sweetie and drive her up to Maine. I’m slowly gathering details for the trip and the person who is transporting Sweetie from the pound to the kennel welcomed me to the doggie railroad.

I don’t know when I’ll be next asked to help with the doggie railroad. Some people will note that there are close to ten million animals that get euthanized each year in the United States. Until we get more people to spay or neuter their pets and get people to stop buying pets from puppy mills, this problem will continue. Some may say that the effort to save Sweetie won’t make any difference.

When I hear this, the story of the starfish comes to mind.

While walking along a beach, an elderly gentleman saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, picking up starfish one by one and tossing each one gently back into the water.

He came closer still and called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

The old man smiled, and said, “I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”

To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the elderly observer commented, “But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man listened politely. Then he bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it into the back into the ocean past the breaking waves and said, “It made a difference for that one.”

Next year, another ten million animals are likely to be euthanized. My new found friends on the doggie railroad will continue to make efforts to save whichever ones we can, one at a time. Perhaps, by talking about our efforts, we will get a few more people to spay or neuter their pets. Perhaps, by talking about our efforts, we will get others to adopt rescued pets or even help with the doggie railroad.

Yet one thing I do know: We will have made a difference to #54, Sweetie, or whatever her name ends up being when she reaches her forever home.