Summerlin resident’s rescue group focuses on senior, special needs pups

Linda Gilliam wasn’t looking to start a dog rescue, but plans change when animals are involved.

A longtime pet lover, the Summerlin resident had cats when she came to Las Vegas. She wanted a senior dog to complete her little family. In spring 2005, Gilliam searched online and saw a picture of a pooch named Connor, a Papillon and Chihuahua mix.

She was smitten.

“It was like getting kicked in the chest,” she said. “I went, ‘I have to have you.’ ”

She called Save Our Strays, the Los Angeles-area rescue group that had advertised him, filled out the forms online, put up the fee and drove there to retrieve him.

When he was set in her arms, she realized Connor was in a bad way. He weighed only 3 pounds, had hair loss, a cough and fistulas. She was told he needed major surgery.

“I thought I was bringing him home to die,” she said.

But she got him the veterinary care he required and nursed him back to health.

Connor was her constant companion until he died in 2015.

Gilliam still tears up when she talks about him.

Six months after losing him, she drifted over to A Home 4 Spot’s adoption event at PetSmart. A dog named Daisy was thrust into her arms, but Gilliam wasn’t looking for another dog. She set the pooch down.

There was something wrong. Its back legs folded under it, useless. The dog looked up at her, pleading.

“I’ll take her,” Gilliam blurted.

She brought Daisy home — the little dog’s forever home.

Another pooch, Buffy — “the Cujo of dogs,” according to Gilliam — came her way in a similar way, as did Millie, whom Gilliam found at A Home 4 Spot. Millie is blind and was skeletal when she came home with Gilliam, weighing 8 pounds. She is now a healthy 15 pounds. All three dogs are Gilliam’s “children.”

But there were other dogs she saw that needed help. She could not adopt them as the city of Las Vegas allows one to have only three dogs. Gilliam set up Connor and Millie’s Dog Rescue (CMDR), which seeks out and accepts senior and special medical needs dogs.

Under the umbrella of her rescue, Gilliam arranges for veterinary care at Town Center Animal Hospital, 3565 S. Town Center Drive, and finds foster families to house the animals until they are adopted out.

She has used her own money to see various animals get help at the animal hospital: $2,400 to set a fractured leg; $1,200 to remove a useless leg; and $1,500 for dental and respiratory care. She also relies on grants and donations.

She is known for visiting the pooches at their foster homes to ensure they are recovering completely and has a tendency to describe them in celebrity terms: One “looks like Rod Stewart,” she said, while another is the “Sean Connery of dogs.”

One of CMDR’s foster parents is Amanda Jenny, who is caring for Ridge, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel mix whose front right leg had to be amputated.

Jenny said hardest part of rescue was twofold: leaving behind the ones you can’t save and the money it takes.

“This is my first time with a special needs dog,” Jenny said. “You watch him, and it melts your heart. It’s amazing what he can do (without the leg). … He’s so happy to be included in our home.”

Adopting a dog through CMDR comes with fee of $300 to $500 and a thorough vetting, including a home inspection.

“There’s no such thing as an unadoptable dog,” Gilliam added.

Visit connorandmilliesdogrescue.org.

To reach Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan, email jhogan@viewnews.com or call 702-387-2949.