Area rescue allowed older dogs to find new family

Not many of the dozens of dogs Cathleen McCall has adopted out with Centennial Hills’ A Home 4 Spot have been older than puppies.

Even fewer have been adopted in pairs. That’s why McCall, a three-year veteran of the area pet rescue and adoption circuit, was so impressed when Charlene and Mike Hart asked to take a pair of older, abused dogs off her hands late last month.

“I thought (the Harts’) openness and compassion to take two dogs together was just phenomenal,” McCall said. “I didn’t want them to be adopted apart, so I knew for sure (the Harts) was the right place for them, and I’ve never had that experience before,”

Rusty and Sugar Bear, the 7-year-old golden retriever and 3-year-old Australian shephard mix the Harts picked up from McCall, were rescued twice.

The first time was when a tip from McCall prompted Animal Control officers to follow up on a backlog of neglect complaints against the dogs’ owner and take custody of the animals in early October.

The second was from Lied Animal Shelter, where Rusty faced near-certain euthanization had he not been picked out by the Harts following a mandatory two-week holding period.

Both dogs had been abused. Rusty was found by McCall tied to a pole, near-starved, in his owner’s Sandy Valley backyard.

They were far from the prettiest pet rescue candidates, which makes their adoption all the more laudable to McCall.

She suspects it was the rare adoption case where the rescuer got as much out of the adoption as the rescued.

“I had taken them to a couple adoption events, but I felt (Charlene Hart) needed them as much as they needed her,” she said. “It was just a perfect situation.”

For Hart, who is permanently disabled, it was love at first sight.

She had no plans to adopt a pet after losing a long-beloved blue heeler last May but said she found herself drawn to awareness efforts surrounding the American Humane Association’s Adopt-a-Dog month.

Hart downloaded a petfinder.com app on her smart phone and found Rusty not long after.

There was something about him, she said, that drew her in, but it wasn’t until she contacted McCall that Hart knew she had to have both dogs.

“What gets me is everything they went through,” she said. “The older dog, Rusty, had wounds everywhere, but you would never guess their history after meeting them; they’re so sweet.

“I just can’t say enough about the rescue community and Kathleen (McCall). I don’t think I could do it, give up foster dogs, but listening to her, I could tell her heart was in it.”

Hart has had the pair for less than a month, but she has big plans for their future.

She and her husband have made arrangements to train Sugar Bear as a guide dog and hope to eventually find her a second home as a therapy pet for battered wives or as a guide dog for the disabled.

At least for now, she plans to keep Rusty as a service dog of her own.

“We’re really lucky,” Hart said. “We’re just blessed, and we want to pay it forward. That’s why we hope that at least one them can be be therapy dogs for somebody else someday.”

For more information on Adopt-a-Dog month, visit americanhumane.org.

For more information on A Home 4 Spot, contact the nonprofit’s founder, Diana English, at 702-239-7986.

Contact Centennial and North Las Vegas View reporter James DeHaven at 702-477-3839 or jdehaven@viewnews.com.