“This is Shiloh, Shiloh came from Louisiana last night. She’s a puppy, so she’s going to be putting all that hurricane business behind her really soon,” said Michael Cunningham, the shelter director while he kissed on the little pup.
From Chihuahuas to Blood Hounds, all types and ages of dogs made the 800-mile trek in an RV to Tennessee.
The shelter in Lake Charles that they were housed in was wiped out by the hurricane.
“They had three trees laying on top of their building,” explained Cunningham.
A crew of six, mostly volunteers, went down and took the homeless animals out to make room for other animals who are displaced by the storm.
Cunningham said their work couldn’t be done if it wasn’t for the volunteers, known as ARC’s Angels.
“Volunteers bring the heart,” he said.
Especially, from the Volunteer state.
“I’ve done this all over North America, nobody turns out like Tennessee. Tennessee has a culture of volunteering like no other place.”
The rescue was just the beginning of nurturing the dozens of animals back to some sort of normality.
“It takes a lot of people to care for these animals. There’s always a decompression time. This is very stressful for them. Just going on a ten-hour transport in a crate for them is a pretty stressful time and then coming into a big echoey building with a cement floor. It can be kind of a shock to their system,” said Cunningham.
The animals will stay in Lebanon for about two weeks, undergoing wellness and behavior checks before moving on to ARC’s placement partners across the U.S.
“I have no doubt these cuties are going to get places really quickly.”