Why do you volunteer at or support RAPS? One volunteer tells his story.
On a Saturday morning, my wife and I were driving to the RAPS Thrift Store. It was raining buckets. As we approached an intersection, suddenly we both saw motion to our right. A very large yellow dog and a smaller black one were sniffing near the street. They were soaking wet. My wife decided to call RAPS at the City shelter to let them know we thought we had seen strays. Carol Reichert, the RAPS Executive Director, quickly informed her that they’d been chasing these two all morning, all over the city! She asked if we might track them until Animal Control could arrive. I made a U-turn, but, as is often the case with strays, they had moved on and were nowhere to be found. We drove back down No. 4 Road, we drove up and down Granville, and could not find them anywhere. Disappointed, we returned to our original route, and suddenly, there they were! Tires screeching, I spun the car around and parked on the side of the road. We jumped out into the pouring rain to try to catch the dogs and hold onto them. We immediately realised that these two dogs were among the sweetest dogs in the city. They trotted over to us, relieved to have someone notice them. We made a snap decision, and opened the back door of the car. The two dogs hopped right in! With our new hitch-hikers, we made good time to the city shelter. Our passengers were a 100-pound golden retriever mix and a slightly smaller, 60-pound black lab.
The car quickly started smelling like the large amount of wet dog present, and we cracked the window. Phew! As we drove, the lab put her head down between the front seats and fell asleep! They were exhausted, and so relieved to be warm! The 100-lb dog had a collar as it turns out – it read “Junior”, and had an address in Surrey! We dropped the dogs off at the shelter. The word went out, and soon these two adorable animals were picked up from the shelter by their very relieved owner. It felt fantastic to have helped rescue two sweet dogs, and added another chapter to the reasons I volunteer at the RAPS City Shelter.
