Puget Sound Lab Club Rescue: Partnering to Save Hundreds

Puget Sound Labrador Rescue Association (PSLRA) members learned about 300 Labrador Retrievers languishing in area shelters in 1992. Many healthy Labs faced certain death in those shelters.

PSLRA sprang into action that same year and formed a rescue committee comprised of Mary Jane Sarbaugh, Jill Mahoney, Evelyn Smith, Tina Linch, Carol Barnes, and Katie Mearns.

Sarbaugh took the lead and discovered the Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue (SPDR) and its unique program. The SPDR facilitates rescues and placements of only purebred dogs but only those that have volunteer breed representatives. The breed representatives educate would-be adopters about their chosen breed and screen the prospective adopters and the available dogs to find good matches. The available dogs come from shelters, breeders, or other individuals seeking to rehome their dogs.

PSLRA opted to team up with the SPDR “because they had all the contacts in place, plus the insurance and a sound policy for accepting, fostering, and re-homing dogs,” recalls Sarbaugh, who breeds and shows her Wyntercreek Labs in conformation and performance sports. SPDR provides listing agreements, contracts, recordkeeping, secretarial help, and phone support. It also provides liability insurance for all PSLRA volunteers and foster homes.

Sarbaugh says that the PSLRA placed its first rescue Lab, a friendly dog named Bones, in his forever home in June 1992. Club members stepped up and helped foster some of the many Labs needing new homes. “We tried very hard to help every dog but just couldn’t because an estimated 300 Labs needed forever homes,” she adds.

Over the last thirty-one years, PSLRA  placed hundreds of Labradors, according to Edith Bryan who moved to the Seattle area in 1993. She joined PSLRA and became its rescue chair at the end of that same year. She’s been the rescue chair ever since and heads the rescue committee comprised of Sarbaugh and Brenda Hubbard, who are integral to the committee’s work, as are many other club members who assist with transportation, occasional fosters, and donation of funds to the rescue efforts.

In 1994,  the PSLRA found forever homes for 210 Labs in area shelters, and an additional 25 were euthanized, Bryan recalls. Two hundred sixty Labs were placed in new homes the following year, and 12 were euthanized due to poor health or serious injuries.

By 2003, PSLRA saw the number of Labs in area shelters fall dramatically:  from 271 in 1998 to 112 in 2003.

During the early years of PSLRA’s rescue efforts, LABMED and Labrador Life Line provided supplemental funding for those Labs needing emergency medical care. PSLRA  then occasionally “paid back” by providing funds to LABMED and recently provided funds for a large-scale rescue of Labradors in eastern Washington. LABMED and Labrador Life Line no longer exist.

SEATTLE PUREBRED DOG RESCUE 

SPDR was founded in 1987 as a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to placing abandoned or unwanted purebreds in suitable, new homes. According to its website, about 25% of dogs in shelters are purebreds. The SPDR cooperatively works with dog breed clubs, breeders, shelters, and individuals At the same time, they educate the public about responsible dog ownership,  including “the selection, care and training of dogs.”

The SPDR stands apart from other rescue organizations because they only accept certain breeds into their program but only if an individual, with expertise in that breed, volunteers as a breed representative. Individuals with years of knowledge of their breed qualify as breed representatives. The PSLRA rescue chair always serves as the SPDR Labrador representative.

Currently, SPDR has more than 50 breeds with representatives. They list these breeds as well as those breeds they don’t accept on their website.

Breed representatives screen dogs needing a home as well as prospective adopters. They chat with prospective adopters who fill out a three-page SPDR questionnaire, which requests information including about the adopters’ home setup/situation,  including whether they have a fenced yard; other pets in the home;  and information about the adults and children in the family. Most of the rescued canines are altered but if not, the adopters must agree to have their new ward spayed or neutered within 30 days of adoption; abide by all dog laws; correctly license their dogs; provide proper medical care for the dog; and notify SPDR if they are unable to care for the dog and want to transfer it back to the rescue or another person.

The breed representatives also help assist the adopter in assessing if their breed meets their expectations and lifestyle. This helps the adopter from having to visit lots of shelters to look for a dog- they are told about the available dog and can assess whether the dog is a good match.

PSLRA-SPDR CURRENT RELATIONSHIP

Bryan, who has been the PSLRA chair for the past 31 years, has seen the number of Labradors needing forever homes drop dramatically from the early days in the PSLRA region- from north of Seattle to the Olympia Peninsula.

She’s had Labradors since her son was six but never had dogs as a child because her mother wouldn’t allow her to have one.

Her first rescue was Dutchess, a ten-year-old black Lab. She admits that she always had a soft spot in her heart for blacks but has also owned chocolates but never yellows.

Bryan recalls fondly another black Lab that she rescued.  She received a call from a vet’s office that it had just taken in a 12-year-old Lab trained to assist its blind owner who had just moved to a nursing facility. A vet’s assistant called Bryan.  Could she help?

She not only helped but she and her husband, who lived on acreage on Whidbey Island off the Seattle Coast, adopted Cider, who lived to be almost 15. Bryan marveled at how Cider retained her guide dog training, waiting at the top of the steps to make sure Bryan knew about the steps. Cider participated in a local elementary school’s PAWS for Reading program, patiently listening to her children read. She also loved her beach walks, setting her own leisurely pace, confident her other human and dog family members would wait for her.

Bryan and her husband lived for years on Whidbey Island with five or six Labradors.  During this time, she competed with her dogs in AKC agility, obedience, tracking, rally, and hunt tests as well as search and rescue. She matched a dog’s interest with an activity, depending on what the canine enjoyed.

Now she is retired and lives independently in a continuing care retirement community south of Seattle with her black Lab Gemma, who is a certified therapy dog. They visit an affiliated nursing home in Lacy, WA.  After Bryan lost two elderly Labs, she reached out to a Lab breeder to inquire if the breeder had a dog she wanted to place. The breeder did and wanted to rehome Gemma, a three-year-old show dog that was under the breed standard size.

Bryan says currently many fewer Labs are in shelters in the PSLRA area because shelters are doing a better job of finding homes for dogs. Most of the dogs needing homes now have special needs: health, behavior issues, or age-wise.

She says she screens referrals from SPDR and calls directly from shelters. Both usually ask her if the club can take in dog surrenders. She attempts to find a good home for the surrendered or to-be surrendered dog as the PSLRA now usually doesn’t foster dogs. She tries to match up prospective adopters with specific dogs so the Labs have only one transition- to their new forever home She notes that recently she has had fewer calls from shelters and more from individuals wanting to rehome their Lab- the owner may have died with no survivors able to care for the dog, new parents who realize they can’t cope with a dog and a baby, a divorce, an empty nest couple who want to travel, or owners who have returned to work after COVID and find the dog has too much energy and needs more care. She says she can’t be judgmental regarding the individuals’ reasons for the surrender; she just wants to do what’s best for the dog.

She recalls a few fosters in the past. During COVID, an Olympian shelter labeled a young chocolate male as unadoptable because when potential adopters approached his kennel run, he barked and shook in a corner.  He appeared a bit calmer when the staff walked him outside his run. The shelter contacted PSLRA in hopes he could be rescued from his shelter situation. The club did and two women adopted him only to discover he was too strong for them to walk and not well matched for them.  They were about to move to a retirement community.

The club took him back and placed him for a short time in a board and train facility where his loving nature came out and he became socialized. He then was placed with his forever home.

The Club asks for a nominal donation of $200 for each adoptee Labrador. According to Bryan, most Labs looking for a home are four to ten years old with a few seniors sprinkled in.  Puppies rarely are up for rehoming, she adds.

The club’s major and primary expense is medical care for the dogs coming through the system. If the medical expense is greater than $3,000, SPDR likes to be advised and often provides funds for medical care for a dog over that amount. The Lab club likes to keep a reserve in its rescue fund for unexpected medical care. Bryan says that PSLRA continues to make rescue a priority. Its primary goals “are to  educate both listers and adopters about the steps necessary for successful adoptions and to promote responsible dog ownership.” She adds that the few Labs  that the club takes in for foster care “now are almost always those with behavioral issues that need to be evaluated or those needing extensive medical care and rehabilitation.”

Currently, Bryan has 50 approved homes awaiting a Labrador. She notes that she doesn’t usually check the potential adopter’s references which are usually all glowing. Instead, she contacts their local vet who is usually very candid. During the pandemic, the PSLRA had a waiting list of more than 200 adoption applicants but at one time only eleven Labs needed new homes!

The number of inquiries about dogs varies each week- sometimes none and other times three relinquishments. Twenty-six Labs were relinquished and or placed last year. She always notifies the breeder, if known, of the impending relinquishment. The PSRLA code of ethics provides breeders must agree to take back dogs for any reason.

Sometimes, Bryan says, senior Labs are hard to place. Then she remembers Jupiter, a sweet, friendly, energetic, and playful eleven-year-old black male who needed a new home after his family moved to a small apartment. Soon after contacting Bryan, the family found a wonderful new home for him on their own and no longer needed PSLRA’s help but not before the club posted an engaging photo of Jupiter on its website. As a result, several families wanted to adopt senior Labs. Thanks in part to Jupiter’s happy face, the club placed three senior Labs in less than two weeks!

For more information about PSLRA or to help with the club’s rescue efforts: https://www.pslra.org/

Learn more about SPDR at: https://www.spdrdogs.org/

FEATURED PHOTO: Gemma loves to retrieve! (Bryan photo)

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