Why Not Us?

This week, early tomorrow morning, Cathy and I are embarking on what might be one of the biggest adventures of our lives. Here's the backstory:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051105/NEWS01/511050338/1002

And here's what sealed the deal:













This past Saturday morning, Cathy read a story in the paper about a temporary shelter in New Orleans that is about to close. It's in a senior center, and they need it back, so the animals--loads of them, dogs, cats, and apparently all other manner of critter rescued from the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina--have to go. Some were starving, some blind, all in poor health, and the intervention of the National Guardspeople who retrieved them and brought them to this place saved them from certain death.

When the shelter was slated for closing, these folks along with the Humane Society organized a massive relocation plan. They've found places for the animals in new homes or in shelters. They got donations for vans and for plane tickets and hopefully for food and lodging. All they needed was people to do the driving.

It took a single phone conversation between Cathy and Sgt. Mike Spickelmier to convince my amazing wife that we were just the people for the job. I was skeptical, of course, but a single look at the photo above was all it took to convince me of the same.

No matter the questions about expenditure of resources or consequences to local pound populations or anything else: the thought of just abandoning these dogs, who have already been through so much, just because it's such a huge undertaking to relocate them, is not acceptable. I think of Henry in this dog's position and try to imagine him going through this and there's really no choice to be made.

We both called our bosses at home on Saturday and, miraculously, we got them on the first try. They agreed that this was important enough to do some schedule juggling. And that was that.

So, we fly to Houston Tuesday morning. There we'll pick up a van and drive it to the shelter in New Orleans. Says the Sgt: "We'll put you up in a tent and give you a hot meal before you leave Wednesday." So we have that to look forward to before taking off on a 3-day drive cross country with a truckload of dogs.

Neither of us really knows what to expect. What are bathroom breaks gonna be like with 2 people and 16 dogs? Can the dogs stay in their crates in the truck overnight? Or will we have to drive straight through? Are these animals strong enough to make the journey? We don't know any of these things, but we're going in prepared, and we'll figure it out as we go along.

This is an incredible opportunity to help, and we're very glad to be taking it. We're bringing a camera and a laptop along, so I hope to blog it as it happens. If not, I'll do it when we get back to Boise. So check in here and see if we've found wireless connections along the way.