New York Rolling Rescue

History of New York Rolling Rescue

Many of you have heard of our New York Rolling Rescues, but you may not know the history of this very successful program.  The MCAS partnered with Sharon Cherry in early 2006 and began sending animals to the Greater New York SPCA in Queensbury, New York.  Sharon lives in Grainger County and runs her own rescue operation.   She gets animals from three different shelters.  We alternate organizing the run every two weeks.  When it’s our turn we put four empty crates on the rental van for Sharon and she does the same for us on her run.

Each van load consists of approximately 40-50 animals.  Our volunteer drivers drive non-stop approximately 17 hours to bring these animals to their new destination.  Before the next run in two weeks, most of the animals will have been adopted, some within a day or two of their arrival.

In the beginning of the Rolling Rescues animals were pulled directly from the kennels at the shelter and put into crates on the van.  It wasn’t long before illnesses that are especially prevalent in puppies showed up in New York.  Since the SPCA in New York is a “no-kill” shelter, the cost of treating sick animals and keeping them until they were well enough to be put up for adoption almost put a halt to our Rolling Rescue program.

This is when fostering animals (especially puppies) for the Rolling Rescue runs began.  If young puppies are placed in foster homes for at least two weeks prior to going to New York generally if there are any health problems they will have surfaced.  Also, fostering socializes the animals and makes them more adoptable.

We currently have around 25 active foster families.  For any one run usually 10-15 foster families are available.  We could save more animals if we could get them into foster homes, not only for the New York Rolling Rescue, but for other rescues in which we place animals. 

There is a lot of work and a lot of people involved in keeping these rescues going, most done by volunteers.  Each Rolling Rescue run costs around $700 to $800, all paid for through donations.

In February of 2009 we started our “Sponsor a Puppy” program.  For a $25 donation you will receive a picture of the animal you are sponsoring to go to New York and a thank you note.  We received over $11,000 in donations from this program in 2009 and many repeat contributors.

In 2009 we saved 531 animals by sending them to the New York SPCA.  Since the start of the Rolling Rescue program 2,047 animals’ lives have been saved. 

Monroe County Animals Shelter with the support of the Monroe County Friends of Animals should be very proud of the work they are doing to save animals.  Together we are all making a difference.