“I’ve rescued animals and brought home cats since I was a little girl. In July 2005, my husband, Charles, came home, and the power was off. We thought we must have an outage and called Entergy. They said, ‘There’s no outage. You didn’t pay your bill.’ I was responsible for paying bills back then. Charles looked at the bank account. I’d spent $10,000 on vet bills for the dogs I’d rescued, but I hadn’t paid any of our bills. He said, ‘Honey, if you’re going to do this, you’re going to have to apply to become a nonprofit.’
About that time, I was going to look at a building for my architectural salvage business and saw a pitiful, scrawny dog. The only thing I had in my car was leftover pound cake from the Neshoba County Fair. I ran to the drug store for dog food and fed him. There was a drunk man walking down the street singing. Another man was on a porch screaming at me: ‘Don’t feed that damn dog. Get out of here.’ He pulled out a gun and started shooting. The drunk man yelled, ‘Leave that woman alone, she’s saving that dog’ and threw rocks at the man with the gun. I grabbed the dog, ran, and took him to the vet. My vet said the dog was in such bad shape that I needed to put him down. The dog hung his head, like he knew. I cried. I couldn’t do it.
My vet said, ‘If you save this dog, you need to file for non-profit status. So I did.’
That dog became mine. I named him Delbert McClinton, and he was my first rescue for the Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi. I’ve saved thousands of dogs and cats over the last 15 years. I used to fret and worry about the animals I couldn’t help. Now I can sleep at night. I still climb in storm drains and under cars and houses to rescue a dog or cat.
We’re the biggest rescue in the Jackson metro area with about 400 animals at the shelter. We have a program with women from the Department of Corrections Community Work Center to help us care for them. We give them a ride to work and back every day and provide lunch and drinks. Some love it; some hate it. They play with dogs, bathe them and train them. Some women want to open a pet grooming business when they get out. We’re sending one of our women to vet tech school. Another woman got out last November. She didn’t want to go back home—she knew she’d change back to her old life if she did. So we hired her. I got her an apartment, paid her first month’s rent and utilities, and co-signed her lease. Our board members found her furniture. Now she’s the shelter manager.
Our workers and animals heal each other. Some of these animals have been shot, burned, beaten, or even thrown off a bridge. We not only pay their vet bills, we also work with each animal to ease their fears and rebuild their trust.
We have about 400 animals at the shelter. I still have the same passion for rescuing and helping them, but it’s getting harder. It’s harder to raise money, and there are more animals out there. More people are surrendering animals.
We’re part of a shelter medicine program with vet students at Mississippi State. They spay and neuter for free under a supervising vet. It helps a lot. Spay and neuter should be the law in Mississippi
The hard days are when an animal can’t be redeemed no matter how hard we try. Or keeping an animal alive makes him suffer, so we have to put him down. Right now, one dog’s got cancer; another has kidney failure. It breaks my heart because they’re great dogs and no one ever chose them. They’re going to die without ever knowing a home.
Then, there are the great days when a dog or a cat we didn’t think had a chance gets adopted. That makes it a gold star day.
It costs about $40,000 a month to run our shelter, including vet bills. We are trying to raise money for a new shelter that we really need. We have 55 acres, and the plans for working at the shelter with a lot of groups around Jackson.
Every animal has a story. One is Miracle. Somebody doused her in gasoline and set her on fire. She had burns all over her skin. People don’t want her because she doesn’t look pretty, but she loves people and other dogs. She’s excited for life. Eva, one of the women from corrections, helped me chase Miracle through neighborhoods for about 45 minutes. Eva was in her convict stripes, and we worried what folks thought, looking out their kitchen window and seeing her crawl under their Jaguar chasing a burned dog. Eva is out now and still helping us.
Another is Genesis. Someone shot her. Don’t let the wheelchair fool you—she can run. Someone found her bleeding in a pawn shop parking lot. The vet said the bullet missed her spine. She still has feeling in her legs and trying to put weight on one, so we’re hopeful she’d get it back. We used to have a standard poodle she loved. Every time she saw him, she’d flip her cart trying to get to her boyfriend.
I always take the dogs who don’t make it on Santa’s sleigh. The broken, the old, and unwanted. Little chihuahuas surrendered after their owners died. Those dogs lived in homes their whole lives.
These animals are so resilient and forgiving. They give so much love, no matter what they have been through, and all deserve better lives. There’s a lot to learn from them. That’s why I’m still here.”
Pippa
Today (Saturday, Oct. 4) is Barktoberfest at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Pippa will be there with animals to adopt from the Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi. Pippa, Miracle and Genesis will be there.
Before and after of Miracle. They day they found her and today.
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