about us
Small Dog Rescue BC Society was born in 2011 by Karen, our founder & leader, when her Aunt and Uncle wanted to adopt a little dog and were having a hard time finding one in our local shelters in Vancouver. That coupled with the advent of social media and the posts by concerned people seeing so many dogs euthanized in high kill California shelters. After meeting a like-minded woman, Shannon, from Size Small Dog Rescue Inc. they decided to meet in BC and head down to California and see for themselves what was really going on.
As BC doesn't have a lot of little dogs in their shelters, our team works hard to fill a niche by rescuing little dogs from the high kill shelters in California and placing them locally and across BC. We utilize a network of California based people to help us identify the at-risk dogs, rescue from the streets, take in Fosters, and transport dogs to us in BC.
We also take in local owner surrenders and help to find them their new homes.
Over the 10 years we've been rescuing, we have placed over 700 dogs.
the trip that started it all
AUGUST 2011 - The trip of a lifetime started when this acquaintance (Shannon) I'd met on Facebook drove out from Saskatchewan with her family for their holidays. My husband took her license plate (in case I didn't come home - lol), wished us a safe trip, and off we went, totally unprepared for what we experienced over the next week. Our first stop was to connect with a fellow Californian rescuer named Michelle who would use her horse trailer and truck to help us transport the dogs we chose back to BC.
Delano California shelter (a very small rural shelter with no walk in traffic and very few adoptions) was our first shelter stop where we went in to pick up one dog I was to bring back for a friend of a friend....however we came out with 14 animals including a couple of kittens. Here we met the amazing Glenda Miller an incredible volunteer. Sadly, she passed away in 2013 and we miss her very much!
We set up home base in Taft California, 40 miles SE of Bakersfield, with a fellow rescuer who opened her farm to us to hold the dogs until departure. Throughout the week we made countless visits to the Kern County shelter (which housed approx 400 dogs), Wasco Shelter, and the Lancaster Shelter picking up dogs. Walmart and pet stores buying more and more dog crates, and going to and from the vet for medical visits to prepare our dogs for the long ride back to BC. Temperatures were in the 90's and many of these shelters had no air conditioners, just a fan and some water misters to keep the animals cool. When we could, we walked the dogs some who had never been out of their kennels in months. It was very emotional and we cried a lot knowing we could not help them all.
Approximately 40 dogs and a couple cats later we began our 1800km journey home at 7:00pm on a very hot Friday night from Taft, getting into Los Molinos at 3am for a few hours sleep, water and walk the dogs and then heading out at 6:00am. Driving straight through, taking turns driving and lots of stops for coffee, we arrived at the border at 1:00am on Sunday morning. Shannon took her new doggy crew of 20 and headed back to Saskatchewan and I began the task of finding homes for my new little furry Canadians.
