DALLAS DOGRRR (RESCUE. REHAB. REFORM.)

ABOUT: Volunteers support abandoned dogs by collecting supplies, paying vet bills, locating foster families, facilitating adoptions and advocating for a more hopeful future. They often work the trenches of poverty stricken areas of Dallas rescuing forgotten dogs. No paid staff means all donations go to the dogs.

HOW TO HELP: Adopting a dog or cat, rather than purchasing a pet from a breeder or pet store, is one way to curb the problem. To make a major impact, consider becoming a foster. Many foster volunteers have as many as four or five animals in addition to their own pets. The demand for foster parents is high, Dallas DogRRR founder Marina Tarashevska says. DogRRR supplies food and pays all medical expenses. Fosters provide a temporary home. You can also help by donating money, food or supplies, or volunteering your time to drive pets to and from medical appointments.

CONTACT: Dallasdogrrr.org and follow the group on Facebook to learn about its most pressing needs.

Erstwhile Richardson ISD teacher Janeye Pritchard was on summer break when the irresistible request from a neighborhood animal advocate popped up on her Facebook timeline.

“They needed help bottle feeding a puppy,” she says. “This little hand-sized baby needed to be fed every two hours, like clockwork. It was so cool.”

After watching that first pup grow to a hundred healthy pounds of dog, there was no turning back.

“I went to an adoption event, met people and knew this was something I’d like to do more.”

Soon she sheltered a whole litter of abandoned puppies. Her roommate Ashley Bradford fell in love with and adopted one, she notes, a bull terrier — “like the Target dog, you know?”

Both women now are hooked on helping animals — serving on the DogRRR board, fostering and striving to find happy homes for as many animals as possible though volunteering often is a far cry from Pritchard’s precious first experience. Reality is that volunteers operate in a sea of disappointments and treading-water, getting-nowhere feelings.

“It can be a neverending, thankless, often seemingly hopeless job,” she says of rescuing. “[Volunteers] write grant [applications], beg for donations, deliver supplies, schedule and drive dogs to medical appointments, arrange adoption events and rush out in the middle of the night when a dog is injured ...”

She recalls one live puppy found among its dead siblings inside a bag tossed off a Southern Dallas overpass. She religiously watches “euthanasia lists” supplied by shelters in Dallas, Garland and surrounding cities, sometimes knowing there is no more she can do.

“It just never seems to be enough,” she says, expressing gratitude for all of Dallas’ animal rescue groups and volunteers.

Her most recent foster, Gatsby, so named for his black and white coat that resembles a tuxedo, was wandering the streets of Southern Dallas with an open leg wound, suffering demodectic mange and severe malnourishment. In Pritchard’s care, Gatsby recovered and proved to be a cuddly, loving friend to fellow fosters in the home. And he’s a paragon of why the toil is worthwhile, she says.

“What an amazing feeling, to swoop a dog up out of the jaws of death, nurse it back to health ... and then watch that dog find a loving forever home.”