Friday, August 3, 2012

Meet The Rescuers! Part 4, with Donna Darrell of Rebound Hounds!

Welcome to the 4th Edition of my Frost/Nixon-esque interview series, Meet the Rescuers! Today, we're talking to Donna Darrell of Rebound Hounds...

First of all, I can't believe how fast you responded - Do you have some sort of obsessive gene?

I do!

How many years have you been rescuing animals and why did you start?

Since Nov 2010

How many years has Rebound Hounds been around?

Since Nov 2010

So, wait, you didn't know anything about rescue and started a rescue? Like how did you even learn about the whole rescue "business?"

Nope i didn't know anything about rescue. In 2002 i even bought my bulldog from a pet store. when he died in Nov 2009 i was ready to go to another pet store to buy one then found out about puppy mills.
I went on Craigslist late Nov 2009 and looked to foster a dog and began fostering with Loren who is now my rescue partner. She was working with different rescues and we just liked each other. She always wanted to have her own rescue and asked me if I wanted to be part of it. I didn't like the woman Paula who was going in on it, so i declined. In the end, they told Paula that they couldn't work with her. So by Oct - Nov 2010 we started pulling.

I learned whatever i know from Loren.

How many animals has Rebound Hounds saved?

From Oct/Nov 2010 to today 7/25/12 we saved 413 animals from the ACC.

How do you get most of your funding?

100% of our funding comes from private donations.


How do you find homes for your dogs?

We find homes for our dogs via PetFinder, Craigslist, Facebook, Adopt-a-Pet and word of mouth.


How do you decide which animals to pull?

We'll (my rescue partners) talk about the dogs that are out there, but mostly it happens when someone reaches out to us and wants to save that particular animal.

The last person I interviewed, told me that the ACC is getting better (see Susan Cava's interview) - Do you agree, disagree or have no comment?

I really don't know if the ACC is getting better. They aren't funded properly so they cannot be doing better by the animals.

We are getting dogs that have been so sick and it has not been communicated to us.

Actually by pulling these sick dogs (we pulled 6 that had pneumonia in May/June) they didn't tell us therefore burdening the rescues.

So i would then need to disagree. I think they are fine tuning things as far as communication, but don't see an overall improvement.

Do you have goals for your rescue? If so, what are they?

Well we haven't really been discussing goals but we are definitely learning by experience. I mean ultimately, having a "place" where we can keep our dogs instead of boarding would be ideal, but that's not a revenue making opportunity. We would have no way of funding that.

How often, and for how long, do you follow-up with people who have adopted your dogs?

We follow up with many many adopters. They keep us updated with pics on Facebook, emails etc. We just got one today that a foster took 2 cats (to adopt) and a dog to foster in April. She told us that she had to remove the eye of one of the cats because the vet said it needed to come out. They got back the results of the tests they did and they said had they not removed the eye (it was cancerous) it would have metastasized and it could have been a lot worse.

Just last week an adopter of ours stepped up to foster Bubby. We vetted her but she wasn't getting better. So our foster took her to her vet and spend $1200 of her own money and in the end we had to put her down.

She had possible brain damage, fused vertebrae, kidney failure etc. We didn't know anything about her health issues from the shelter.

What do you do when you're not rescuing animals?

Walking dogs, boarding dogs and doing lots administration duties for the rescue.

Whats your favorite TV show?

Actually a lot of the "reality" shows on Bravo (head held in shame).
How would you spend all the free time you'd have if you never got into rescue?

I remember before I was in rescue, I would do lots of soul searching trying to figure out what is it i wanted to do. What were my hobbies.... This is it now.

Name something about you that most people don't know...
I finished high school six months early.
Well, aren't you something! BTW - you have an interesting name - three letters are repeated and both names start with the same letter (I'm guessing you already knew this)

My whole life, I have been told I had a movie stars name. LOL.

I've been told I have an accountant's name.

You do! LOL.

Thanks.

To learn more about Donna's work with Rebound Hounds, go to their website here.

Harris Bloom
Founder/President


3 comments:

Tracy Davus Wall said...

Donna & Loren do AMAZING work at Rebound Hounds ResQ! Donna pulled two dogs for me to foster from the Brooklyn ACC that would have otherwise been euthanized. I have since adopted them both and could not be happier! Without rescues like Rebound Hounds so many dogs & cats wouldn't be alive today! They are AWESOME!

Susan Cava Ruimy said...

Great interview and Donna does some fantstic work. I must say tho, if you read what I said, I said the operations within the shelter are improving. As neither you (Harris) or Donna are volunteers at the shelter, it's really not possible for either of you to agree or disagree. FYI, the next volunteer orientation is this Wed... www.nycacc.org. And for whatever it's worth, Paula (mentioned in the beginning) has done an enormous amount of goodness with her pictures of dogs from the Brooklyn shelter - saving countless lives with her efforts.

Harris Bloom said...

Hey Susan,

I forgot to respond to this...

The question wasn't specifically about operations, it was an overall, "Are things getting better?"

It's great that operations may be improving (though I'm not sure how that can be when the new computer sysytem seems to be misfiring - that's operations, no?) but when so many animals seem to be getting sick WHILE THERE, costing rescues thousands of dollars and sometimes, the animal their life, I cant see how anyone can say things are better overall...

And I dont have to volunteer there to see that...

Harris

P.S. I don't see where Paula is mentioned..