Yula the Rottweiler was scheduled to be put to death Monday at 2 p.m.
For the last 10 days, Ginger Luke had been sending out slews of e-mails with Yula's picture and biography, begging someone in her vast network of contacts to provide Yula with a home before she was put down.
Then, on Monday morning, she received an e-mail from Chuck Digg, whose Rottweiler had recently died and who wanted to adopt Yula.
Luke called the shelter where Yula was being held. There was no answer.
So Digg hopped in his car and sped all the way from the Seattle area to Ellensburg, arriving at the shelter just 15 minutes before Yula would have been euthanized.
This was all just another day in the life of Ginger Luke, founder of Ginger's Pet Rescue, which specializes in the rescue of "death-row" dogs.
SAVING BARNEY
Founding a dog-rescue service was never something she planned on doing. As the owner of Rickshaw Restaurant & Lounge in Greenwood, Luke didn't have much time left over for charity work.
But when she stumbled upon Barney while delivering food from her restaurant, Luke knew she couldn't turn her back on him. Barney was a dachshund who had been locked in his owner's bathroom for two years.
Luke immediately offered the owner $50 in exchange for Barney. Then she sent out a series of e-mails to everyone on her contact list, asking if anyone could take the dog. She got 10 replies.
Barney was taken to a veterinarian, where he was groomed, treated for fleas and other sickness and had all his teeth removed. He was then placed with one of the respondents to Luke's e-mail: a deaf woman who now uses Barney as her service dog.
Barney the dachshund had found his happy ending, thanks to Luke.
But Luke couldn't stop thinking about the nine other respondents who had wanted Barney but couldn't have him. So she contacted the Ellensburg shelter, asking if there were any other dogs that needed homes.
The shelter sent her a picture of Goldie, the first death-row dog that Ginger had been introduced to. Again, she sent out a series of e-mails, and Goldie was also placed in a happy, loving home.
A HUGE NETWORK
Ginger's Pet Rescue has grown into a massive rescue service. Luke works with seven shelters in Washington and California.
Her e-mail network has grown from the original 40 people to more than 3,000.
She has 15 separate households that she can rely on to provide foster care to death-row dogs while she searches for their "forever home."
In only 18 months since Luke started her pet-rescue service, she has saved 508 dogs from death row. Although she never set out to do pet rescue, Luke said, "This is the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my whole life."
For Luke, "it's all about the dog." But that doesn't mean that she doesn't take pleasure in the happiness that her rescue business brings to the dogs' new owners.
Luke said that dogs are great companions for all people, but especially for the lonely, elderly or people with disabilities. "You have a dog plus a depressed person," she said, "and bingo! Magic happens!"
One case that stands out in Luke's mind is that of Oscar, a dachshund who found an immediate home with an elderly man whose wife had passed away three days earlier and who needed Oscar so that he could take him to the funeral. Not only did Oscar find a loving household, but Oscar's new owner found a source of comfort in his time of need.
These little moments of joy are what fuel Luke's passion.
SPREADING THE WORD
From its humble beginnings, Ginger's Pet Rescue is now a registered nonprofit organization with many volunteers associated with it.
According to Ginger, there are volunteers who provide foster care, who transport dogs, who collect dog toys and supplies and, of course, those who adopt dogs and provide them with a home.
Although she has an amazing group of volunteers working with her, Luke is always searching for more, especially more people able to provide foster care.
Even those who aren't able to volunteer in one of these specific areas can still help the organization by being added to Luke's e-mail list.
The organization survives and grows, she said, when people commit to just forwarding Luke's e-mails to their own contacts and asking them to forward it to theirs, so that eventually the right dog can be matched with the right person.
"I talk about it every day, everywhere I go," Luke said. "It's all about spreading the word - that's how we save dogs."
To learn more about Ginger's Pet Rescue, go on-line to www.gingers petrescue.org, or contact Luke atgingerluke@comcast.net or 542-3888.[[In-content Ad]]
