Odie’s Place – a no-kill animal shelter run by animal lovers

My name is Brian Harrington. My wife Kerrie and I have been huge animal lovers our whole lives so it was no surprise that by late December 2013 we had a once feral 12 year old cat named Bonnie, one almost 11 year old beagle/lab/pit mixed rescue dog named Otis, and a one year old pit mix pup named Buster. We loved and cared for them so much and so well. We called them our kids/children. Yes, we would buy them gifts for Christmas, their birthdays, Valentine’s day, you name it! They are our universe!

Our senior dog Otis had been going to the vet for acupuncture and laser therapy for his arthritis. One day before going Otis had more pain than usual and wouldn’t jump up on the bed. I brought him to the vets. Otis had advanced cancer but we knew he would fight it! We brought him to a canine cancer specialist in Waltham, MA and the vet was so sad to tell us there was nothing we could do for him but make him comfortable. He had only weeks to live. We were shocked, horrified and so sad. I did not want to go on. I fell into a huge depression took anti depressants, gained a lot of weight and had no purpose to live. Odie had to be put out of pain on January 19, 2014.

After Odie’s passing, the misery and pain of losing him was excruciating. I was devastated as Odie was my best friend! He was with me 24/7 for years! It hurt so much I did not want to go on without him. Kerrie cried everyday.

She kept working at the local no kill shelter because it kept her busy and focused. Buster was so lonely looking for his best friend Otis. It was so depressing to see. I went to the Humane Society hoping to find a dog to adopt.

The first dog I met was covered in bites, scars, and cuts. She was underweight, but very happy to see me! She even let me walk her. The Humane Society believed she was used as a bait dog in dog fighting. Because of this everyone passed on adopting her and she was mere days away from being killed. Not because she was vicious or had destructive behaviors, nothing like that! She was a victim of evil humans and she was going to die.

I immediately told my wife she had to meet her. Kerrie came down with me the next day to see her. We promised we would not leave her there to die! The Humane Society made sure Isabella wasn’t afraid of our 74-pound pit mix Buster. He’s such a teddy bear but his size was overwhelming to other dogs. One day, we went without Buster to visit her, and she was actually upset we didn’t bring him! They loved playing together! We were thrilled to bring her home finally. Bella cheered us all up. We knew if Odie had not passed when he did, there’s a good chance Bella would have been killed. Maybe that’s why he passed when he did?

While I was so happy that we saved Bella, I was still depressed and missing Odie. Kerrie had been telling me for a while she wanted me to volunteer with her at the local no kill shelter. She said it was therapeutic. She loved knowing she was making a difference for these once urgent furbabies that needed love, cuddling, reassurance and kindness. Sheknew her problems were minimal compared to what these dogs had been through. I had stopped by to pick her up from shifts and would say hi to the dogs but I had never really done a shift. I decided to check it out.

I found the dogs were very sweet, some timid of me at first because I was basically the only guy to not hurt them. Most abusers happen to be male. Once they saw I would not hurt them, they wanted to play ball with me, wanted to go for rides with me and it felt good to be needed and to make such a difference in their lives. I decided to bring them for field trips to the beach, to the park for socialization, even just learning to walk on a leash sometimes was a big deal for them because it was a new experience for them! I couldn’t believe no one loved or cared for them enough to walk or play with them (before being rescued).

Sometimes if you lifted your hand to them they would almost cower. It was sad but it felt good to show them they could trust guys.

In the midst of being at the shelter filling in for volunteers, taking care of our own furbabies at home, I was sharing lost animals from the New Bedford Pet Detective post on Facebook and I happened to see this poor little black dog that was found by an awesome woman on her way home from work. She had seen the dog almost get hit like three times! Everyone was saying that’s my dog! I had to call her to let her know don’t post pictures of her, just describe her and post online. People may use her as a bait dog or to breed her. The nice woman couldn’t keep her overnight because of her landlord. Animal control wasn’t open. We had room to take her in overnight.

She was in rough shape. She had fly strike (ears bit by bugs) really bad dandruff, calluses on her feet, fur missing in spots and would barely walk five feet!!!! Worried about the poor baby, my wife cleaned her and we fed her. We posted about her in the papers, alerted animal control, and brought her to the vet. Although she had been bred a lot she was not pregnant thank God. When we had her spayed, our vet said she had the biggest uterus she had ever seen!

There is no need for breeding! People are just doing it to make money. KoKo is now our own furbaby and she is super happy, healthy and safe with us.

Brian and I put in extensive time at the local shelter and knew it was our time to move on. We loved the animals we helped and were proud of our service. However, we knew people would never change and do things the way we would do them. We want every animal to count. Every animal matters. We want every animal to be loved like we love our babies! We would honor our beloved Odie and start a rescue. We knew we had found our purpose! God wants us to dedicate our time on Earth educating people, advocating and saving animals. We know animals are our passion, our passion is our purpose.

In our journey so far, we have learned of practices in American “shelters” that need to be changed! Through sharing urgent animals on Facebook, my wife has told me that some states actually still use gas and heartstick as a means of “euthanizing” animals. It is barbaric! Dogs are seen as stupid, unadoptable, worthless. This does not mean every facility is horrible and views animals like this, but the majority does and that’s why adoptable cats and dogs end up in piles of trash bags every day in our country!

Kerrie and I are willing to start our own 501c3, build our own shelter/rescue, run it without employees, without state and city funding, why can’t shelters who are funded by cities and states do more to save animals? Can’t they get trainers in to rehabilitate animals? Won’t they try to work with another town to take in animals or are they too busy feuding with them? More importantly, do we have real animal lovers in our facilities? I love animals and I know if was starved, beaten, sick and there was a bowl of food in front of me, I probably would be food aggressive too. Does it mean I’m really dangerous or aggressive? Could I be sick, hungry and scared? Wouldn’t real animal lovers understand that and not be so fast to kill an animal?

We need to ban breeding in our shelters. In this day and age when every eleven seconds an animal is killed, we do not need any more animals! An animal is not more important or more deserving of life just because it may be a purebred.

We need to make spay/neuter mandatory. Unless it will jeopardize an animal’s life, we need to stop adding to the population. We must ban selling animals in every state. We must have a national animal registry where all animal abusers/ neglecters are registered. And we absolutely need to end killing in facilities! The word euthanasia refers to terminally ill, untreatable animals being put out of misery. Killing is not euthanasia. Ending the life of healthy, treatable, adoptable animals is killing.

We will never kill an animal at Odie’s Place. We will always have room for urgent animals. We will work with other facilities to take in animals if there is no room for them. We will educate kids on how to properly meet a dog or cat. We will spread the word that it is okay to report animal cruelty. Kerrie and I know the “pit bull” dogs (as with Rottweilers, German Shepherds, etc.) get labeled as dangerous and it is not right. We firmly believe your dog turns out the way you train/treat them. Treating your dog humanely is imperative. There is a great need for compassion towards animals in our world today.

Kerrie and I cannot wait to start taking in animals. However, we need a building with land for the dogs to run and play. In the meantime, we are starting a foster program. We ask our fosters to provide shelter and food as we can only offer to pay for medical care for now. Our foster program will save lives.

We have huge plans for our no kill shelter. It will be a very happy environment. We want to eventually have a sanctuary to take in all sorts of homeless, unloved, distressed animals. If we do have animals that don’t get adopted, that is fine. We essentially are going to create a shelter that cats and dogs don’t want to leave. Our adoption process will be stringent because we want to make sure these cats and dogs are going to their wonderful, loving homes. We will be doing home and vet checks. If you love animals and want to help please contact me at pfcradio@yahoo.com. We Are officially a 501c3 public charity so all donations are now tax deductible.

Our website is OdiesPlace.org and gofundme.com/odiesplace.