Last month, I went out on assignment and worked harder than I ever have before. Taking photos was not the hard part, I didn’t even get to do so much of that. The hard part was in taking care of over 200 dogs while driving across the country. I logged around 5,000 miles in a week, driving 12 hours a day, sometimes 24 straight, sleeping in a van, wearing pee-soaked clothing, breaking up dog fights, and trying to clean and breathe amongst the stench of ammonia and the crap of 200 dogs packed into a semi-truck. This was my first time on a rescue of this magnitude, and there were times I questioned everything. Was I cut out for this? Am I really strong enough to handle this?

The dogs came from puppy mills in the midwest, and we brought them to New York City, where homes awaited them. Scheduled to die because they were no longer useful to their breeders, these dogs had nothing wrong with them by most people’s standards. Some were tiny puppies that were just too grown to be sold to a pet store, others were just too old to breed anymore, or had minor health problems or defects caused by inbreeding and improper care. Puppy millers keep their dogs in cages, which legally only need to be six inches larger than the dog in each direction, and they will spend their entire lives in it, eating, sleeping, and crapping in the same space, hardly ever cleaned. Their only purpose in life is to make puppies, which are taken and sold online or to pet stores where unsuspecting animal lovers pay ridiculous amounts of money to take them home, completely unaware of the horrendous place they came from, or the health problems they are likely to face because of it. So while the cute little puppies sit in pet shop windows, the sad truth behind them lies in the dark with their parents. And as long as there is a demand for puppies, these breeders will stay in business. Nevermind that thousands of happy, healthy dogs are being put down each day… just keep making more cute little puppies. Lucky for these guys, they escaped the cycle we put them in.

In the end, 204 dogs, everything from tiny chihuahuas to golden retrievers, made the trip from the mills to Manhattan, and eight of them went even further and came all the way back to Best Friends. Watching their transformation along the way changed all my earlier doubts. Through the bars of their carriers, they acted like happy dogs eager to lick your face. But open the door and they froze in fear. These dogs didn’t know human touch. They never got it. All they got was enough food and water to keep them alive long enough to make puppies. And so watching a dog who is afraid of everything, and has never seen the outside of a cage, turn into a spazzy love machine who can do nothing but play… well, that makes all the sleep deprivation, stinky clothes, and ammonia-fueled headaches worth it. And this is why I took this job. It’s not to play with cats and dogs all day (though that doesn’t hurt), but to take them from their death bed and place them on a much more comfy one.

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