The Hinsdale Humane Society temporarily housed more than a dozen animals being transported out of Florida on Saturday night for a “sleepover.”
Executive Director of HHS Jacki Rossi said 11 dogs and 12 cats from a shelter in the Fort Myers area affected by Hurricane Ian were being driven to a shelter in Michigan. The animals, along with transporters from Best Friends Animal Society, needed a transportation hub, Rossi said.
“It gives the transport drivers some much-needed rest in such a long journey and the babies an opportunity for a walk and food break,” she said.
Both HHS and Best Friends Animal Society are part of the Chicagoland Humane Coalition, keeping tabs on each other’s efforts through an email chain. Best Friends Animal Society has been driving animals from the hurricane site in Florida to shelters all over the country, Rossi explained, adding that HHS stepped in almost immediately after learning the truck full of pets needed a pit stop.
“When you’re in this industry, this is why you do it,” Rossi said.
At 10 p.m. on Saturday night, a group of HHS volunteers helped take the animals off the vans and into the Humane Education room, before taking the dogs out for a walk.
“Those animals have been in this van now for 12 hours, so they’re anxious to get out, and you’re doing it in the dark so you have to be careful because the dogs get scared and you don’t want one of them to slip out of their collars,” Rossi said.
The volunteers came back to the facility at 9 a.m. to walk the dogs again before the second leg of the trip and load them back into the van, she added.
“Within 20 minutes of sending an email to volunteers, I had 12 responses. It warmed my heart — otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to do it, I can’t do that by myself,” Rossi said.
The animals being moved were already up for adoption before the hurricane hit, which is an important piece to note, the shelter staff explained.
Animal welfare centers across the country typically band together in times of crisis, shuffling pets around to free up space for local displaced pets, as was the case recently for other members of the Chicagoland Humane Coalition.
HHS recently took in animals from South Suburban Humane Society so they could in turn take in pets from Anti-Cruelty in Chicago, and then Anti-Cruelty in turn could have their kennels freed up in order to accept the Florida hurricane dogs that need help, shelter staff said in an email.
“What it does is it clears [the Florida] shelters so they can take homeless animals from the disaster areas so people have some chance of reuniting with their animals,” said Tracy Elliot, CEO of Anti-Cruelty, an organization also part of the Chicagoland Humane Coalition.
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Along with displaced dogs from Florida, Anti-Cruelty also took in several beagles that were rescued from Envigo RMS LLC, a breeding facility under federal investigation for inhumane conditions in Cumberland, Virginia.
Elliot told the Tribune that only one of the beagles spent the first night in Anti-Cruelty’s Chicago shelter because of gastrointestinal issues, but every other one was picked up by fosters shortly after arriving and after a medical and behavioral assessment.
“Whatever reason they are coming to us for — it is traumatic, even the transport is traumatic. The goal is to get them to the best atmosphere possible, which is a home. So we seek emergency fosters and a lot of people are willing to take in a cat or a dog or in some cases, a rabbit,” Elliot said.
Staff at Anti-Cruelty said Treehouse Animal Shelter and Heartland Animal shelter took cats and dogs to help balance their pet population.
“This was very helpful because it allowed us to continue taking in Chicago area animals while also helping hurricane relief,” they said.