How does a dog go from being someone's dog to a RAGOM dog? There are a number of steps that occur simultaneously.

Once contact has been made with the RAGOM Hotline and the decision has been made to relinquish the dog, RAGOM will work with the surrendering owners to arrange a time and place for an Intake volunteer to pick up the dog. These volunteers are often also Transport volunteers, who've been trained to handle dogs during their first moments with RAGOM. They know that this can be a very stressful time for the dogs and know how best to handle them so they can be calm and "enjoy the ride."

In the meantime, other volunteers assemble a daily "Foster Plea" email that is often updated several times a day. Foster volunteers get these emails and reply when they are able to foster a particular dog. Occasionally a dog will come into RAGOM's care that doesn't have a foster home arranged and they go into boarding, or into a temporary foster home. There is a great cost associated with placing a dog into boarding and if you'd like to help defray those costs, please donate! As of Friday June 12, there is one dog currently in boarding.

The article this week features the experiences of an Intake and Transport volunteer. The time and money these volunteers donate to RAGOM is the backbone of rescue. Without them, dogs wouldn't move from city to city, county to county or, often, state to state. Thank you Intake and Transport volunteers! Your hard work helps RAGOM sustain its mission of rescuing and re-homing all Golden Retrievers.

Have you ever wondered just how a dog becomes a RAGOM dog? Did you ever think “gosh, I would love to volunteer for RAGOM, but there is just no way I could be a foster”? Do you enjoy a good road trip on occasion? If you answered yes to any of these questions, becoming a trained RAGOM Transport volunteer might be just the volunteer opportunity you have been looking for.

RAGOM Transport volunteers do the legwork in getting a dog picked up from the surrendering owners who can no longer keep the dog to the foster home who will love and care for it until we can find its forever home. They must deal with surrendering owners who run the gamut of emotions, from those distraught about giving up a beloved family pet to those less savory people who just want the dog out now “or else”, and everything in between. These dogs are often scared and confused, sometimes sick, so you just never know for sure what to expect when you pick up a dog.

Transport volunteers do the initial Intake for any dog that is coming into RAGOM, a very important function that gets the information needed to help the dog’s new foster family figure out the best way to help the dog settle into its new home. When they pick up the dog, they do a “Basic Dog Evaluation” on the dog, a series of quick and gentle tests to get an idea of how the dog will respond to strange or uncomfortable stimuli by a stranger. They also complete and have the surrendering owner sign a “Donation of Dog” form, which is the legal documentation we have that the dog has been surrendered to us. It contains a questionnaire that allows us to get some detailed information on the dog, stuff like medical issues, behaviors, what the dog likes and doesn’t like. Once the paperwork is done and a brand new RAGOM tag is placed on the dog’s collar, he is whisked away to the loving home of his anxiously waiting foster family!

Some transports are short and only take a few hours, while others can be several hundred miles in length and are broken up into legs, with different volunteers taking whichever leg they volunteer for. Transport volunteer Kim has been transporting dogs since January 2007, her first volunteer role with RAGOM after adopting two RAGOM dogs. She really enjoys the long, difficult to fill transports, putting on several hundred miles in one day. Her very first transport was 644 miles round trip to move one dog to his new foster home. She said one of her longest transports involved three different dogs, no mean feat considering she drives a family sedan and not an SUV! She drove from the Twin Cities metropolitan area down to Jackson, MN, where she met another volunteer and picked up a dog. She took that dog and drove to Story City, IA, where she picked up a second dog. From there she drove to Jewell, IA, dropped off the first two dogs and picked up a third to bring back to the Twin Cities. That trip was for a total of 580 miles, at a time when gas was $3.15 per gallon. At 20 miles per gallon, that translates to $91.35 in donated gas to RAGOM, on one trip!

Like most Transport volunteers, Kim has more than a few tales to share about her transport experiences. She laughs about it now, but remembers a particularly memorable dog named Jerry that she picked up in Iowa and brought to the Twin Cities. Jerry was terrified when she picked him up. He had been in a crowded shelter for several days and was pretty stressed out from the ordeal. Kim had taken her significant other’s car on the transport, which was only a few months old and had nice new smelling leather interior. It was also too small to hold the wire crate she had available, which meant Jerry would have to ride in the back seat uncrated. The first thing Jerry did when she put him in the car was to urinate all over the back seat, which was covered by a blanket. She quickly got him out of the car and removed the blanket, cleaned him up, replaced the blanket and put him back in. She had no more than gotten out of the parking lot when Jerry urinated all over the clean blanket! She replaced the blanket again and headed down the road. Before she knew it, Jerry had urinated all over the last clean blanket she had. Knowing she was no doubt going to hear about it when she got home, she stopped at the first rest area she saw and got out the small collapsible fabric kennel kept in the car for emergencies, put Jerry in it with a toy and a couple of treats and headed for home. He was much more comfortable in the small crate, slept all the way home, and created no more messes to clean up. After dropping Jerry off at his foster home, her next trip was to the car wash for an interior cleaning!

Transporting dogs for RAGOM can be an incredibly rewarding experience. You are taking a dog from a place where it is no longer wanted for one reason or another, and transporting it to a place where it will be safe and loved until we can find it a permanent home. You get to meet other RAGOM volunteers in the process, and get to take the occasional road trip. You may also be able to use the mileage as a tax deduction—contact your tax adviser for details. Transport volunteer Kim keeps a spreadsheet of all the transports she does for income tax purposes (including mileage taking her own foster dogs to the vet, RAGOM events, etc.), and in 2007 she put on 4200 miles for RAGOM. In 2008, even though she only did a few of her “favorite” long transports, she put on almost 4500 miles. That really adds up!