INDEPENDENCE, Kan. – Cherokee Nation citizen David Guthrie and his spouse Connie began Save Our Strays, Inc. within the Nineteen Nineties, grew to become a non-profit in 2000 and have since helped rescue hundreds of stray animals by serving to transport them to shelters the place they will discover without end houses.
After their daughter handed out of the blue in 2002 and David having well being issues in 2006, Connie mentioned they moved to Sequoyah County to get medical assist by the Cherokee Nation and that’s after they noticed the necessity for animal rescue.
“That was the moment I realized that this is the work. I had no idea that we would still be doing, this long afterwards,” she mentioned.
Over the years, they’ve made a number of connections to different shelters and humane societies and have traveled all through the United States to Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, Minnesota, Ohio, New York, Illinois and Canada, generally doing as much as 4 transports per week. They often transported animals from Sallisaw and surrounding shelters.
Due to David’s well being, they moved from Oklahoma to Kansas in 2018 to be nearer to their son, however nonetheless needed to proceed contributing to animal transport. They have since shortened their transports to about two occasions monthly and work with a shelter out of Ardmore, Oklahoma.
David, 75, is the primary transporter for what they name the Dog Gone Express and has helped transport round 2,500 animals from Ardmore.
“I feel glad that I’m able to do it,” David mentioned. “A lot of people when they get to my age, they cannot do things like that. They’re more or less homebound. Every time I load up and I drop the dogs off to humane groups up there in Iowa or Illinois, I get a good feeling about it. I want to keep doing this as along as I can.”
Connie mentioned they began serving to with the Ardmore Animal Care animal shelter in 2019, the place within the final yr, roughly 4,000 animals had been taken in.
“They’re an open admission (shelter) so that means anyone can walk in and give up their animal,” Connie mentioned.
Amanda Dinwiddie, Ardmore Animal Care supervisor, mentioned that David and Connie’s assist has been invaluable and helped launched her and her employees to animal transport.
“They’re literal life savers for our animals. They’ve opened a lot of doors and opportunities for us in our shelter as well,” Dinwiddie mentioned.
Since 2019, the Guthries have helped transport about 2,500 animals from Ardmore, with David touring from Independence, Kansas, to Ardmore and assembly employees as early as 3:45 a.m. to select up animals.
“I think the biggest transport that we have done has been almost 40 animals on a van,” Dinwiddie mentioned. “It takes a very special person to do that and willingly do that.”
Over the years David and Connie have transported dogs, cats, rabbits and a pot bellied pig.
“We’ve been blessed,” David mentioned. “Connie is very good. I’ll be honest. I don’t know anybody that can find homes for dogs faster or better than her. She’s been working at this. I’ve seen her on the computer hours upon end.”
While David and Connie transport animals out of pocket, they encourage individuals to donate to animal shelters in any approach they will.
For extra data, e mail [email protected] or go to ardmoreanimalshelter.com.
