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For nine years or so, Ridgeville's Jo Alexander has been the human face of the Humane Society in Randolph County. Now she's turning over her work for animals to Jill Dolon, president and founder of Unconditional Love Foundation, and her partner in animal rescue, Rachael Hawke, of Farmland.
The work of Randolph Humane will focus on animal welfare, people education, and animal spay and neuter programs.
Dolon, a Muncie native, says she became aware of the country's terrible animal overpopulation program when she lived in Los Angeles. She decided to devote her life to working on saving the animals.
Dolon has six personal dogs, including an Afghan hound, a couple of pugs pulled from shelters, and a Brussels Griffon, the kind of dog featured in "As Good As It Gets."
On the other hand, Alexander, does not have any of her own dogs, at the expressed wish of her husband of 53 years. However, her daughter, Beth Haines, lives nearby, and she keeps the Humane dog called Second Chance, who Alexander takes on her education missions.
Second Chance is aptly named because he was found frozen and starved, shot, abandoned and 30 pounds underweight. Logically, he was a candidate for euthanasia.
"But he wanted to live so badly," Alexander recalls.
And so Second Chance did live, and he accompanies Alexander in her sessions to teach humans the Humane lessons of caring for animals, spaying and neutering them to avoid over-population, and the importance of being able to make a life-long commitment to an animal's welfare before becoming a pet owner.
Alexander says she was the only Humane Society representative in Randolph County, and she answered all the calls during her 10 years of service. All volunteer work, it was "pretty-much full-time" job for her.
Unconditional Love recently rescued 68 dogs out of a puppy mill. The dogs are all pure-bred, but puppy mill operators don't breed for the improvement of the dog's line. They breed purely for profit, and when the puppies don't bring the profits, they are abandoned or killed.
To save the animals, Unconditional Love uses a system of foster homes, rather than having a "dog pound." So one of the main needs for the new Randolph Humane effort is to recruit more foster homes, people who will keep rescued animals until their permanent owner can be found.
Unconditional Love does not euthanize dogs unless they are a threat to others or unless they are to sick to be saved. Dolon says, "We don't euthanize to make room."
Dolon has rescue contacts throughout the country, and she specializes in placing pit bulls.
The new Randolph Humane has many needs, and donations will be gratefully accepted and wisely used.
First is the need for more foster homes.
"The more foster homes we have, the more we can save," Dolon says.
While the women volunteer their efforts, much of their work requires cold, hard cash. The new group needs a cargo van, and it needs to be able to pay for medical services to make animals more adoptable.
Dolon has an ambitious challenge of raising several hundred thousand dollars to complete a county-wide spay and neuter program that would go a long ways toward creating a permanent solution for animal overpopulation in the county.
Of course, there's always a need for dog and cat food. For more information about how to help the animals at 765-287-9043 or 818-693-2323 or check out the website at www.unconditionallovefoundation.org.
Copyright © 2007 Winchester News-Gazette
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