Yahoo Movies Book of Dreams: Good Sense Dogs helps find homes for down-and-out pets
The backyard of Good Sense Dogs, a modest small-pet rescue organization in Carmichael, is ringed with outbuildings and kennels, most empty at the moment. But in one shed’s window, an adult tuxedo cat, kept alone, hisses at passersby.
“That’s Lucy,” said Kristi Schall, owner of Good Sense Dogs. “Her owner is dying. Lucy isn’t an easy personality, but here she has a warm home and doesn’t have to share it.”
Schall hopes to find her a new home, as well as the other adult cats at the rescue, but, as she acknowledged, kittens are what seem to be in the most demand. Good Sense Dogs placed more than 200 kittens last year.
And puppies, such as little Chiquitita, a black Chihuahua that was being sold with her litter mates out of a box in a Walmart parking lot when Schall came across them, also go quickly.
“I can’t help everyone, but I do what I can,” Schall said.
Chiquitita is tiny and shivers under her sweater, but her bright eyes dance when offered a rawhide chew. How could anyone give up a puppy that has so much love to give? Schall shrugged. “Desperate times lead people into desperate acts,” she said.
The rescue, which specializes in taking in the pets of unhoused people who are sick or dying, isn’t limited to dogs and cats.
Was that a rock that just moved? No, “that’s Sweet Potato! Sometimes he surprises us,” Schall said, pointing to a tortoise. It had an unusual feature on its shell: a GPS tracker.
“You look at him and he may look like he’s hardly moving at all, but look away and he can be on the other side of the fence in no time,” Schall said, smiling. “He’s a real bulldozer, that one.”
She also has a number of box turtles that people find on the roads in the verdant neighborhood. “Now that the weather’s turned colder, they’re hibernating under the house,” she said.
Schall spent years training dogs and found a niche educating under-served populations about the proper care of pets and how to train them with positive reinforcement instead of punishment.
“A lot of times, people just don’t know how to treat animals,” she said. “They grew up in homes without pets, or had dogs that were kept chained outside, not really part of the family. Education is the only way to change that situation.”
The rescue aspect was added “when COVID hit and many of the municipal shelters closed down,” Schall said. “The demographic we help was greatly impacted and we launched the rescue to help.”
The rescue grew out of her passion to keep pets out of shelters and get them back into homes.
Good Sense Dogs doesn’t have a lot of physical room, but Schall’s network of people willing to open their homes to pets whose unhoused owners can no longer care for them is legion. Even some of her Carmichael neighbors have fostered dogs for her.
She has partnered with Joshua’s House, a hospice for the terminally ill homeless on Larchwood Drive off Northgate Boulevard, which will open soon. Joshua’s House purchased six ADA-compliant manufactured homes in 2021 and delivery is expected by late February 2023.
Five of the three-bedroom homes will house 15 eligible terminally ill, homeless men and women discharged from Dignity Health, Sutter Health, UC Davis Health, Kaiser Permanente and Yolo Cares. The discharging health system will provide quality hospice care to its patients and Joshua’s House will provide shelter, meals, clothing and art/music therapy. The sixth house will have office spaces, meeting rooms and storage areas.
“It’s such a wonderful thing, to provide someplace for people to go when they are released from the hospital, not just back to the streets,” Schall said. She noted that many of those unhoused people have strong bonds with their animals.
And she wants to be ready to care for those pets as their owners transition to hospice and eventually leave them for good.
To sustain that effort, Good Sense Dogs is asking Book of Dreams readers for $13,000 in donations for a larger stand-alone outbuilding, with a heating and air conditioning unit, dog beds and a covered dog run. Schall also is seeking help in paying for microchips and vaccines for the pets she prepares for adoption.
Schall only takes smaller dogs; larger ones are fostered out. But she hopes the new outbuilding will be more suitable to temporarily house larger dogs, and give them a place to exercise as they are evaluated and wait for a new home.
“We work hard to make every dog adoptable,” she said. “Some (dogs) that have been living on the streets are rock-solid; nothing fazes them. But others have intentionally not been socialized, to be more of a protection for their fearful owners.”
Besides the terminally ill unhoused, many elderly people also face giving up longtime pets when their living situations change, because many assisted-living homes and less-expensive rentals don’t allow pets.
“We need to educate landlords ,” Schall said. “Most pets don’t do any more damage than children or some adults. We need better options for pet owners.”
Good Sense Dogs is looking for more volunteers, both to foster animals and to work in the community on animal education. Learn more at goodsensedogs.wixsite.com/goodsensedogs/volunteer.
Book of dreams
The request: A local pet rescue group, Good Sense Dogs, is seeking $13,000 to add a stand-alone building with heating and air conditioning, along with dog beds and a dog run.
How to help: You can make a donation at sacbee.com/bookofdreams.
