Saving Cyberdog : Internet Group Brings Pet From Kansas Death Row to Southland

The urgent e-mail message flashed out on computer screens across the nation: Kavik, a tricolor collie so badly abused that his master was sent to jail, would surely die in a Kansas pound unless somebody helped.

His only hope was the Internet posting from a dog-loving computer enthusiast in Lawrence, Kan., and an electronic web of 84 strangers who run the international CUR--the Canine Underground Railroad.

Thus began a journey that delivered the sickly Kavik to a good home and unfamiliar kindness halfway across the country in Anaheim, with a new owner who had only the slightest grasp of cyberspeak.

Shari Hartmann, director of graduate studies at Chapman University, was lost in cyberspace when she stumbled upon the posted message looking for somebody to save 4-year-old Kavik.

“I read the post and I just couldn’t stand the thought that after all that abuse they were going to euthanize him,” she said. “He had been abused so long I couldn’t let his end be tragic.”

The rare out-of-state adoption was a sweet--and highly unconventional--ending to years of terrible abuse and a wait on dog death row.

Things could not have looked worse for Kavik when Renee Harris of the Lawrence Humane Society found him chained to a trailer park fence last year.

He was in heat distress, without water, malnourished and weighing 38 pounds instead of the 70 pounds typical for his frame. His coat was a matted mess of fur. Kavik’s chain had become enmeshed in his neck, causing deep sores that were home to maggots and swarms of flies.

“We rushed him to the vet,” Harris said. “His temperature was off the thermometer. We filed a police report at that time. . . . He had been through so much, he had had a horrible life.”

The Humane Society’s directors won custody of the collie and gave him a home in their kennel while they sought to have the owner prosecuted for cruelty. Eventually, the owner was sentenced to a short time behind bars and two years probation, according to Harris.

A stay at the kennel is usually six weeks, Harris said, but they ended up keeping Kavik for a year as kennel employees and board members grew more attached to the reserved dog with a delicate face and tan eyebrows and cheeks.

Finally, time was running out and the collie was perhaps days from being euthanized, Harris said.

“We really wanted to place him,” she said. “We placed ads in the newspapers, we just couldn’t find anyone.”

Meanwhile, at her university office, Hartmann was gingerly finding her way through the vast computer world, not knowing exactly what she would find and a little worried about losing her way. She was just learning the system of bulletin boards, e-mail and the World Wide Web.

Rummaging through the bulletin boards related to university topics, she strayed into a category called “Collie” and a post by Kansas resident Elizabeth B. Naime.

Naime is a member of CUR, whose 84 members are spread across the United States and into Canada, and who help rescue dogs via the Internet.

Hartmann sent a message to Naime that she would take Kavik.

E-mail flew furiously as details were worked out between Hartmann, Naime and the Lawrence Humane Society, which does not ordinarily allow out-of-state adoptions. A special meeting of the seven-member board of directors was called in late May and the decision was unanimous: Kavik could move to Anaheim.

Naime and Hartmann worked out logistics for the trip through the Internet. Ultimately, six people volunteered to drive the collie on stretches of the 1,540-mile trek to Anaheim.

By the first week of June, details were set and runners were ready to drive their portions of the journey. Except for a vehicle breakdown in New Mexico, Kavik’s four-day journey went smoothly, Hartmann said.

Kavik is still shy and, conditioned by kennel routines, curling under the kitchen table until he thinks it is playtime. But the dog is slowly coming around, his new family said, venturing briefly into other rooms and even playing with his adopted siblings, Mitzi and Dusty.