Ruff ‘n’ Ready: Animal Lovers Rally to Rescue Marines’ Dogs

Marines going off to war and leaving their best pals behind was just too much for patriotic pooch lovers to take.

Touched by news accounts of the overcrowded conditions at Camp Pendleton’s shelter, animal lovers have come to the rescue, adopting all but a few of the dogs left behind by deployed Marines, offering to serve as doggie foster parents and donating food and money.

Several dog lovers, hoping to keep the facility open past its scheduled August closing date, say they intend to organize fund-raisers to save the shelter.

Shelter officials say they have been stunned by the outpouring.

“I’ve got 150 messages on my voice mail,” said Kyoko Childress, a worker at the Marine base shelter.

“The phone has been ringing nonstop since Monday. Everyone has been coming by, saying they were heartbroken by the story of the Marines and their dogs.”

As Marines have been deployed in recent weeks, the population at the shelter has swelled. With the shelter scheduled to close in August -- a cost-savings move -- there has been concern about the fate of the animals.

Patti Daly of Lake Forest said she is willing to do whatever she can to help out -- provide foster care, organize a foster-care program or volunteer at the shelter.

“We’re sending these guys off to war; the least we could do is hold on to their animals for them,” Daly said. “I’m sure a lot of these guys would love to come home to their animals. They might not have anybody else to come home to.”

Base officials said they have been caught off guard by the response. Last week, they were so desperate to find homes for the dogs that they ran ads in local newspapers and tacked up fliers at animal care centers in Oceanside and San Clemente.

“The outpouring is certainly appreciated, and I know everybody’s heart is in the right place, but we’re not sure if we can support some of these programs like foster care,” said Capt. Chris Logan, a base public affairs official. “We just don’t have the people or the mechanisms in place to handle something like that.”

Childress said she isn’t sure a foster-care program is beneficial to the animal. “Just as the dog becomes attached to the foster family, the owner comes back, and that can confuse the dog,” she said. Still, she didn’t rule out developing such a program.

Though animal lovers throughout Southern California have offered large sums to help keep the shelter afloat, Logan said the shelter will close its doors come August. “Nothing is really going to change the decision to close the shelter,” he said.

The good news is that only six dogs remained at the shelter as of Wednesday -- down from 30 last week. And Mavis, the white and black pit bull whose photograph accompanied the story in the Los Angeles Times, was one of those adopted.