If you see a truck pulling a 40-foot rig full of dogs, chances are good that’s Kay Wlodarek of Tall Tails Rescue making another cross-country adoption trip.
Kay is dedicated to finding unwanted and abused animals all over the Fort Worth, Texas, area and bringing them to loving homes as far away as Canada. “I’ve put 60,000 miles on my truck dragging my rig around North America,” Kay laughs. “But I can move 100 dogs at a time, and I’ve been running for the last six weeks.”
Lives Dedicated to Saving Homeless Pets
Kay and the Tall Tails team have rescued thousands of dogs and cats since starting in 2011, and Kay herself has been rescuing animals for over 22 years.
“When I was in college, a boy I went to school with showed up on my porch and said a neighbor was going to drown his dog’s 11 puppies. The guy couldn’t afford to keep them, and that’s what people did in those days—they drowned the animals.” Kay ran to the neighbor’s to save the puppies, got them to a vet, and found homes for all of them.
That led to her joining an animal rescue group which ultimately became very successful, but they were too picky for Kay’s taste. “They decided not to save certain types of animals because there were too many of them, and they weren’t as easy to get adopted,” Kay says. “Dogs with black coats, for example, are the most euthanized dogs in the country.” In protest, Kay and several other board members walked out, and Kay started Tall Tails.
In addition to rescuing dogs and cats, Tall Tails advocates for education. “We’re teaching people about spaying and neutering programs,” she says. “Some people think it will hurt their pet or that their pet will die during the procedure. We show them that’s not true. We’ve also convinced humane societies and big city shelters to educate people about spaying and neutering, as well as heartworm. We focus a little on everything.”
Grants Are a Critical Part of Their Success
Donations and grants, such as the recent PetSmart Charities grant they were awarded, are crucial to keeping the nonprofit going. “Oh gosh, I don’t know what we’d do without the grant from PetSmart Charities,” Kay says. “It helps us with everything we do.”
Rescue and transport is harder work than most people know. In addition to physically picking up and caring for the animals, Kay has to find veterinarians willing to work on a pro bono basis, recruit volunteers to help with everything from feeding the rescues to updating the Tall Tails Facebook page, and fill out the numerous permits necessary to transport pets across state lines and national borders.
It can also be heartbreaking work. “Animal Control called us about a pet hoarding case,” Kay says. “Seventeen dogs in one house, two of them mamas with puppies. They were so hungry they’d taken to eating cigarette packs and beer cans.” Kay was able to save most of the dogs, and one of the mother dogs was just adopted by a family now making sure she gets all the love and food she didn’t have before.
“We have hundreds of good stories like that,” Kay says. Those stories are what keep her going on those long stretches of road across the country, her rig full of grateful dogs and cats heading to their new forever homes.