Today we’d like to introduce you to Kellye LeBoff.
Kellye, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Had a hundred 75 lbs. great pyrenees named Seraph. 9 years ago, we were looking for his playmate and I wanted to adopt and I started looking in our local animal shelters. I couldn’t find anyone as big as Seraph and when I started having discussions with the shelter staff that’s what I was told that, the bigger the dog, the shorter amount of time they really have at the shelters. All shelters in Houston are kill facilities, that means that the moment a dog comes in, it has 72 hours before it can be put to sleep. If a dog comes in with its owner, the owner surrenders that dog, it can be put to sleep immediately. But stray dogs that are picked up are given 72 hours for the owner to come and reclaim. Then after 72 hours, the dogs can be killed. Now, that is at the discretion of the shelter and as bigger dogs require more space, I hire veterinary cost and more resources the larger dogs are not giving much wiggle room, so, if a rescue can’t be found for the largest dogs in our shelters they don’t have much hope of getting out of life. When I found this out, I talked to my husband and my family and we decided to start your own giant breed rescue with the express purpose of getting the biggest dogs out of the kills facilities in the Greater Houston area freeing up space and resources. So, that the other dogs in that facility might have a better chance of getting out of alive. If I can pull 120 lbs. Mastiff or Saint Bernard out of a pound that frees up a space where 10 cocker spaniels could fit and those dogs would have a better chance of making it out of life being seen by a family and finding their forever home. After we started the rescue, we realize there was only so many dogs that we could take we bring them all into our home we train them and we socializing so that they can go immediately from our home and just someone else’s home and have a better chance of success we don’t use fosters, we do everything ourselves but we only have so much room much like the shelter system. We also only have so much space so my dilemma was, what more could I do when all my space here is full. One day, my sister and I were driving around town and we saw a homeless man with a dog and that’s when it hit me even though I have filled all my space at the rescue. In my home, there was still something I could do out on the street of Houston, it has a huge homeless population and a lot of the homeless especially veterans have dogs, so, at that point we developed our home. An outreach program was created, we’re out on the streets at least 3 to 4 times a week and what we do is we talk to the homeless people with their pets, we create relationships and we offer to spay and neuter their pet. We bring them everything that they need, from dog beds, dog sweaters, food and treats, monthly heartworm preventative and anything they need to keep their dog and doing that we give the humans everything that they need blankets, socks, caps, gloves, tents, tarps sheets, clothing shoes, canned goods, etc. Whatever they need to keep their unconventional family together. And God forbid, if there is an emergency and we’ve had several of these animals hit by a car, we respond and we give emergency veterinary care whatever the animal needs.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road, we are a 501 C3 public charity nonprofit. What that means is, we have no funding. That’s a fancy way of saying, we’re always broke. We have had to learn that running a nonprofit actually means that what you do is spend 50% of your time begging for money. We can’t do what we do without Community Support we are out in the community constantly, but we rely 100% on donations. We aren’t rich, my husband is a foreman and my sister is a server at a restaurant. We won’t have a lot of money and the bigger the dog, the more expensive everything is, so, we constantly need funds and trying to get donations, it has been the most challenging thing we do. We are constantly on social media, we are constantly begging for money and constantly showing the dogs that needs everything. Our biggest challenge is financial matter, how to pay for everything. And of course, Houston was hit by Hurricane Harvey, it hit us like a ton of bricks last year, all of a sudden, animals floating all over the city at one time. Over a million stray animals walking city streets and then hurricane Harvey came. My family was very lucky that we were able to get out on the streets immediately while the water was still low, we rescue dogs during Harvey. We had 16 dogs in our home. But, we also found a lot of devastation and we’re able to fish dogs and cats out of the water and if they had their colors on, if there was any identification, we were able to call for their owners and explain to them that their animals didn’t make it through the flood. We buried many animals over the first few days after Harvey, it was the most devastating thing we’ve ever been here through.
Jurassic Bark Rescue – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Well, what we do is, we are a giant breed rescue and the homeless outreach program. What we specialize in is pulling the largest dogs from kill facilities, all of the greater Houston area. Training them socializing them, then finding them a loving forever homes. We also tend to take dogs and no one else will take dogs that have been severely abused dogs that aren’t expected to live, we take on the hardest cases.
I’m proud of everything we do. We were the first in Houston to reach our rescue out into the homeless community. We were the first to start bringing awareness to Houston community, that the homeless deserve their animals and love their animals. When I first started helping Houston’s homeless and their animals, I was greeted with a lot of hostility and negativity. The other rescues in town didn’t want me doing this and some rescues would even go behind me after I had vetted the homeless dogs and tell the homeless, it was illegal for them to have animals and they would take their dogs that I had spayed and neutered and vetted, so, we’ve had to educate the homeless that it is perfectly legal for them to have animals and to not give up their dogs. It’s took years but I finally got in Houston on board and we now have other organizations that are equally invested in helping the homeless animals but it was a hard road at first, people did not want me doing this. But that’s one of I think my proudest moments is when we broke through and was able to make people understand that kindness matters and compassion counts educating our community has been a slow process but we’ve made enormous rides in headway and I could not be more excited and proud about that.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
You know, there’s not one single moment that stands out. Everytime we save the dog, I’m proud. Every time we find the perfect family for a dog, I’m proud. Probably the closest thing I could say was that, we have one dog that we picked up three years ago on Superbowl Sunday that we didn’t think was going to make it through the night and I posted his pictures and posted his story. His name was Falcor and his story went viral and in 24 hours, we had donations from just about every country of the planet. We were getting international donations like crazy. At that point, I had never seen a donation from another country and the first one we got was from Greece and I just froze, I didn’t recognize any words on my screen, everything was consonants and vowels, LOL. Then ,I saw what I recognize and it was Greece and I lost my mind, I could not believe that our little story about our dog had travelled that far, it was amazing. Falcor was able to get all of the medical attention that he needed and is a happy healthy adopted boy who is adored and loved by his mom and has become a service dog. That’s probably got to be one of the proudest moments.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jurassicbarkrescue.org
- Phone: 832-243-6090
- Email: jurassicbarkrescue@yahoo.com
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/Jurassic-Bark-Rescue-153240124690374/?ref=bookmarks
- Other: Paypal donations — jurassicbarkrescue@yahoo.com
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