Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristine Ray.
Kristine, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My family and I moved back to the United States in 2015 after spending several years as ex-pats in Asia. I missed having pets while living overseas, and after buying a house in Katy, I became involved with a few rescues. I fostered a large number of dogs but was interested in becoming more involved in the administrative part of rescue. I really enjoyed fostering for a Colorado-based rescue called Mile High Lab Mission and approached them to ask if I could help. Now I am involved in pretty much all areas including foster coordination, adoptions, vet care, fostering, and transport. It is often overwhelming and heartbreaking but also incredibly rewarding. We save several hundreds of dogs a year from TX, NM, AR, and OK and transport them to fosters and adopters in CO.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not seeing an improvement in the number of stray dogs, owner surrenders, and dogs being euthanized in shelters can be disheartening. Texas is a horrible place for pets, and we see a lot of neglect and abuse. The numbers have actually gotten worse in recent years, and sometimes we feel as if we are barely making a dent. Seeing our dogs end up in loving homes makes it all worthwhile.
The hours and stress can be overwhelming. Many people do not realize that we are all volunteers who often have young kids and full-time jobs. We do not have a facility and are purely foster-based. It is not uncommon to get a call at 1 am from someone demanding that we drive two hours to pick up a random dog they found, applicants asking to be interviewed immediately, a foster dog needing emergency vet care 1000 miles away, or fosters all of a sudden not being able to foster. Thankfully we have an amazing volunteer team which has grown much larger over the past few years. Our (volunteer) work-life balance is a lot better today than five years ago.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Mile High Lab Mission has saved labs and lab mixes since 2009. Over the years, we have built some amazing connections and friendships and work closely with other rescues, transporters, volunteer pilots, vets, and wonderful fosters. The rescue is based in CO but has lots of fosters and adopters in Texas as well. Texas fosters usually take care of the dogs for 2-4 weeks before the dog transports to CO, and we pay for all expenses. If you are interested in fostering, you can go to milehighlabmission.com and fill out a foster app. We also adopt out locally in Texas to qualified applicants.
All of our dogs are in foster homes and are never boarded unless it is very short term. As a result, we are able to carefully evaluate them, socialize them, and give them the best chance of being adopted by the right family. We vet adopters carefully. They have to pass vet checks, home checks, and interviews before being allowed to adopt. We have gotten yelled at and cussed at by angry applicants we denied, but all these steps are necessary to try to identify applicants who may not care properly for their new dog. We aren’t perfect and have made mistakes, but I am proud of the extra steps we take to try to find good homes.
What matters most to you? Why?
We aren’t just saving dogs but bringing joy to their new families as well. There is no better feeling than hearing stories about our dogs who went from sick and nearly euthanized in a shelter to being a therapy dog at a hospice, a source of comfort for a veteran with PTSD, or simply a new best friend for the adopter.
Pricing:
- Adoption fees depend on age and range from $175-$475. They include all vetting as well as spay and neuter. Sometimes adopters complain about the fees but we lose money on almost every single dog.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mhlrm.com/
- Instagram: @milehighlabmission
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MileHighLabMission
