Life in the Doghouse

Hey, guys. Hello, babies.

Get in bed, girly.

Hey, good morning, darlin'.

- No, no. - Oh, Teiren.

- She's scared, I think. - I know. She doesn't know where to go.

- Do we have any we're not feeding?

No.

Here you go.

Mona, there you go, girly.

It's okay.

Rowdy's not eating,

and Dominique's being real picky.

Hey, guys.

Okay, little ones.

- You were the hungriest. -

All right.

Humphrey, you settle down, man.

Hey, Maisie. You silly girl.

Good morning, Amelia.

There's your food.

Come on, Gus!

Come on, Tito. Are you coming?

Good boy.

I know! I know! I know, come on.

- - What? You sleeping in this morning?

You sleeping in?

Amelia, stop that.

What, Tito? What, Tito?

When we started rescuing dogs 15 years ago,

I never dreamed we would have a real rescue.

And I never dreamed we would have a rescue this size

that has taken over, you know, our whole home, our lives.

Okay.

Oh, hush.

Dominique. Dominique, come on.

We have 71 dogs in the house currently,

and I don't really know of any other rescues

that just let dogs live in their house like we do.

Want me to bring you lunch, old guy?

Most people who rescue dogs

have kennels separate from their houses,

but we'd saved so many animals

that had been victimized or injured.

And we don't always know what we're getting into with that.

And that's why living with them sometimes is so important

'cause we really find out what we need to know

before they get adopted by someone.

What happens sometimes is-- yes, it is.

We've told you this story before.

We've told you a lot.

She was going stir-crazy being in the shelter for too long.

We'd have felt terrible if we made her stay

in the wrong conditions for another week, even.

So, it's gonna work out for this sweetheart,

I can promise you that.

I remember how excited when we hit

the 1,000th adoption.

Danny and I thought we hit the lottery, you know?

We were like, "Can you believe we made it to a thousand?"

Okay, family walk...

And right now, I mean,

we're only a hundred and a few dogs away

from hitting the 10,000th adoption.

Let's go. Come on.

- Boys, come on. - Come on. Come on.

Hi, guys. Hi.

How are you guys, huh?

Doggies.

Doggies, hi.

We get the majority of our dogs from animal shelters.

A lot of the shelters have

what they call "red code day," which is euthanasia day.

Sometimes I can get 100 e-mails from 20 shelters

asking us to take dogs off their euthanasia list.

This is just one normal e-mail from one shelter.

These are all, as you can see, it says,

"final date," "expired," "critical."

So these animals are about to be euthanized today.

Over 4 million animals are euthanized

every year in America.

It's very, very sad.

You look at their faces, you look at their eyes,

and they're just begging for someone to save 'em.

Hello.

That's a pretty color.

Yeah, she's beautiful.

This little guy here.

That's the one we're checking on.

She's very sweet. Housebroken.

A lady got her off Facebook and she didn't want her anymore.

This one came from a hoarder and he still needs some work.

-Okay. -They came in really, really, really, really shy.

We've got three left. They're probably

the nicest-looking hoarding dogs I've ever seen.

-And there's Chester. -You are cute.

-He's a rat terrier mix. -Hey, Chester. And how old is he?

He's about four years old. He came in as a stray.

Is he pretty settled, though, normally, or...?

He usually is, yes.

He's been outside, so he's all hyped up.

He's been runnin' in the yard.

It's hard to pick up dogs that are on euthanasia

because you already know they don't really have a chance

I will ask them if they can give me any description

on their personality, if they're friendly, if they're aggressive,

if they're dog-aggressive, cat-aggressive.

And, I mean, we don't want to pick the perfect dog.

We want to pick a dog that we can help and save and hopefully rehab.

As you can see, this one is active.

-And it's black, so it's gonna be kind of hard for us. -Right, right.

So, maybe, maybe that would be one.

We don't need another one that's hyper right now.

We've got about four of those.

Let's look, now.

Shelters, by law,

they have to take every animal dropped off here.

We receive 5,000 animals a year at our animal shelter.

We can hold 125.

If we're overloaded, then we have to make room.

He came in, in a trap, through Animal Control.

They'd said that he was mean and vicious

and to be careful 'cause he would eat us for lunch.

Well, ahem... here he is. - Doesn't look it.

Seeing their faces and knowing they're going to die...

that drives me harder to want to save more.

I don't think I could ever turn my back on this

'cause I couldn't live with the guilt

of walking away from all those faces that need help.

He needs a really good, special home.

-Someone that's gonna take care of him. -Do you wanna go home, hmm?

It's a funny emotion because there's a part of me

that would love to be selfish and say,

"We've rescued almost 10,000 dogs.

"We're gonna go pick up. We're gonna go travel.

"We're gonna go live the rest of our life

and have a good life,"

but my internal insides won't let me do it.

This is Apollo.

He was runnin' on the side of the road, stray.

He's been very friendly.

He was injured as a puppy, um, so he does have a bum leg,

so we've had no interest in him whatsoever.

Apollo, do you want to go home, huh?

You wanna go home and get out of here?

The ones that are very friendly, very cute, furry,

those get adopted immediately.

What we usually try to do is try to get a lot

that are not very popular to get adopted,

so that they can get a home.

And that's Moose.

We'll get you ice creamies.

-I think this dog has... -Yeah, come on.

...basset, Pekingese, cocker spaniel...

...golden retriever, setter... -Come on.

-Huh? ...and a little chow.

Not to mention bloodhound and Afghan and...

-Well, look at the coat. -That's beautiful.

It's got the coat of an Akita.

Let's put Akita in there, too.

-Look at it. - Oh, it's beautiful.

You look like a loaf of bread.

Watch it-- watch it run now. Come on, Moose.

- It's just a rectangle. - Moosey!

Is that not the cutest thing you've ever seen in your life? - That is precious.

It's not but eight weeks old.

-Moose! -

Looks like a cocktail table.

Not everyone's born

with the very same gifts and the same luck.

Because of that, they have to have

a little extra help, and I think that ideology

has gone with me through my entire life.

You need some skin work, don't ya, huh?

Growing up, my mom always said,

"Don't buy a dog. Let's save a dog."

I remember when I really wanted a Dalmatian.

Mom said, "There's always people for those,

"but there's not people to take the animals from shelters

where so many will be euthanized,"

and that's where we went.

I'd always pick the one with the saddest eyes.

They were wormy, they were skinny...

and something about the eyes is what always sold 'em on me.

They'd look at me in some sort of way

and that's the one I'd have to have.

This is Lily. She's super sweet.

I mean, super, super sweet.

I mean, the problem we run into sometimes

is when so many look just the same.

They're nondescript breeds of brown and black,