Staff Stories: Making an Effort to Care for Animals

By Olivia Carpenter, Membership Coordinator –

The call came in on a random Thursday, a male voice asking for help and needing to speak to someone in Spanish. As a native Spanish speaker, I let the team know I would reply. I was expecting the usual kind of call, someone with a terribly ill or injured pet searching for help with the cost of veterinary care. I had our website up and ready, open to the RedRover Relief Urgent Care grants page, so I could help the caller navigate to it and show him how to apply for a lifesaving grant. Instead, I got a surprise.

The caller told me his name was Daniel* and that he is a farmworker. I could hear the voices of other men in the background, calling to each other, and could tell he was in the fields at that very moment. Daniel explained that he had found a litter of six puppies just a couple of days before. He guessed they were no older than a month or two. They were all alone, dumped in a field where he happened to be working. “I couldn’t just leave them,” he said in Spanish. “They’re very weak and need help. Can you tell me where I can take them?” I asked him where he was so that I could look up local animal shelters. That day, he was way up in northern California, far from his hometown. It’s common for farmworkers to travel hundreds of miles for work, following seasonal picking opportunities.

Trying to make it as easy as possible for him, I asked if a shelter just south of where he was would work, about a fifteen-minute drive away. He said he was willing to take them anywhere in a 30 to 60 mile radius. Worried he might be turned away, he asked me for the addresses and phone numbers of a few more facilities, just in case. I found three and advised him to call ahead before driving out to them; some animal shelters charge a fee for surrendering a pet, but this was not Daniel’s situation. I wanted to make sure he spoke to someone ahead of time to explain that he had found these furbabies, making it a true Good Samaritan case, and not an owner surrender.

He thanked me for the advice and said he’d call ahead, then asked me if he could call me if he needed more help. I gave him the number and thanked him for helping the puppies and giving them a fighting chance at life and a forever home. I told him that he could call back any time for help, and to take care of himself. We hung up, and that was that, but I couldn’t get the call out of my head. While I worried for the six babies who had been left to starve, alone in the fields for who knows how long before they were found, I was also filled with the deepest gratitude and appreciation for Daniel, who went well out of his way to help them.

Love and respect for our animal friends transcends borders and ideologies. Gracias de nuevo, Daniel, dondequiera que esté. Su llamada realmente me tocó el corazón. Thank you again, Daniel, wherever you are. Your call truly touched my heart.

*Name and image has been changed to protect privacy