Rescuing SMART dogs the SMART way!
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when SMART - Siberian Malamute Alaskan Rescue Team INC. posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Send a message to SMART - Siberian Malamute Alaskan Rescue Team INC.:
Want your business to be the top-listed Pet Store/pet Service?
I, Melissa Van Grootel, started out in rescue in 2009. Initially, I was a cross-poster and had an archived list of every husky/malamute/alaskan I could find on pet finder, adoptapet, petharbour, and various other places for people to be able to see them all in one place. From cross-posting, I moved to arranging transports for various rescues and individuals until 2 groups took over the transport network and took the rescue world by storm with their amazing abilities. Near the end of my reign as a transport coordinator, I started fostering. Fostering started as overnighting dogs who were on transport, and moved to when my rescue life really began.
In August, 2014, almost a year after moving to the country, I took on 11 Alaskan Huskies as foster dogs for a rescue group. 11 dogs at once in addition to my then 8 seemed like a lot of work at first. Little did I know, those Alaskan Huskies would be difficult to adopt out as they were all retired sled dogs and didn’t have the typical ‘husky look’ that is so sought after. The first of that batch of foster dogs was not adopted until a little over 4 months of them arriving, and the last of them were transferred to other rescues, with a few adoptions in there, after almost 8 months.
Immediately after that batch left, I stepped into action to assist a fellow musher in doing a drastic downsizing in 2014/2015. In this particular case, the majority of the dogs stayed with the owner until they were adopted. I posted the photos and wrote the bios for each dog, and every applicant went through the adoption process. Only, instead of me making the decision where dogs go, the owner made that call. Each dog was adopted on a contract that required dogs be returned to the owner if things did not work out.
As I was finishing up that mission, and struggling to rehome the last couple of dogs, Alaskan Huskies once again, I was approached by a rescue which hadn’t operated in years, in March 2016. If I accepted the offer to run that rescue as I was already running mine, it would allow doors to open having an official name, and funding would be an option, should I accept the offer. I accepted the offer, and ran that rescue successfully until June 2018 when circumstances beyond control caused a break-up.
