"I could never do what you guys did."

I have heard this dozens of times in the days since I went with Jenni to Southern California to give as many huskies as possible their lives back. I believe that the speakers mean that they would find it impossible to tag some dogs while leaving others behind.

I find this statement confusing for two reasons. First, every person who has adopted or rescued a dog from a shelter has done the same thing: decided whom they can help, while heartbreakingly leaving all of the others behind. The alternative would be to help no one because it is too hard to choose between them. Surely no one is saying they would do that.

Second, everyone is physically capable of visiting a shelter and choosing dogs to tag. I believe the speakers mean that they could not do this without finding the resulting emotions unbearable. It is no different for us. I woke up at 3:00 a.m. this morning from a nightmare in which I was trapped in a shelter kill room watching the dogs die whom we were unable to take. Once awake, I stayed awake for hours thinking about the dogs we could not take, and the subset of those who will not make it.

So to everyone who says they can't do what we did last week? Neither can I.

So where to, from here? I see no choice but to save them all. To scale to the point where we are consistently able to remove all Northern breed dogs from every facility that we visit, every time. To create a reality in which no one has to make and live with the impossible choices that Jenni and I were forced to make last week. This team is capable of getting there, with your help.

Step one is to honor the pledges that many of us made, that allowed H3 to keep these 23 dogs safe. I pledged five figures behind the scenes to partially cover the cost of this pull, and I just finished paying my pledge this morning. But caring for and placing these dogs will cost still more than we have raised so far. If you have an outstanding pledge, please join me in honoring it. And I ask everyone who is able, to get the word out on the networking posts for these 23 dogs. Please link people who pledged back to this post, which has the freedom photos of the lucky 23, and ask them to honor their pledges.

Venmo, PayPal, Zelle huskyhalfwayhouse@gmail.com