TBR Corapeake Beagle Rescue of 2010
Written by Triangle Beagle Rescue Volunteer Karen Carlton, Heart2Home
On September 16, 2010, Triangle Beagle Rescue’s Adoption Coordinator, Dan Savarese, was contacted by the group assigned to pull the animals from the PLRS Laboratory in Corapeake, NC, following an undercover PETA investigation. Dan asked for volunteers to go with him to Corapeake the following day and to foster the dogs. By 9 the next morning, a group of 15 volunteers caravanned to Corapeake and we had foster spots for 19 dogs.
We had no idea what we would face as we left Knightdale that morning. I figured we would get there, go into the lab, pull as many beagles as we could fit in our vehicles and be on our way. We arranged to rendezvous at Sunny Acres Pet Resort in Durham at day’s end.
We arrived at 12:30, only to find things at a standstill. The rescue groups involved were kept across the street from the lab in a feed mill parking lot. It was 85 degrees with no shade. We waited. And waited. Some of us eventually searched for facilities, which turned out to be 5 miles away in a 1950s-era gas station with only a men’s restroom. There was no food to be had. We stood, we talked, we met people from the other rescue groups, we rearranged the crate inventory, we talked on our cell phones.
The weekend before the Corapeake rescue, the TBR Board asked me to be PR Coordinator. I agreed, figuring I would do a few flyers and keep the Facebook page up to date. By the end of that hot Friday afternoon, I was doing phone interviews for Triangle-area news crews and an on-camera interview the following day. Both NBC-17 and WRAL were wonderfully supportive of our efforts to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome the Corapeake beagles.
Mid-afternoon, the woman in charge of the animal distribution at the laboratory crossed the street to tell us we could take two vehicles at a time to get the animals. We were not to exit our vehicles, take pictures, talk on cell phones or speak to the lab staff. We began to suspect how long this might take. About 30 minutes later, the first beagles emerged from the building. All of the rescue workers cheered from across the street, standing on tip toe to get a better look at the dogs. Some of them dropped to their bellies and crawled as soon as they hit the unfamiliar surface of the parking lot. All of them looked shy and confused.
About 4:30 p.m., it was our turn. After our first two cars were filled, the Wake County SPCA offered to pick our animals up in their big trailer, which saved us from making numerous trips across the street. The process proceeded at a snail’s pace. We sent dogs on their way as cars filled up. The last few of us left at 7:30 p.m. It took 2 hours for my group to reach the first available food. The dogs smelled like urine and feces and many of them were car sick on the 3.5 hour journey. Route 158 must be among the longest, darkest, most winding highways in all of North Carolina!
My group arrived at Sunny Acres about 11:45. Owners Donna and Don Easterlin had their staff there to help. Some dogs went home with their fosters that night, and Sunny Acres hosted 22 dogs overnight and bathed them the next morning. Sixteen of those dogs were flown to a rescue in West Palm Beach, Florida by Cloud Nine Flight Rescue on Saturday. The remaining 6 were picked up by their fosters.
My first Corapeake foster, a lemon beagle named Buffy the Vampire Slayer, got her first bath at 1 a.m. Saturday morning. She was shy, unable to walk up and down stairs and paced around in circles for most of the first few days, as did many of the Corapeake beagles. She was also adorable and sweet and, surprisingly, it didn’t take long for her to start playing with her foster sisters. Most of the Corapeake beagles are shy and skittish, in varying degrees. The two I have had, Cindy Lou Who and Buffy, are less shy and a little quicker to trust humans than some of the others. The males seem to be in better emotional shape than the females. There were house training issues and escape issues with the Corapeake beagles, so TBR adopted a new stringent set of safety guidelines for fosters and adopters, issued harnesses and leash couplers to all fosters to double-clip the dogs and provided training support with a behaviorist for the remaining Corapeake beagles.
In addition to transporting 35 beagles and finding fosters for 19 of them in 2 days, Triangle Beagle Rescue raised $10,000 for their expenses in 6 weeks — amazing for an all-volunteer rescue. Visit www.tribeagles.org to find out more and to see our other great beagles!
Triangle Beagle Rescue of North Carolina is a 501(c)3 formed in 1999.
