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Rocket Dog Rescue

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For the Bay Area shoe company, see Rocket Dog

Rocket Dog Rescue is a volunteer nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California, devoted to pet adoption and animal rescue. It is the most prominent of several local private organizations that save dogs from euthanasia by caring for them and finding new families.[1] The program places dogs from animal shelters in the San Francisco Bay Area into foster homes while awaiting adoption. It also treats medical and behavioral problems such as socialization issues, neuters and spays the animals, and provides vaccines, so as to make their animals adoptable.[2]

History

The organization was founded by Pali Boucher, daughter of a hippie mother, and Paul Boucher, a program director of San Francisco radio station KSAN (formerly "Jive 95"; now 107.7, "the Bone").[3][4] Pali is an HIV victim and former foster child and drug addict whose mother died when she was ten.[5] After being homeless for more than ten years, she adopted an abandoned coonhound puppy from the local dog pound. She named him Leadbelly.[5][6] and lived with him on the street for several more years. After spending six months in jail[7] she then entered the Good Shepherd Gracenter,[6] a women's residential recovery program run by the Roman Catholic order, the Good Shepherd Sisters.[8][9] She credits the program and her dog with saving her life.[10]

In the late 1990s Boucher began working for Hopalong Animal Rescue, based in Oakland, California.[6] In 2000, while she was a client at the SF/SPCA Animal Hospital, she inspired her veterinarian, Dr. Ilana Strubel, to found Veterinary Street Outreach Services (VET SOS), a Project of the San Francisco Community Clinic Consoritum's Street Outreach Services Program, a private not-for-profit human healthcare agency, where Pali had received care while homeless. VET SOS is mobile clinic that helps homeless people who are unable to care for their pets.[11]

In 2001, the year after Leadbelly's death, she started Rocket Dog Rescue and won a Points of Light award for volunteerism.[10] She claims to have rescued 150 dogs in the first year.[10] In 2006 the organization was profiled on Discovery's Animal Planet network in a one-hour documentary, Rocket Dogs.[12] By 2007 the organization had saved approximately 3,000 animals, and was spending $150,000 per year of donated funds on veterinary bills for sick animals.[5]

In December 2007 her home burned in a fire, making her homeless once again and killing three dogs, a parrot, and a pigeon for which she was caring.[5][13]

References

  1. ^ Hank Pellissier (March 3, 2003). "Saving Pit Bulls from the Death Chamber". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  2. ^ "About Us". Rocket Dog Rescue. Archived from the original on 2007-10-14. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  3. ^ Ben Fong-Torres (August 13, 2006). "Radio Waves". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  4. ^ "Where are they now". KSAN. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  5. ^ a b c d Jill Tucker (December 23, 2007). "Dog rescuer loses her home in a fire:3 canines she was fostering are killed in destructive blaze". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  6. ^ a b c Erica Kohnke. "Homeless Dogs Find a Pal in Pali Boucher". The Noe Valley Voice. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  7. ^ Sally Stephens (January 2006). "For the Love of a Dog" (PDF). The Woofer Times. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  8. ^ "The Sisters of the Good Shepherd". Good Shepherd GraceCenter. Archived from the original on 2007-08-29. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  9. ^ "Gracecenter". the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Archived from the original on August 20, 2008. Retrieved 2007-12-28. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ a b c Lord Martine (November 29, 2002). "Saving dogs helped her save herself". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  11. ^ Suzanne Pullen (January 7, 2006). "Jefferson Award: Ilana Strubel, vet for pets of homeless". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  12. ^ "Rocket Dogs documentary". Studio B Films.
  13. ^ "3 Dogs, 2 Birds Die In SF Animal Foster Home Fire". CBS Broadcasting. December 21, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-28. [dead link]
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