It’s not headed to school, or taking the Partridge Family to a gig — this school bus is Tony Alsup’s rescue mobile. The seats are gone, removed to make room for four-legged passengers. The words on the side say it all:

EMERGENCY ANIMAL RESCUE SHELTER

Alsup, a 51-year-old trucker from Greenback, Tenn., has been rolling in the bus quite a bit recently; he headed to the Carolinas last week to rescue as many animals as he could ahead of Hurricane Florence.

The total? 53 dogs and 11 cats claimed from South Carolina shelters in the path of the storm, the Greenville News reported.

“I’m like, look, these are lives too,” Alsup told The Washington Post during a pit stop at a Waffle House. “Animals — especially shelter pets — they always have to take the back seat of the bus. But I’ll give them their own bus. If I have to I’ll pay for all the fuel, or even a boat, to get these dogs out of there.”

Unsurprisingly, Alsup would love to open his own shelter one day, but for now, he’s happy to rescue shelter pets from the floodwaters (or anywhere else they need his help). It began when he saw the situation in Texas following Hurricane Harvey — the overcrowded shelters. He thought he could help, but had no vehicle that could do the job of transporting so many.

“I thought, well what can I do?” he said. “I’ll just go buy a bus.”

He has since helped with rescues during several hurricanes.

This time around the bus was stacked with kennels and loaded up with supplies — food, water bowls, leashes, toys and more. He kept his many Facecbook followers informed, letting them know there is always a need for more, asking where else he might be needed.

After stops at the Humane Society of North Myrtle Beach (S.C.), the Dillon County (S.C.) Animal Shelter, the Saint Frances Animal Center in Georgetown, S.C., and more, he had rescued all the “leftover” pets — the dogs and cats for which the shelters couldn’t find places.

The center praised Alsup on Facebook. “The ones no one else will ever take. And he got them to safety. Not the most conventional evacuation, but surely the one with the most heart.”

Once loaded up, Alsup headed to Foley, Ala., where his friend, Angela Eib-Maddux, opened her privately run dog shelter for the night. She gave them baths and fluffy blankets and “spa treatment,” Alsup said, until they could find enough shelters or foster homes for the animals.

Some animals were adopted straight away, 40 others, via coordination between Alsup and additional shelters and volunteers, went to Knoxville, Tenn. From there, those left went to scattered shelters with vacancies.

At the time of the interview, Alsup’s next stop (if he could make it; he had heard roads were closed) was Wilmington, N.C.

He heard there was a shelter that needed him.

TO THE RESCUE: ABC station reporter interrupts live stream to rescue dog chest deep in the flooded streets of New Bern, North Carolina. After struggling to carry the big dog out at first, they all made it back to safety. https://t.co/Tbsr5qdPl5 pic.twitter.com/Sl87T0Nntd

— ABC News (@ABC) September 15, 2018

With Hurricane Florence bearing down, a reporter for a local ABC station interrupted her Facebook Live broadcast to help rescue a dog caught in the storm’s flood waters.

WTVD’s Julie Wilson was in the middle of streaming live in New Bern, North Carolina, when she saw a woman struggling to save a dog, a Rottweiler, from the deep water. The dog had been injured.

Wilson was amid assessing storm damage when she noticed the woman having difficulty steering the dog through the deep water. Wilson asked the woman if she could pick up the dog.

“Can we pick this one up?” Wilson asked the woman. The reporter gave the woman the camera and carried the dog.

“You are OK, baby girl,” Wilson told the dog.

“Nobody is leaving the dog in this mess,” Wilson said. “That’s what we are doing out here.”

The woman thanked the reporter for her help.

The dog, it turned out, was the woman’s child’s therapy dog.

“That dog wasn’t going to budge, it was just standing there. And quite frankly, [the woman] was just going to get hurt because she wasn’t going to be able to lift that dog. That dog wasn’t going to go, that dog wasn’t going to walk. The only thing we could do was lift it up and get it out so she could get out before more people got hurt in that situation,” Wilson said.

Hurricane Florence has been downgraded to a tropical storm and has weakened on Saturday since it made landfall on Friday. The storm has been blamed for at least six deaths. Many animal rescue operations and animal lovers have been out en force doing what they can to rescue animals who have been displaced by the storm

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Not long ago, we told you about River, the dog who last month was saved from certain death after he was left caged in rising water.

At the outset, his rescuer, Jennifer Vaz, planned to adopt him, but after her other dog, Molly, had difficulties adjusting to life with a new little brother, she decided to return him to the Monmouth County SPCA.

“After consulting with my family, the SPCA and my vet for the best interest of Molly’s health it would be better if River was fostered by someone else,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “As a (dog) mother, dropping River off was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do. Even though I’ve never been a parent it feels like I’m losing a child.”

Vaz discovered River while on a morning walk in the park with Molly; the dog alerted her to something odd in the water. There she found River, a pit bull pup believed to be about 7 months old, trapped inside a wire crate. The rising tide was encroaching.

She contacted animal control and River was rescued with little time to spare.

Vaz was fostering River as the investigation into who had left him to die was underway, and had intent to adopt him.

She dropped him off at the shelter this past weekend, with a bed, toys, food and treats that had been donated. Additionally, more than $1,000 raised in a GoFundMe campaign will be given to his new forever family to assist in his care.

“We’re looking for a foster to adopt, for someone who’s going to keep him forever,” Ross Licitra, the chief and executive director of the Monmouth County SPCA, told NJ.com.

River must be fostered first as he is the subject of an ongoing criminal case. Once that case is closed, the foster family could adopt him officially.

Licitra said he believes River’s boisterous, young-male personality (he is not yet neutered) may have been too aggressive for the setting, leading Molly to become withdrawn. The shelter plans the neuter him and conduct a behavior assessment to see what kind of home he might take to best.

In the meantime, the list of names interested in taking River home continues to grow, he said. Other interested adopters can apply with the shelter.

The man accused of dumping River, Aaron D. Davis, 36, of Long Branch, was arrested earlier this month.

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Jennifer Vaz was walking her own dog, Molly, near a New Jersey beach, when she heard whimpering. Below her, near the rocks and partially submerged by the incoming tide, was a cage with a 10-month-old pit bull inside.

“When I looked down, I saw these eyes looking back at me — these cute little puppy eyes all shivered up and scared,” Vaz told WABC on Tuesday. “I couldn’t believe that this happened in our town and somebody could be this malicious and do that to that dog.”

She immediately hopped the barrier to rescue him, calling authorities once she was home safe with the dog. Now the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating.

“The tide was coming in and the water had reached the cage,” the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. “When animal control arrived on the scene the cage was almost covered by the rising tide. If not for the heroic rescue act of the good Samaritan, the dog could have potentially drowned.”

Vaz gave him the name “River” before she turned him in to authorities. She plans to adopt him.

Jennifer Vaz, right, saved River. Now she plans to adopt him.

Prosecutors believe the dog may have been left there between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. and says he is now in good health.

“Although River is a bit shaken up, he is in good physical shape and seems to have been well cared for,” the SPCA said. “We are working with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office to help bring justice to River.”

The center posted images on its Facebook page this week, showing him snuggled up with a uniformed police officer while sporting his new tags and collar.

It urged anyone with information about the dog or its owner to contact the Monmouth County Cruelty Hotline or the Highlands Police Department.

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Hiker Tia Vargas likely thought the most impressive thing about her visit to Table Rock last month would be reaching its 11,106-foot summit, but she’d have been wrong.

On her way back down, she came upon an English Spring Spaniel in bad shape; he was limping along with two other hikers who were trying to find the dog’s owner.

“They asked if he was mine and said that they’d seen a note at the bottom of the trail mentioning that somebody had lost their dog,” Vargas, 40, a single mother of three from Idaho Falls, Idaho, told PEOPLE. “The tag on his collar said his name was ‘Boomer,’ and I could see that he was hurt. The other hikers wanted to get to the top of the mountain, so I decided right then, ‘OK, Boomer, I’ll help you.’”

Carrying the 55-pound pup on her back, Vargas hiked another mile down to where here dad was waiting. He had been too tired to make the summit. Vargas said her father laughed, joking that the hike was hard enough without carrying a dog.

“I told him, ‘Dad, this dog is lost and hurt. There’s nobody else. I can do this.’”

But it was harder than she thought. Snow and debris derailed their descent and Vargas and her father ended up getting lost and caught in the rain. She was tired and hurt and cried, wondering whether she might have to leave the dog behind.

The power of a silent prayer, she said, buoyed her

“I suddenly felt like somebody had walked up behind me and lifted Boomer off my shoulders,” she says, “and I realized that I had to buck up and do this. If I didn’t get him off the mountain, I knew that he would die.”

Vargas shared her cheese and crackers with Boomer on the trek, while her dad gave up the ham in his sandwich. “Boomer was obviously hungry,” she says, “and he was in a lot of pain. We felt grateful to have something to give him.”

At the trail’s end, Vargas found the note the hikers had mentioned and called Boomer’s owners. They had been hiking together when Boomer wandered off and fell 100 feet down a snowy crevice, they told her. They had searched, but fruitlessly. The miracle of Vargas’ help, though, ended up changing Boomer’s fate more than once that day.

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Tia Vargas & Boomer, a new family. Photo: Ted Kasper

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The family had planned to sell Boomer to a man who wanted a hunting dog, but after hearing the tale of his rescue — that Vargas had carried him six miles — they offered to let her keep him instead once he’d been treated for his injuries.

“I haven’t had a dog in 15 years, but Boomer is part of our family now,” Vargas told PEOPLE. “I feel like there’s a reason why I was on the mountain at the very moment that he needed somebody to help. Both of us had a guardian angel that day.”

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Last week we told you about a lovely Lab mix (now named Hope!) that surveillance video captured as she was dumped by the side of the road in a suburb of Springfield, MO.

The Greene County Sheriff’s Office posted to their Facebook page that the woman believed responsible was arrested on July 13.

The video showed a woman letting her dog out of her car, shutting the door and speeding away. One posted by the camera’s owner, it quickly went viral.

She was arrested for animal neglect and abandonment, a class C misdemeanor.

The dog had severe burns on her paws after running on the hot pavement until she was found.

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Glenn Blake’s security camera captured something we all know happens too much — but it’s still achingly hard to watch.

Yesterday, an SUV pulled up near Blake’s home, east of Springfield, MO, let a dog out and then sped off. You can see the dog give chase after the vehicle leaves the frame.

Blake later posted the video on Facebook with the following statement:

Person dumping dog in our neighborhood this morning 10 July at 10:13. Please share. I had no idea this video whould (sic) spread so fast and so far. Here is more information all in one place. This is at Farm Road 148 and Farm Road 205. Three miles east of Springfield, MO just off of Hwy D. The Greene County Sheriff’s Office was notified. Deputy Turner was able to locate the dog. At this point the poor dog was getting dehydrated and weak. The Deputy was extremely concerned and caring and provided the dog with water and comfort. The temperature reached 96 degrees today. GCSO called Rescue One https://rescueonespringfield.com/ and they promptly arrived to care for it.

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As stated above, Blake got in touch with the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, which dispatched a deputy in response.

“Really, all the credit should go to Deputy Turner,” Blake told the Springfield News-Leader. “He went out of this way to find the dog, get a hold of it, get it cooled off and get it water. And the adoption agency (worker). Kudos to both of those people.”

He told reporters the deputy spent at least a half-hour tracking the dog and checking with neighbors to see if they’d seen her.

Once found, she was handed off to Rescue One, a Springfield-based dog rescue with a vast network of fosters. An emergency volunteer from the organization met the deputy at the scene. A rep for Rescue One confirmed the dog is now safe in foster care, though she was badly dehydrated and had suffered some burns to her paws from the hot pavement.

Knowingly abandoning an animal without making arrangements for its care is illegal in Missouri. The sheriff’s office is continuing to investigate.

“Somebody knows this person, with all the views the video’s gotten,” Blake said. “I’ve got a feeling that at this point, this person knows she’s been caught.”

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Ginger went missing in August of 2015 in Burlington, IA, six hours plus from her home in the town of Ucross, WY.

She was Jennifer George’s dog, by way of her mom, who had passed away four months earlier.

The family was in town because George’s husband, BJ, was on a business trip. They’d decided to bring Ginger along rather than board her and the unthinkable happened. She broke away in the neighborhood where they’d been renting a house and disappeared.

George stayed behind for several days, looking. She posted online. But nothing ever came of the search. They didn’t know what happened to Ginger.

Fast-forward three years and Kandi Glick of the Des Moines County Regional Humane Society begins getting calls on a loose pup. The dog was elusive, but eventually, a trap baited with hot dogs did the trick. Glick captured the pup. What followed was a remarkable reunion….

“W

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When an injured dog showed up on their porch, this couple wasn’t sure what to do. They always told their grandkids to be careful around dogs they didn’t know, but it quickly became clear they had nothing to worry about.

Marvelous, sweet story from The Dodo.

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It takes a village to save a coonhound.

Lucky for Jake, the 7-year-old pupper found wandering the streets of Pennsylvania more than 2,000 miles from his Arizona home, such a village exists in the dog-loving rescue networks strung across the nation.

Jake, who had been missing since last year, was first happened-upon by Adam Herbaugh, who was walking his own two dogs at the time. Herbaugh took Jake to a local vet, where a microchip scan yielded the information to find his true home.

His owners were delighted; but chagrined. They couldn’t make the cross-country trip to get him. And so, the village stepped in to help.

Enter Renae Metz, president of A Darrah Bull Bully Rescue.

Metz told ABC News that the owners reached out via Facebook, asking for assistance in getting their dog home.

“My sister, Heather Shaw, is a transport coordinator [for A Darrah Bull Bully Rescue]. She used Facebook groups which consist of transport volunteers to coordinate Jake’s trip home,” Metz said.

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The group requested “qualified volunteers,” each of whom tackled different sections of the journey from Pennsylvania to Arizona. The three-day trip went from May 18 to 21, with Jake making lots of friends as he traveled — 20 volunteers, 30 stops and three kind folks who let Jake stay overnight along the way.

Eventually, Jake was reunited with his Dad, who took him the rest of the way home to his mom and brothers!
Amazing collaborative rescue tale!

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