MEET GINNY!
Formerly known as Geumbi), Ginny was found as a stray dog in downtown Gangneung, South Korea, and ended up at the overcrowded city animal shelter.
A small percentage of dogs in municipal animal shelters in South Korea, end up finding adopters locally. This is where the hard work that our rescue partners are doing. They are going from shelter to shelter, trying to rescue the dogs that are in danger of being euthanized.
Camp Cocker Rescue has struggled during the pandemic, to find local shelter dogs here in California, in need of rescue (that are smaller in size). The local California shelters are giving the general public first chance at adoption, as they should. The only small breed dogs we've been able to get from our local shelters in the last year have been either major medical or senior hospice dogs.
Our Freedom Flyer Rescue program may have literally saved us from having to close down our rescue group completely - because it has been the only consistent source for us to save small dogs.
Our rescue partners in South Korea, Korean K9 Rescue - saved Ginny, then got her fixed up. They spayed her and fully vaccinated her - and then she waited for her thirty day quarantine before she could travel.
Ginny’s travel day was long and stressful for her. She spent nearly twenty hours in a crate. Three hours for the advanced check in at the airport in Seoul. Then eleven and a half hours in the air. Then another five hours on the ground at LAX, waiting for customs to release her.
She was greeted by her American rescue volunteers, she didn't know the language, we were all in our face masks - yet she was cheerful and happy to see us and wagging her tail.
It really is unbelievable how resilient these dogs are, after all they've been through.
Ginny's adopters had applied to adopt a dog in February. SO many people have been applying that it must be frustrating for any applicants trying to find a small dog to adopt. But Ginny's adopters were patient and waited while we screened them (we have a thorough screening process, including a now virtual home safety check).
Once Ginny’s adopters were approved for adoption, they were so excited and could not wait to travel to southern California to meet Ginny. They drove six and a half hours to meet her, then spent a night in a motel and drove back home the next day with their new "daughter".
When they met her yesterday, there were so many emotions happening. If you could have been there, you might have been weepy yourself - just the overwhelming amount of love these adopters have for Ginny, and they only just met her.
Ginny's new name is now going to be Penny and her fresh start in life is only because so many of you support our Freedom Flyer program.
Since the pandemic, the airline rates for cargo have gone up sixty percent and we are now paying an average of $1150 per dog to bring them here (and we just heard that another surcharge fee that we pay at LAX is about to go up soon).
More expense is incurred with the medical vetting that we provide for our Freedom Flyer dogs upon their arrival. Beyond that initial vetting, additional medical attention is provided as it’s needed. We recently rescued, for example, a three and a half legged little dog that is going to start physical therapy and we are inquiring to see if he is a candidate for a custom prosthetic leg.
We've had critics for taking in international dogs and mostly those are people that don't understand the current rescue climate in the states. There are only a finite number of adopters that can take on a large breed dog and the large breeds are the ones still in danger in U.S. shelters.
There are many many good adopters that want to adopt a rescue dog, but for various reasons, are not in a position to adopt a large breed dog. We are filling a need for those good adopters to have an opportunity to adopt a small breed dog, rather than go to a breeder.
We are all animal lovers here at Camp Cocker and we feel that compassion has no borders. If a South Korean homeless dog in need has adoption opportunities here in the states, why would we turn our backs on them?
We try to raise the funding for our Freedom Flyer program separately from general donations that go towards saving local American dogs. If you would like to make a small donation today towards dogs like Ginny and the future Freedom Flyer dogs that are counting on us to change their lives, please consider making a small donation today here:
https://donorbox.org/help-save-the-south-korea-dogs
No donation is too small, even $5 can have an impact!
Thank you so much to everyone that supports dogs like Ginny.
