By Anne Neville
The Buffalo News
When Alicia Zeitz of Newfane agreed to foster a dog that had been left tied to a stop sign in Ohio with her tiny pups in a box next to her, she may have thought she was saving a dog.
She had no idea that the dog would save her house.
But a few days before Christmas, that’s just what Grace did.
After dinner that night, Zeitz threw in a load of laundry, then sat down to relax with her fiance, Mark McCabe, and children Emily Cyrus, 8, and Joshua McCabe, 3. Suddenly Grace “went into a tizzy,” says Zeitz. The short-legged black dog raced up and down the stairs to the basement, ran up to the family and “made this little grumble,” then ran off to the basement again. “When we didn’t pay much attention to her, she started barking. She would bark at us, and then run downstairs and bark in the basement.”
“We said, ‘What is wrong with her?’ ” says Zeitz. “We said, ‘This dog is crazy; she’s hyper!’ ”
“Then my daughter said she could smell smoke in her room,” says Zeitz, who, along with McCabe, is a volunteer firefighter with the Olcott Volunteer Fire Co. They checked the electrical outlets, then realized that Grace knew exactly where the fire was. Downstairs, they found the basement filling with smoke from a burnt-out washing machine motor.
“We couldn’t see any flames, but there was a ton of smoke,” which had not yet reached the smoke detector at the top of the basement stairs, says Zeitz. “Grace caught it before the smoke detector did.”
They pulled the washer’s plug from the outlet, opened the washing machine and extinguished the fire. Then they realized what had just happened.
“We said, ‘Wait a minute, Grace just saved the house,’ ” says Zeitz. “If she hadn’t been here, who knows how much farther it could have gone? My daughter smelled the smoke in her room, but Grace smelled it first.”
With that protective instinct, Grace got herself a permanent home.
“We had talked about adopting her beforehand, but after that we decided she wasn’t going anywhere, she’s our guardian angel,” says Zeitz.
Grace was just the latest of about 100 dogs and puppies that Zeitz has fostered in the past two years as a volunteer with Akron Canine Rescued Angels, a 501(c)3 rescue organization that was started by Beverlee Richards in November 2008.
All of the animals cared for by Akron Canine Rescued Angels live in foster homes, with about 10 people in the region — from Niagara Falls to Dunkirk — caring for homeless dogs until they can be adopted, says Richards.
“We can only save as many dogs as we have foster homes for,” says Richards.
So far, that’s a pretty substantial number. The group has accepted and placed 825 dogs since it began, with 266 finding homes last year alone.
Some dogs come from Alabama and Ohio on transports, with volunteer drivers handing off the dogs to each other along the way. But “we also help a whole lot of local dogs,” says Richards, who is assistant animal control officer for Newstead.
The group provides food, crates, dishes and all the needs of each dog, with fosters being asked only to provide affection and care. Dogs are temperament-tested before being placed, and volunteers are allowed to choose the dog or type of dog they would like to foster.
Zeitz is among Richards’ best fosters for litters of pups and nursing mothers, says Richards. “She is good at that,” Richards says. “Face it, puppies are a pain, and not everybody can take them because they might be at work all day. Alicia is a wonderful foster.”
“I am open to any kind of dog — if it needs a home, I’ll take it,” says Zeitz.
Saying goodbye to a foster dog was more difficult in the beginning, “but you know they are going to a loving family and they are going to be safe,” Zeitz says. More important, the adoption opens up space in her home for another needy dog who might otherwise be euthanized in a high-kill out-of-state shelter.
Although she has fostered many dogs, Zeitz says that from the start, there was something special about Grace, who has the stocky body and short legs of a corgi.
“When I picked her up, I didn’t put her in the crate, I let her ride in the front of the car with me, and she climbed onto the center console and put her head on my shoulder and that’s where she stayed for the entire car trip home,” says Zeitz. “There was almost an instant connection with her.”
In the house, Grace “settled in almost immediately,” says Zeitz. The dog liked cuddling with the youngsters and allowed the family to play with her four pups, which had all been given Christmas names. “Grace didn’t have a care in the world,” says Zeitz. The four pups were all adopted when they were old enough to leave their mother.
Despite adding Grace to the family permanently, Zeitz has continued to foster. She is currently caring for Chip, an 8-month-old black Lab mix who was born in Alabama and spent the first six months of his life in a vet clinic crate. “He’s very shy,” says Zeitz. “He was even terrified of the TV. But he’s being cared for by Alicia and he needs a home now.”
Zeitz says, “A lot of people have this image that shelter dogs or dogs in rescue are all bad, that they’re in the rescue because they did something wrong, and that is totally not the case. It’s the same with Rottweilers and pit bulls. A lot of people have the image that they are nasty dogs. We have a saying, ‘Judge the deed, not the breed,’ because it’s all in how they are raised.”
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