Peggy led us inside. A dog came up to us immediately, though slowly—a waddling dachshund whose muzzle was gray despite the darkness of the rest of his coat.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said, kneeling to pet him. The little hound waggled all over, obviously happy with the attention.
“That’s Ignatz,” Peggy said. “He was our first rescue, so he’s kinda like our mascot.”
With a final hug and a pat on Ignatz’s head, I stood again. I was interested to see that the floor was of irregular tile—probably easy to clean, but also helpful in keeping an unsteady dog like Ignatz from slipping. The entryway was small and, except for the archway through which Ignatz headed, surrounded by doors.
Peggy led us to the closest door on the left—and knocked before turning the knob and opening it.
The room looked more like a parlor than an office, with comfy chairs in a burgundy and deep forest green plaid scattered all around. There was a desk, and that’s where the woman who now approached had been seated, but it was small, positioned unobtrusively in a corner.
An attractive room, yes. Appropriate for a very special pet shelter? Well, maybe, if it helped to keep Bella in the right frame of mind to take the best care of all her charges.
Now that I could see her close up, Bella appeared to be near my age and Carlie’s—mid-forties, which indicated she was sufficiently mature to take on the high-stress responsibilities that were now hers. That was a good thing. She was also as attractive as Carlie. My good friend is slim enough to look right at home on TV, with blond hair that skims her shoulders and well-defined facial features.
I admire her but am glad I don’t have to go out of my
way to impress people with my looks—which fortunately aren’t too bad anyway. I’m fairly well preserved for a forty-something woman, with a pleasant face and black hair cut into a short cap so I don’t have to pay much attention to it.
Bella Frankovick was even more model-like than Carlie, with long brown hair, lovely blue eyes emphasized by perfect makeup and curved brows, and full lips that didn’t appear to have the ugly plump that suggested collagen enhancement. Which was interesting, if true, since her ex-husband was a cosmetic surgeon.
I had done my research before coming here. Not that I had to do much digging. For anyone who watches just regular TV news, and not even those paparazzi-driven celebrity reality shows, it would have been hard to avoid seeing something about their difficult divorce.
“Thank you for coming,” Bella said in a delightful British accent, her large smile revealing—of course—perfect teeth. She wore a denim work shirt that said
SAVE THEM ALL SANCTUARY
on the chest, over slimming blue jeans. She shook first my hand, then Carlie’s, as we introduced ourselves. “I’d love to chat with you, but I’ll bet you’d like a tour first.” Her quizzical expression raised her perfect brows.
“Absolutely,” I said and Carlie agreed.
As we exited the office, I let Carlie take the lead, walking beside Bella and asking questions. They’d no doubt work out a symbiotic relationship of sorts. Carlie could provide not only veterinary care but promotion of this facility, too, which could bring in both substantial donations and needy residents. Bella could provide a wonderful topic for one or more of Carlie’s upcoming shows.
I had a purpose for being here that could also help Bella. I had a lot of contacts within the pet rescue community. If I liked this new facility, I’d get the word out. Between my acquaintances and me, we could help Bella keep Save’Em filled. Maybe even send potential adopters her way, but that could be difficult. The kinds of pets she was taking in were largely unadoptable—or at least less likely to be chosen over puppies and kittens and fully healthy adult animals.
“Please come this way.” Bella led us into the entry area and toward the open archway through which Ignatz had disappeared.
Peggy emerged from another door. “Want me to staff the entry?” she asked Bella.
“Oh, yes, please, dear,” Bella responded, her smile appearing grateful. Interesting, that despite her elite background and power here at Save’Em, she seemed like a genuinely nice person. At least so far.
As we went through the arch, we emerged into a huge, two-tiered room with an upper balcony perched above the lower floor. Each level appeared to be lined with kennels much larger than those we had at HotRescues—large enough to accommodate the staff members inside who were attending to one or more dogs.
“The people who help me here are wonderful,” Bella said. “Though we’re new, I’ve enlisted both staff and volunteers. They all go through a tremendous vetting process to ensure that they not only love animals but will do everything required to take care of them.”
We stopped at the first enclosure. Inside were two senior women. They sat on plastic stools on the tile working with three dogs that seemed equally elderly for their species.
One dog appeared mostly Basset hound, another was a small golden Lab. The third had ancestry I couldn’t guess but he had long and floppy ears and a relatively short muzzle.
The women teased their charges with rawhide bones and gave commands to sit, lie down, and more. The dogs obliged, acting quite lively considering how aged they looked.
“Are they as senior as they appear to be?” I asked Bella.
I didn’t think I’d spoken very loudly, but even so, “Yes, for all of us,” cried the nearest of the women inside the enclosure. The other one laughed as their canine charges continued to play at their feet.
“Then I applaud all of you,” I said, and both Carlie and I clapped. The woman who’d spoken wore a black shirt that read
SAVE’EM STAFF
, and the other wore a red volunteer shirt that matched the one Peggy had on. The staff member stood, bowed, and used a treat to get one of the aging dogs to dance on his hind legs with surprising ease.
“As I said, I have a good group of people who come here to help,” Bella said. “They are appreciative of the dogs who show them that getting older, for one’s species, does not mean one should give up and feel sorry for oneself.”
“And they show the dogs something similar,” Carlie pointed out as we walked away from the enclosure. “I’ve learned, working with animals, that so many are highly perceptive. They may not fully understand our spoken language, but our body language can be interpreted by a lot of them. A person who’s a bit stiffer than the kids who come here can still play, and I’m sure your senior dogs recognize that on some level, right?”
“Absolutely,” Bella responded.
We had reached another enclosure, as large as the first, with the ubiquitous tile floor, and a big plastic-and-metal crate at the rear with towels fluffed up in its base. This kennel had only one dog in it, an apparent Rottweiler mix with sagging jowls and lots of graying fur edging the black-and-red coloration of his face.
He ran up to the fencing and nosed at it, as if he wanted us to pet him. I glanced at Bella for permission.
She nodded. “Dolph could use some attention.” I went inside for a love fest of licks and hugs and nose-butting. I laughed as I played with him, enjoying every minute of it.
But I did exit after a few minutes. There were other dogs to visit, other parts of the shelter to see.
When I’d carefully latched the kennel behind me, Bella petted Dolph through the mesh gate. “Poor fellow was kept outside in his owner’s yard,” she said. “Lived there, I gather, for eight years, with his only shelter a drafty doghouse—until a neighbor who moved in next door had a young Lab that liked to jump. He got over the fence and attacked Dolph, who fought back and … well, the Lab survived but Dolph’s owners dumped him at a public shelter. I hated that story—so unfair to poor Dolph—and so I took him in.”
“Poor Dolph,” I echoed. “Before. But he seems to be doing well now.”
We continued walking through the kennel area. Save’Em’s facility was as huge inside as it had looked from the exterior, clean and attractive and filled with kennel enclosures. Not all were occupied—a good thing, since I’d already decided to make my contacts at the Southern California
Rescuers Web site aware that Save’Em was open for business for special-needs pets.
And we hadn’t even reached the area where the neediest were.
Before we got to the end of the kennel area, a man with glasses and a distracted look on his flushed, narrow face walked up to us, hands filled with papers. “Oh, sorry, Bella,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were showing people around.”
“I’ll stop in your office and talk to you just as soon as I can, Kip,” she told him. To Carlie and me she said, “This is Kip Schaley, Save’Em’s accountant and my excellent financial advisor.” The smile she turned on him was warm and made his complexion redden even more.
“Hi,” he said to Carlie and me. “Catch you later, Bella.” He turned and strode away.
I didn’t need to ask about the funding for Save’Em. From the little I’d made myself listen to on TV, I’d gathered that Bella had extracted herself from her marriage with enough money to keep her and an awful lot of needy animals in food and shelter for a long time—maybe. Apparently she and her ex were still at odds about it, though, or so the media vultures claimed.
The probability of her having sufficient funds gave us something else in common. HotRescues, the shelter where I’m head administrator, is well funded, too. Not by me, certainly. I’m a single parent with two kids. And, now, I have a wonderful dog, Zoey, as my pet-in-chief.
But I’m fortunate to run the shelter that Dante DeFrancisco started. He’s the CEO of HotPets, a really successful chain of retail pet stores. He’s rich. And he gives a lot back to animals.
We continued along the inside kennel area past some unoccupied enclosures, then up to the second floor, which was mostly empty. Bella next took us outside to a separate building housing aging felines in three well-furnished cat rooms. Red-shirted volunteers sat on the floor giving the kitties attention and love. These volunteers were much younger, on the whole, than the people socializing the dogs.
Then Bella said, “I’ve been saving the best for last.”
We walked along the blacktopped path back to the main building. Bella took us in through a rear door.
There, the kennels were moderate sized, but they were plushly furnished with pillows and even more toys, along with the standard towel-filled crates. It was apparently an attempt to make the residents as comfortable as humanly possible, and I was impressed.
“Here’s where our special-needs residents are housed.” Bella looked at Carlie. “I particularly want your opinion, Dr. Stellan. I watch your
Pet Fitness
TV show all the time, and I was especially interested in the one not long ago where you featured that company in the eastern U.S. that manufactures prosthetics and other equipment to help make handicapped dogs and their owners’ lives better. I loved it! Any suggestions you can make here …”
“I’d be delighted.” Carlie smiled at Bella.
“And … well, I’d thought I had my veterinary situation here established, but I am looking for a new one, as it turns out. I would love to give your clinic a try.”
“Who am I to turn down business?” Carlie’s grin widened.
“For regular fees,” I added, in case Bella thought Carlie would donate her skills and those of the other vets at The Fittest Pet Veterinary Clinic.
“Of course.” Bella nodded her head so her long hair skimmed lower along her work shirt. “I want the best care possible, and I’m willing to pay for it.”
Good. We were all in sync—and I liked Bella Frankovick. I liked her Save’Em attitude and her practicality.
I liked her, and her facility, even more when she introduced us to a few of her special-needs animals.
In a feline room along one side, there was one cat who was totally blind and another who had a spinal defect that made her back curve oddly.
One dog was deaf. Another was three-legged.
A third, a Basset hound mix, had no control over his back legs at all and just dragged them behind him.
“It’s difficult to keep poor Nifty clean,” Bella said, “but I’ve wondered whether one of those gadgets on wheels that was on your show could help him, Carlie.”
“We can give it a try.” Carlie looked wistful, the way she sometimes gets when seeing an animal she really wants to help but isn’t sure how much good she can do.
That’s one of the reasons we’re such good friends. I adore her for caring so much.
She broke the spell a bit when she asked Bella, “How would you feel about my featuring Save’Em on a
Pet Fitness
show? I’d enjoy telling the world what you’re doing here. I love it!”
“That makes two of us,” I added. “You’ve got a completely different business plan here from HotRescues, and I suspect it will work wonderfully. The more you let people know about it, the more contributions will be made to help you out.”
“I hope so.” Bella looked down at the floor as if bashful to admit she could use the donations. “I’ve got some resources, but of course they are not endless, even if … Well, it’s just so important to me to take good care of all these poor animals. Save’Em won’t be able to take in every senior pet, or all those with special needs, but I’ll bring in all I can. I hope to find new homes for as many as possible, especially if we can rehabilitate some of those with physical issues. If publicity helps with contributions, then I’ll do what I must.”
She looked quizzically at Carlie, who nodded. “We’ll work out a time soon for me to come and film here.”
A short while later, we walked through the door from the special-needs area back into the regular kennel facility. “We’ll also work out a time in the next day or so for me to give all the residents a cursory vet check,” Carlie said to Bella. “If you could e-mail me the records first, that would be helpful. I’ll bring along a few of my colleagues, too. Just give me a call.” She reached into the large purse she always carried and pulled a business card out of one of the pockets. “I’ll be in touch anyway, once I get some things lined up for the filming.”
“Delightful.” As Bella took Carlie’s card, a cell phone rang. It was apparently hers. She reached into her pocket, then frowned after looking at the caller ID.