Faison woman finds peace in rescue animal transport

The plight of neglected, mistreated, and unwanted animals is heart-tugging, and for one Faison-area woman it was a call to action. Eight years ago, Michelle McClymonds-Spencer began volunteering with the rescue of dogs and cats and has finally settled into her niche as an animal transporter.

Her interest in animal rescue was first piqued when she started following the Sampson County Animal Shelter’s Facebook page, and she began volunteering with that shelter. “Eventually, after Covid, I transitioned over and started helping the Duplin shelter,” she says.

At this point, rather than working directly with a particular shelter, she is part of a large network of volunteers who coordinate with one another mostly through Facebook and email, individuals and rescue groups working together, trying to move animals from shelters to foster homes or, ideally, to permanent homes. She likens the network to the Underground Railroad, in that trusting relationships are formed between widespread strangers who are striving toward a common goal.

Her initial involvement with animal rescue was in providing both short-term and long-term foster care for animals awaiting adoption. One foster situation, involving a cattle dog mix named Suzy, led to McClymonds-Spencer’s realization that long-term fostering wasn’t for her. “I had the dog for probably two months,” she recalls. “And at a certain point, she needed to go; she was becoming too comfortable in our house, and I knew that eventually she was going to have to leave.”

The problem, she says, was that her own pets — two cats, a German Shepherd, and a bullie mix (part pit bull and part bulldog); all rescues — were becoming too attached to Suzy, and she knew that the longer Suzy stayed, the harder it would be for them when she left. The rescue organization in Virginia involved in Suzy’s case found another foster home for her until a permanent home could be found.

“I say there’s a level of crazy involved in animal rescue,” says McClymonds-Spencer, “and I put it on a scale of one to five. I try to stay at a one, which is: it disrupts my life, but it doesn’t take over my life. And then there’s a five…[those people] are completely obsessed.”

She has found that the way in which she is able to stay at a “one” is by specializing in animal transport; in most cases, someone from a rescue group (the in-state rescue organizations McClymonds-Spencer works with are primarily located in cities, like Wilmington, Raleigh and Greensboro) will contact her directly and ask her to pick up one or more animals from the Duplin shelter in Kenansville and take them to a short- or long-term foster home or to a boarding facility that will hold them until they are placed in a forever home.

“The farthest I’ve ever transported, I went all the way to Fairfax, Virginia, one time,” she remembers.

She has helped with transports that were even longer. In one instance, she picked up a dog from the Duplin shelter, took it to Kinston to be examined by a veterinarian, kept the dog overnight at her home, and then took it to Durham, where she surrendered it to another transporter. Eventually, through a series of transports, the dog found its way to a rescue organization in Wisconsin.

How a rescue group in Wisconsin became interested in a dog in Duplin County goes back to Facebook and the role social media plays in helping to save animals. A post — including a picture of the animal and any available, pertinent information — gets shared many times over, and rescue groups (which are often dedicated to certain breeds) will take an interest in a particular animal, or — best-case scenario — an individual or family will find the perfect pet.

Embracing Facebook’s wide reach, McClymonds-Spencer created a page with the name “Animal Allies of Sampson County NC,” and this page is dedicated solely to re-sharing posts from the Sampson County Animal Shelter Facebook page. “Here’s something [helpful] I can do that doesn’t cause me any emotional distress,” she says, adding, “One of the big challenges in rescue is, it can tear your heart out. Sometimes you have to protect your own mental health.”

Since becoming involved in animal rescue, she has her own observations regarding which animals are easiest to find homes for and which are hardest. “The little dogs, they’re adopted immediately,” she says. “People want little dogs. The ones that sit in the shelters, particularly around here, are hound mixes, ‘pittie’ mixes (or ‘bullie’ breeds), lab mixes. Those are the main ones. Because they’re a dime a dozen.”

Continuing, she notes, “They’re anywhere from 35 to 65 pounds. They’re all brown. There’s nothing distinctive about them.”

She stresses that the way a dog or cat appears in a picture has a big impact on its chances of being adopted, and for that reason, black animals — because it’s tougher to get a good photo of them — tend to remain longer in shelters. “There are actual animal rescues dedicated to adopting black animals,” she adds.

There are ways in which the public can help prevent so many animals from ending up in shelters, according to McClymonds-Spencer. “Every time there’s a dog movie that talks about a particular breed, everybody wants that breed,” she says. “And so everybody goes out and gets this dog whether it’s a good fit for them or not.” Six months later, she contends, they see that the dog really is not a good fit for their family, so off to a shelter it goes. When getting a dog, she emphasizes that people should ask themselves lots of questions ahead of time: Does this dog like to run, and, if so, do we have a fenced-in yard? Will this dog get along with our other pets? Does this dog do well with children?

Of course, she stresses, the ultimate solution is “to spay and neuter.”

McClymonds-Spencer points out that there is a lot of turnover in animal rescue. Rescue organizations run out of money. Individuals suffer from burnout.

Finding her niche as a transporter is helping her avoid that burnout. She’s able to take the skill set she acquired while serving in the navy and, later, working in the corporate world — skills related to logistics and organization — and use that to help animals, while also enriching her own life.

“Here’s what I like about transporting,” she muses. “When I’m driving, and I have a good bunch of dogs… and the weather’s nice, and I’m by myself, just me and the dogs, they’re all sleeping, I’ve got the Spa music going [on Sirius XM], and I’m just driving out in the country — that’s where I find my peace.”