The Los Cabos Humane Society has made great strides in improving  the lives of the animals of Los Cabos. This region of Mexico has many more pets than available homes.

At any given time, The Los Cabos Humane Society has between 50-70 dogs that they need to find homes for.  New dogs in need are found every day.

Through great effort, they were able to find homes for over 400 animals last year.  This is a small percentage of the number they took in. 

The LCHS has identified the root of problem and implemented a comprehensive spay/neuter program. Last year, they spayed or neutered 4,458 animals. The LCHS has a surgery room on wheels that goes into the barrios to provide low-cost services to people who love their animals but can't afford to have them fixed.

An unspayed female dog can have dozens of puppies in her lifetime. Each spay/neuter keeps these dozens of dogs out of the shelter.  

The Los Cabos Humane Society also has a humane education program that shares information in schools, at businesses and at the adoption center, teaching people how to take care of their pets. 

Rescue Faerie works directly with the shelter to bring back dogs for our program. LCHS ensures that all dogs headed north have been quarantined to eliminate the spread of disease. Each dog is also spayed or neutered and receives most of their vaccinations. 

LCHS gets to know the animals in their care, and volunteers from Rescue Faerie and LCHS select the pets that have the best possible chance of being adopted in the Pacific Northwest.

In Portland, our shelters have very low euthanasia rates, so low that most shelters can bring animals in from California and the rural areas of Washington and Oregon and Idaho. 

 Many of the dogs that Rescue Faerie works with are under 40 lbs. We can travel with more small dogs than big dogs, enabling us to save more dogs at a time. 

There are people in the Pacific Northwest who want a smaller dog, but because there's a relatively small amount available at local shelters, they resign themselves to buying a dog instead.  We work to remedy that situation. 

Our dogs are usually mutts. We have all kinds: fluffly mutts, wirey mutts, dogs where it's easy to see the breed, and dogs we have to guess at. 

These dogs (and sometimes cats) are loaded into airplane-safe kennels and escorted to the airport by Rescue Faerie volunteers. The dogs fly to Portand on commercial airlines, go through customs and then volunteers drive them to a LexiDog Day Care for intake. 

At intake, each dog is photographed, and is initially assessed for behavior and grooming condition and medical condition.  The dogs eat dinner and go for a little walk and then settle down for the night. 

In the next few days, each dog will go to the vet and get a complete check-up. Dogs that need grooming services will see a groomer for a puppy cut.  

Rescue Faerie volunteers feed, walk and play with the dogs three times a day until they are adopted.  We pay attention to the behavior and personality of each dog, taking careful notes, so that by the time a dog is meeting potential families, we know enough about him or her to find the family that is the right fit. Also, we can tell the new family important information that will help them integrate the new dog into their home. 

When the dogs are ready for homes, their profile is uploaded to Petfinder.com and applications start to come in. 

The adoption counselors review each application and identify which potential adopters look and feel like the best fit. 

Our application is long and detailed because we want to know as much about a potential adopter as we can, so that we find the right dog for the adopter and the right adopter for the dog. 

Rescue Faerie adoption counselors seek the right fit based on the dog and the applications. If none of the applications are right, we wait. If no applications come in right away, we wait. These dogs are in our care until they are adopted. 

Adoption counselors set up interviews for potential adopters to meet with a dog, and to talk over the needs of the dog and the needs of the adopter. 

We do in-home visits, for some of the potential families.

If all goes well. we've made a match and the dog is adopted. 

Rarely, a dog and an adoptive family are not the perfect fit that we assumed. Rescue Faerie is dedicated to each dog we bring in. If a dog and a family don't work out, we take the dog back, and find it a new home. 

At Rescue Faerie, our dogs go on a long journey from shelter dog to Portland to our rescue facility to their forever homes.  We're with them every step of the way, dedicated to finding the best home for each of our dogs.