An award-winning journalist from Long Valley, N.J., Kim Kavin also opens her home and heart to foster dogs from Lulu's Rescue. With Blue and her 16th foster puppy romping in the background, Kavin took few moments to talk to us about her new book, Little Boy Blue, attending BookExpo America with Blue, and all things dog rescue.
How did you feel when you learned that gassing pounds exist in our country today?
It was a stunned-silence moment of disbelief. Later, after I learned more about it, my emotion changed to disgust. It's horrifying, absolutely horrifying, not just that the gas chambers existed, but that this puppy I adopted had been headed for one. People where I'm from don't have a general concept that this is going on. We are clueless about this.
What made you decide to go see the gassing pounds in the Carolinas for yourself?
I wanted to know where my dog was from. Most of Blue's playmates at the dog park are from the South. When you ask people, "What kind of dog is that?", they say, "It's a rescue dog from Tennessee, or Georgia, or North Carolina." They don't know the backstory. For me, there were glimmers: that Blue had a rash, that he'd had bleach put on his rash, and the gas chamber was also mentioned to me. I'm a naturally curious person.
My literary agent sits with a rescue dog at her side. I asked her, "Have you ever heard of this going on?" She said no, and we thought there was a story. It was partly personal and partly my instinct that the story needed to be ferreted out and told.
Tell us about your experiences with fostering rescue dogs.
It's gotten easier to give them up [to adopters] because I try to keep my eye on the big picture. In my house, there's this wonderful puppy, but in my mind's eye, I see all the dogs I met in shelters down South who, if I keep this pipeline open, might get out and get homes. I see it as a responsibility not to adopt because there's another dog who's going to get killed tomorrow if we don't keep the pipeline open.
Having foster puppies around is a great thing when you're sad or having a hard time. They just make you happy. I think it's been as rewarding for me as for them, and I'm going to keep doing it.
We hear Blue did a book signing with you at BookExpo America.
He did. I had never been to BookExpo America. It's at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. The place is an airport: it's huge! Blue had never been in a city. I talked to our long-time trainer Shelly Clawson. She told me to buy him a bed. I had it embroidered with "Little Boy Blue" and kept it around the house. I always put treats or bones in it, and Blue learned it was a happy place. We put his bed in the booth at BEA, and he sat and let literally a thousand people pet him.
We had two incidents where he got spooked. There was a woman in a motorized wheelchair, and Blue had never seen one. I said, "He's never seen one of those before. Would you help me teach him it's okay?" She gave him treats, and he let her pet him and kissed her hand.
There also was a man with a large walking cane in each hand and jerky body motions. Blue jumped back, and before I could say a word, the man threw his canes down and said, "I'm so sorry, Blue! I didn't mean to scare you." This man was standing in the middle of the room, and I didn't know what to do because he couldn't walk without his canes! But the way people reacted to Blue shows that people care about dogs, and those two moments made my day.
I have some book signings lined up for September, and a few of them want Blue to be there and will have adoptable rescue dogs there as well.
What message do you want people to take away from Little Boy Blue?
I'm a big believer that the first step toward creating change is education. You have to shine a light in the dark corners and show people what's going on. It was my great hope to make Little Boy Blue the kind of book that people would actually read. This topic can be off-putting. People might think it's a book full of sadness and horror, but it's not. You're coming along with me as I go on a journey, and you're learning about American life as it affects dogs today.
What can concerned individuals do to help with the world of rescue?
Number one, pass your copy of Little Boy Blue along. Educate, educate, educate.
Number two, if you have a dog, spay or neuter your dog. I was told again and again that the problem is not strays. It is people who have dogs and allow them to breed endlessly and hand over box after box of puppies like Blue into these shelters to be killed. It's insanity.
Number three, if you choose to bring a dog into your family, please consider adopting instead of paying to have more dogs bred. It makes no sense to me that we have a thriving dog breeding industry in this country at the same time that we're killing 14,000 animals a day in these shelters. If you're not ready to adopt permanently, consider fostering. It's a wonderful way to help the dogs who are trapped in the system, to learn more about rescue, and to learn more about dogs. --Jaclyn Fulwood