Road Trip to Save Lives

Three-part blog series on a lifesaving transport

While working at the ASPCA in July 2014, I volunteered to deploy with as part of a two-person team transporting six dogs rescued from one of the largest dog fighting raids in U.S. history to partner shelters across the country. My role was to be a handler for the dogs, but I suggested using this trip as an opportunity to show another side of our Field Investigation and Rescue (FIR) team’s work and tell a shareable, feel-good story that would be popular on social media.

My concept was a blog series highlighting the dogs and our partner shelters, complete with a map showing our travels over the week, called the #FreedomDogs transport. I worked with our Editorial and Creative teams to develop the graphics and story structure.

The FIR directors were apprehensive about telling a real-time story due to the security concerns regarding the case. We usually share the facts of a raid when the news first breaks and “Happy Tails” of adoption afterwards, but all of their work in between is a story we didn’t often tell. As a compromise, we suggested a two-day delay from our current location for each part of the blog series.

In addition to my dog handling and cleaning responsibilities, I took photos and videos, secured photo releases, drafted blog posts, and created a Facebook album.

Blog Series

After the series, the FIR team reached out to thank me for the innovative and creative approach I took reporting on our transport, which helped generate public excitement for each dog that arrived at our rescue partner organizations. Our arrival at one shelter was even greeted by a camera crew from the local news.

Being able to share this story was a truly rewarding and inspiring experience that gave me a greater understanding of our work as an organization. A couple of highlights I shared on social media include capturing Mabel joyfully rolling in the grass at Great Plains SPCA and Nightwing, who was too terrified to even walk outside of the trailer, take his first steps and begin to show his true personality at the Humane Society of Tulsa.