Routes of Rescue: The Unseen World of Dog Transport

How vulnerable shelter animals from poor and rural areas of the American south are transported to wealthier areas of the north for adoption

In the American south, many animal shelters are overcrowded and underresourced, with the number of animals greatly exceeding the number of available homes. Meanwhile, the northern states face the opposite problem—too many adopters and not enough adoptable animals. And every year, a network of largely unpaid animal rescuers moves tens of thousands of vulnerable shelter animals, mostly dogs, from the south to the north, where eager humans pay hundreds of dollars to adopt animals that could not be given away for free in the south. In Routes of Rescue, Lori Jervis and Laura Bray tell the story of this little-known rescue operation, examining how transport became a life-saving strategy for southern shelter animals, what drives the small band of rescuers who do this work, and what the consequences are for rescuers, animals, and society.

Jervis and Bray talk to animal rescuers in both south and north, from volunteers who ferry animals in the back seats of their cars to national organizations with paid staff and sophisticated transportation technologies. They visit animal shelters, spay and neuter clinics, and transport operations in progress. At the heart of their account is the finding that southern rescuers envy northern culture, which they believe treats animals as family rather than disposable property. Jervis and Bray argue that the problem is more complex than that, involving money, politics, and a relinquishing of responsibility for animal welfare by municipalities and states—all of which raise broader questions about what it means for society to live humanely with companion animals and what it means for both people and pets to live precariously.