By Linda F. Jarrett
When Randy Grim was five and living in Washington, D.C., he rescued a stray Irish Setter from a raging snowstorm. That was the beginning.
“He was skin and bones, and I put him in front of the fire,” he says, scratching the head of “Goober,” a pit bull he rescued from the debris of Hurricane Gustav. “He lived for 17 years.”
Now, with his “doo rag” and ball cap, Grim seems to be sitting in the “dogbird” seat, so to speak. Last May, his Stray Rescue received a $1 million grant from Zootoo.com’s first National Makeover Contest, beating out almost 1,000 other entries.
In September and October, Zootoo was in St. Louis, filming the makeover which was completed October 31 with an airdate to be announced later. For Grim, this does not come easily. He shuns the limelight, preferring to take care of his animals.
This from a shy fellow who decided to become a flight attendant so he could “see the world.” He realized that was not the job for him when he began rescuing dogs from other cities and countries, and smuggling them back in the airplane bathrooms and any other space he could find.
“I even had the pilots and other attendants in on it,” he says. “I knew I was going to be fired, so I quit,” he says. “I thought there had to be more to life than ‘Chicken or beef?’”
At that time, he was living in Lafayette Square, “and I had to find a job fast. I had a friend who was a vet and he needed a groomer, so he asked me.”
He did not take to grooming, but he did find packs of wild dogs running in the area.
“I called the Humane Society and they wouldn’t get them, and neither would Animal Control. They said they would just kill them anyway,” Grim says. “I thought there must be someone out there who cares about the street dogs.”
So he fashioned a lure by putting chicken on the end of a fishing line, and enticed the strays into his shop.
“People thought I had the busiest grooming shop in the world,” he says. “But it was really full of stray animals!”
His family, concerned with what they thought was an obsession, held an intervention.
“I went to this wine bar and there they all were,” he says. “They thought I had a problem. It wasn’t drugs or alcohol, but they said, ‘Randy, none of us want to be around you, because all you ever do is try to palm dogs off on us!”
The intervention did not take, because on his way home, he rescued another dog, Big Boy.
The incident, however, did upset him and he called a good friend, Gaynell Gallagher, who worked at Husch & Eppenberger. She convinced him to change his one-man operation into a charity.
In 1998, Grim took his savings, bought a small building and started Stray Rescue.
After an article “Dead Dogs Walking” appeared in the Riverfront Times,
St. Martin’s Press approached Grim about writing a book, “The Man Who Talks
To Dogs.”
Then came the incident that really thrust Grim into the news—Quentin, The Miracle Dog.
Quentin, a basenji-pit bull mix, was put, along with eight other dogs, into the gas chamber at the Humane Society. After the allotted time, when the door opened, there stood Quentin, wagging his tail and happy to see someone.
“They called me and asked me if I would take him, and I said, ‘Of course!’ I had no idea it would become an international story. People Magazine, The Today Show, so many others,” he says.
For someone who is inherently shy, this kind of publicity, while helping Grim’s cause, put him to the test.
“It was hard,” he says, giving Goober who was licking his hand, another scratch behind the ears. “But the cool thing is, Quentin and I are together—The Man Who Talks to Dogs and The Miracle Dog. What were the odds of him and me ending up together? I’m not a religious person, but God put him on this earth to wake people up, and I think that’s why I’m on this planet.”
Now Quentin flies first class across the country, educating children about the plight of street dogs, and what a good thing it is to adopt instead of buying breeder dogs.
“You’re saving a life by doing that,”
Grim says.
ZOOTOO.COM TO THE RESCUE
Zootoo founder Richard Thompson said Randy “is a very unique individual. All the shelter managers in this country are unique for sure, but Randy stands out. He has that personality and drive.”
“Being able to take his time, talent energy and resources to go out after the estimated 40,000 dogs running wild around the city, rehabilitate them, and get them back to good health and into loving homes takes a special individual,” he says.
A.G. Edwards (now Wachovia) donated the 16,500-square-foot building at 2320 Pine St. Zootoo hired ISC Contracting for construction and Gray Design Group as architect, demolished the inside, and completed the makeover.
Thompson says having the location close to the downtown area is a plus. “It’s not by an airport or a sewer plant. It’s easily accessible to people and will be part of the downtown community.”
The name will even have a nice sound. Animal Center.
“It doesn’t have the connotation of a down-on-your-luck place like ‘shelter’ does,” he says. This will be a place for a school to take kids for a field trip, a great place for kids to come to.”
Grim says he plans for the Center to house five different groups—Pound Pals which does free or low cost spay/neutering, Cat Network, Operation Spot, and Metro Animal Resources.
“You should be able to come to the Animal Center and find information on apartments that takes dogs,” he says. “We want to be the place to come for education and information in addition to adopting animals, or if someone wants to do a class on animal rescue and care.”
“I found out it doesn’t take a village,” he says. “It takes an Army! We have 300 dogs and 100 cats each month for adoption. That’s as many as your giant shelters. We got 150 dogs from Katrina, and over 100 from Gustav. We’re waiting to get the call to go for (Hurricane) Ike’s dogs. Then we’ll disperse them all over America to other shelters.”
NOT THE COMPLETE ANSWER
While this $1 million makeover will enable him to turn the site into his Animal Center, Grim says it takes much more to run
Stray Rescue.
“This money goes to do the building,” he says. “It doesn’t go for materials, healthcare, programs or administrative expenses and that’s $800,000 to a million a year.”
Grants and fundraisers help defray a lot of costs, as well as public and private donations.
Grim says he has somewhat learned to overcome his shyness and do what he has to do for his animals, but he admits it can be “excruciating.”
He also credits Mayor Francis Slay and Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed as being “very nice, supportive and animal friendly.”
“But these street dogs running packs
die horrible deaths,” he says. “At least 50 percent of the ones we take in have
gunshot wounds, 80 percent have heartworm, and another 80 percent have
TVT (transmittable venereal tumor) a
potentially fatal cancer.”
“A shrink would probably say I find my comfort and self worth in helping animals,” he laughs. “My anti-depressant comes with four legs and bad breath.”
Now, over 2,000 dogs a year come to Stray Rescue to be healed and rehabilitated. Many, then, are sent to other no-kill shelters in the country for adoption.
“People from all over the country come to us for advice,” he says. “They don’t understand what street dogs are, and I like to think we have had a part in getting these animals into good homes.
Grim has two goals. The short term is seeing the Center completed. The second will take a bit more time. “My goal for
St. Louis and the nation is to put the street dog on the map,” he says. “There are wild feral dogs in every major city, ghetto and rural areas. I want people to know they exist and can be rehabilitated.”
“Everyone thinks I’m selfless and it’s so not true, because I get so much. They
give back more than any human being can,” he says.
ZOOTOO.COM |
Launched in October 2007 by Richard Thompson, Zootoo.com is a social pet working website that brings together people and pets and provides a place to share information for everything from pet medicines to pet friendly hotels/motels to behavior problems to the best types of pet foods.
The site also provides a place for pet owners to review products and services, watch and discuss pet news and help other pet owners with problems they may be having with their pets.
Plus, they will connect pets with people, which is right up Randy Grim’s alley.
The National Pet Shelter Makeover Contest was created as a way to raise awareness of pet shelters across the country, and encouraging adoption of shelter animals. Animal shelters earned points by encouraging their communities to visit their website. The more active the pet lover is on the site, the more points they earned for their shelter.
The top 20 shelters with the most points win makeovers, but only the highest points will win the million dollars.
Thompson says a new makeover started on September 18.
In addition to funding the Stray Rescue makeover, Zootoo.com is partnering with Pedigree®Adoption Drive Foundation to help raise one million pounds of pet food for homeless dogs and cats in St. Louis. For each person who completes registration on Zootoo.com throughout the makeover, one pound of food will be donated in their name to area shelters. |
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