The Savior of Magical Unicorns
Or, How One Amazing Woman Ended Up Saving 3,000 Dogs in the Last 12 Years
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It all started when I met this guy:
His name is Chubbs and he taught me about unconditional love.
And before you say it, I know that’s what most people say about their kids. “I didn’t know what unconditional love was until Suzy or Bobby came along.” Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, but… boy, did you overshoot! It’s like the doctor told you to lose five pounds and you decided to compete in a triathalon when you could have just, you know, eaten a little less.
I mean, Chubbs moved in and the next thing I knew there was a creature in my house who loved me no matter what. He didn’t care what I looked like or what mistakes I made (he especially loved the mistake where I fed him too much ham and accidentally gave him pancreatitis). He just loved me. When you throw in the fact that I didn’t have to teach him how to drive or take out loans to send him to college, the choice is clear. I’m just saying.
Anyway, it wasn’t long after Chubbs came into my life that I became a ‘dog person.’ By that I don’t mean I preferred dogs to cats, by that I mean, I preferred dogs to people. Well, most people, anyway. I started saying hi to every dog I met, if a dog walked into the room while you were talking to me, forget it, I’m over scratching that little buddy behind the ears before you finish your next sentence. Naturally, this enthusiasm began to affect my social media habits as well and soon I was following just about ever dog rescue in LA on instagram.
That’s when I went to one of the six animal shelters in Los Angeles for the first time and I learned what most people in the city still don’t seem to know: there is a full-on crisis happening. Once you see it… you can’t unsee it.
Enter: A Purposeful Rescue
There are dog rescues and then there is APR (A Purposeful Rescue).
You know they’re different the second you see any of the dogs they’ve saved. Maybe it’s because they tend to rescue the hot messes, the ones missing a body part (eye, leg, tail, you name it, they’ve saved it), or the ones with giant masses hanging off their bodies, the ones that are skin and bones or the ones that are just big ol’ tub tubs. They save the ones that no one else will.
They call them ‘magical unicorns.’
What they do is beyond inspirational to me. So, when I had the chance to talk to Hillary Rosen, the founder of APR, I knew I had to find out how it all started.
Being On Hold
Hillary, who had come to LA to start a career in the entertainment industry, found some success in the early 2000’s when her comedy sketch troupe ended up with a development deal with what used to be the WB.
“I was 25 years old or something and they gave us a lump sum of money and looking back I'm like that was not even a lot, but it felt like I won the lottery.” The deal, however, came with a caveat - the troop would be exclusive to the WB for the next year. This meant that while they sat around waiting for something to happen with the WB, they couldn’t even audition for anyone else. “They sort of just owned us.” Naturally, at some point, the money ran out and the contract wasn’t up, so Hillary had to get creative.
“I went on Craigslist. I was doing weird jobs, I was running someone's eBay business. I was helping an older woman in the Marina. I was doing really random shit. “
One of those things ended up being taking care of other people’s dogs, and it turned out, she was really good at it. Once she decided to focus on that, it wasn’t long before the business took off, becoming The Los Angeles Dog Co. At its peak, she would have up to nine people working for her. She had found something she loved to do.
So, when the WB was sold and changed to the CW, killing the development deal and she was finally free to do new projects and audition for things… she wasn’t sure if she still wanted to anymore.
“The industry was really hard. I just didn't want to go back to castings where at a size four to six I was being told to lose weight. I just had the sense at that time to be, like, I don't need that. I fucking love being with dogs all day.”
The First One
CUT TO: Six years later.
Hillary goes to a Los Angeles animal shelter for the first time.
“I had never been in a shelter in my whole life, I was ignorant. I had no idea. So I walked in and… I was just shell shocked.
“I remember I walked in and then I was like, ‘They're all looking for homes?’’ I just started walking kennel by kennel. Row by row. You think that at the dog pound these dogs are gonna be horrible, and these are just lovely dogs.”
She realized that, “for the most part, these are just dogs who just got an unfair shake, and mostly it was because people don't have money.”
“I say it was like a religious experience even though I’m not religious.”
“I think I went back the next day and then I think I went back every day.”
“Within two weeks I adopted my first dog to rehome. Marley. I loved her. She was this big black rotty, pitty looking dog with flappy boobies. And I just was like, she's wonderful. I need to take her. And I fucking did.”
“No plan other than I knew that if I wanted to get something done that, I had to do it myself.”
“I started calling people, got her to a vet, and I got her into boarding. I would just go over there twice a day and walk her and hang out with her. And then within a really short period of time, she found in a home.”
Dog Sitting Becomes Dog Saving
“That was the summer of 2012, That's when my family says ‘Hillary lost her mind.’”
“Something just happened and everything shifted. All of my money went to it. I stopped doing lunches, and brunches and going shopping.”
“I just kept pulling dogs from the shelter. It was like a calling: the dogs and this work became my religion. I lived and breathed it.”
“I started asking friends and family for donations and then it was within months that I was like, I'm gonna just start a nonprofit. I knew nothing. I didn't even know what a 501c3 was until someone was like, you should file for a 501c3.”
“I just saw a need and I was like, I think I can help and I just sort of jumped in face first.
The Rescue
“In the beginning, it was just me and then I met Adria, and then it was literally me and Adria, running APR for the first three or four or even maybe five years. And at some point it had grown enough that we were like, okay, we need help.”
“I've always been smart enough to surround myself with really smart, talented capable people. That's my strength. I cannot do budgets. I can't do spreadsheets. But I can put really good people together to make something work.”
At this point, there are probably 20 or so volunteers on the APR team and they need each and every one of them.
“There's a medical team. There's an adoption team. There's a foster team.1 There's a post adoption team.
“We probably have 45 dogs in rescue right now. It's a lot of coordinating. I mean, there's troubleshooting all day and then we have five different dogs being treated at five different hospitals and everything's unpredictable. That's why you have to be prepared, financially, mentally.”
“It's a lot of work, but these are living beings that we're dealing with. And you can't be sloppy about it.”
Hillary estimates that they rescue between 250 and 300 dogs every year. The rescue has been going for 12 years.
That’s at least 3,000 dogs.
The Dogs
There are so many incredible stories about the dogs APR has saved. So many highs and too many lows.
A high:
“Sully. This dog had horrible cage presence, awful, growling, he looked like a monster.” Sully had been put on the euthanasia list. APR saved him on his last day.
Now: “Sully is in Goddamn Alaska! To see him in Alaska on a mountaintop, running free with his really fit, Dad, come on, are you kidding me? So, the dogs that do get out, it's all worth it.”
A gut-wrenching low:
“The most horrific that will never leave me was Hennessy, who was set on fire.”
Hennessy didn’t survive. You can read more about it if you want in this L.A. Times article. For me, that’s about as much of the story I can handle.
What’s Next
“I learned early on we're not going to adopt our way out of this, this is a systemic problem. This is a community issue, this is a poverty Issue.”
“I am very passionate about shelter reform. I'm passionate about helping our communities. We help LA Animal Services with their foster program, we support Spay and Neuter Clinics. In the back of my head, I still very much want to open a community center with a vet.”
“I want all dogs to have a better existence. I just think they deserve it. They're the best. What kind of a society can't get their shit together to even house them. humanely.”
“I want people to give a shit. If I had a wish, I would have every school kid, say every fifth or sixth grader, take a field trip to the shelter.”
I think this is a brilliant idea. When Hillary saw the shelter for the first time, it changed her life. When I saw it, I signed up to volunteer. Like I said before, once you see it… you can’t unsee it.
Hillary is doing everything she can can to help people see and I am so glad that there are people like her in the world. She inspires me to try even in the face of a seemingly unsolvable problem. She inspires me to care when not enough people do.
Thank you, Hillary.
To donate, volunteer, or apply to foster a dog, go to the APR website here.
To volunteer at your local LA Animal Shelter, go to their website here.
For those of you who don’t know what dog fostering is, it’s when someone takes in a dog temporarily until an adopter is found. All of APR’s dogs are housed with foster volunteers. While in foster, APR pays for all the dog’s expenses until the dog is adopted.
Fantastic story. I tell people if you don’t believe in G-d get a dog. They are heaven sent.