A golden retriever rescue group is hoping to get established in New Brunswick.
Golden Rescue is based out of Ontario, and helps dogs from all areas of the world find their forever home.
Grant Gillespie has been a volunteer for 10 years now. He’s originally from New Brunswick, but works out of Barrie, ON.
He says the group is looking to expand all across the country
“We’re just looking for some volunteers to get things started. Hopefully it will grow organically through word of mouth and so on. So we’re just having a little information session down at the Hammond Road Conservation Area. Just want to tell people about Golden Rescue, see if anybody is really interested in volunteering and helping out,” he said in an interview.
He says Golden Rescues has been around for 27 years, and has helped rescue over 3,000 golden retrievers.
Gillespie says their biggest success has been rescuing dogs from overseas, and flying them back to Canada through a program they call Mission of Love.
“We have recently started sort of an international rescue. We brought about 500 dogs from Turkey and we’re getting them now from Egypt, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. As well, we would never turn our back on a local dog, ever,” he said.
He says the volunteers work hard to get the dogs safely to Canada via airplane, and get them healthy and ready for adoption.
Sometimes, he says, they’ve had to drive down to New York or even Ohio to pick up dogs that were sent on wrong flights.
“We can move mountains to save puppies,” he said.
His own dog was rescued through the program. He say’s she’s from Turkey, and is his life-long companion. He hopes Golden Rescues can help make more perfect matches.
“We all just love goldens. Once you meet one you’ll love them forever, and we’re all just dedicated to them. We know there’s other dogs that get ignored, but we’re concerned primarily with golden retrievers,” he said.
He says anyone who is interested in volunteering or fostering can come to an information session Thursday night in Nauwigewauk, from 7 – 9 p.m. at the Hammond River Angling Association Conservation Centre.
More information about Golden Rescues can be found online.
