With a motto of “Save a life. Recycle a dog,” Double Dog Rescue (DDR), a dog rescue located in Connecticut, hopes to continue helping Chilton County Humane Society dogs find homes.

The company co-founder/director of DDR Chey Ottoson toured several Alabama shelters last week to see firsthand the shelters DDR pulls dogs from before they go to safe, loving homes with people in the North.

“There is a tremendous overpopulation of animals in the South,” Ottoson said. “We don’t have as many issues with that up North due to a difference in animal control laws so we try to pull as many animals as we can from shelters and put them in foster care until they are able to find a home.”

One of the major requirements DDR puts forth is all animals transported to their organization must be outside of a shelter for two weeks (puppies four weeks) to ensure the dogs don’t come down with diseases.

This often poses a problem with the rescue system due to a lack of individuals willing to foster animals in their homes during the “quarantine” period.

“If more people would volunteer to be foster parents for these animals, it would speed up the process of getting the dogs from the shelter to homes with people who are willing to adopt the animals,” Ottoson said.

Ottoson uses social media tools such as Facebook to promote pictures of the dogs to help locate homes.

“Facebook has played a wonderful tool in locating a lot of dogs to safe, loving homes,” Ottoson said. “You get a good photo of an animal, post it on Facebook and you get a lot of interest. You guys have the pets down here and we need them up North.”

Clanton’s volunteer rescue coordinator for DDR Tina Austin facilitates the foster parents in Chilton County with dogs from Chilton County Humane Society and works with DDR to organize rescue pickups so the dogs are transported to new homes.

Although some animals have been fostered from Chilton County, Austin hopes to encourage more people to volunteer to be a foster parent.

“Fostering animals is a lot different than adopting them because it is temporary,” Austin said. “Plus, if you are trying to decide if you want to adopt an animal, this gives you great practice.”

Humane society Director Scott Missildine said organizations like DDR are a tremendous help to the shelter.

“Fostering animals really helps us out because it reduces the amount of animals we have at the shelter and it helps us find homes for the animals up North,” Missildine said. “It is also a great tool for people considering adoption for a pet because it helps people understand the responsibility of taking care of an animal.”

Missildine said the shelter is trying to encourage more people to become foster animal parents due to a continued limitation of space at the shelter.

“Dogs that come here will get their shots and be looked over before they are sent to a foster,” Missildine said. “Once the animal is at a foster home they are kept for two weeks and then organizations like DDR will take them and find homes for the animals.”

Currently DDR only works with dogs, but some different foster organizations work with both dogs and cats.

Anyone willing to foster an animal can contact the humane society at 755-9170 for more information.

“We hope more people will step up and become foster parents,” Ottoson said. “These animals need to be loved and in good homes with people who are willing to care for them.”