Eleven animal rescue groups gathered at the Tractor Supply Company in Warner Robins for the seventh annual Rescue Day. In addition to adoptions and publicity for the rescue groups, the event offered discount shots and a dog show with prizes awarded all around.
The event began seven years ago, when the Tractor Supply Company on Watson Boulevard first opened. Celia Tamker, knowing that her boss wanted to host events at the store, came up with the idea for the Rescue Day through her involvement with a group that rescues a specific breed of hunting dog called a pointer.
“I’d seen other communities do this kind of thing before, but I’d not seen it here,” Tamker said.
She called a few rescue groups to invite them to the event. The response, she said, was “overwhelming.” Over the past seven years the event has added more rescue groups and more ways for the community to get involved. For instance, this was the second year for the Children’s Dog Show. A dog trainer comes for obedience school demonstrations, and Peach Veterinary Care offered low-cost shots, micro-chipping and nail-trimming.
“It’s a lot of fun every year,” Tamker said. “It gets kind of crazy but we all enjoy it.”
During Tamker’s interview in the aisle of the Tractor Supply Company, a couple with children walked in holding a dappled gray hound puppy. A smile broke across Tamker’s face as the family passed on their way to the leash and collar aisle for their new dog.
“I enjoy seeing the groups get exposure and their dogs get adopted,” Tamker said after the family had disappeared. “That’s rewarding.”
Several easily recognized names were among the groups at Rescue Day, including Save a Pet, Inc., and Therapy Dogs Inc., the group that comes for the TheraPups event during Mercer’s finals week. Other groups, however, use the event to gain publicity for their more specialized and lesser-known groups. Among this number are Greyhounds Galore, a mission that rescues racing greyhounds, and the Georgia Equine Rescue League, which is devoted to taking in abused horses and ponies.
Eddy O’Hern, the vice president of GERL, said that the group came down for its second year at the Rescue Day in order to drum up support in the Middle Georgia region. The group, which operates out of Bethlehem, Ga., is better known up north, but O’Hern said that their reputation is spreading.
“A lot of people when we were down here last year didn’t know who we were, that we even existed,” O’Hern said. Thanks to events like Rescue Day, that is changing.
Each rescue group had a designated area in which to set up shop, and they filled their spaces with items for sale—T-shirts, bakes goods, stuffed animals, homemade crafts like picture frames and decorative tiles, baby rattles and much more—and animals, animals, animals. Dogs and cats alike reclined and prowled and played in their pens as potential new owners browsed among the animals, picking up their favorites or taking them for walks.
“The most [adoptions] we’ve had has been about twenty,” Tamker said. “I’ve heard of about five this time today.”
Though sometimes people choose not to adopt at Rescue Day, Tamker said that the connections people make with the rescue groups sometimes encourages them to visit the groups after the event.
“They might not get the adoption today, but they’ll have people come back later,” Tamker said.
In addition to adopting out some of their animals, the groups come for publicity and for support. They accept donations and many of them, notably Warner Robins Animal Control, asked specifically for volunteers to come clean, walk and play with their animals.
“They are all compassionate, and passionate about what they do,” Tamker said of the rescue groups. “And they all have good hearts.”
For more information contact the Tractor Supply Co. at 478-953-3344
Tractor Supply Co. hosts Animal Rescue Day
