rjraibley@yahoo.com(865) 983-3272The Boston Terrier Rescue of East Tennessee is an affiliate of the Boston Terrier Rescue Network and a Chartered Rescue in the State of Tennessee. We operate within the full breath and width of the state. We also operate in Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and West Virginia collaboratively with other Boston Terrier Rescues and in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama as backup to those rescues. Most of our energy focused in the areas of greatest need, East Tennessee/Eastern KY/Western North Carolina and the metropolitan area of Atlanta, GA.
We work with all Boston Terrier Rescues recognized by the Boston Terrier Club of America’s Rescue Board and maintain a personal relationship with individuals in these affiliate organizations, generally involving personal communication via telephone and email but also sharing information and needs through several Yahoo groups formed for that purpose. We also operate and share resources through partnership arrangements with many other fine breed and mixed breed rescue organizations, particularly within the Southeast and Midsouth. We are particularly active within the Atlanta Metro/Chattanooga area.
We support and maintain mutually supportive relationships with Best Friends and AnimalWorld and Petfinder as well as other fine organizations dedicated to animal welfare. Our relationship with most of the hundreds of municipal shelters in the southeast is personal, one to one and we know many of these volunteers and shelter operators on a personal basis. We support and help each other and actively courtesy post dogs needing adoption as requested, especially if they are distant from us for these shelters. We have been fortunate enough to aid in successfully place a great number of them and now many local Humane Societies and shelters initiate the contact with us when they are in need with a Boston or Boston mix.
We are a small, focused rescue with regional coordinators, representatives, agents and foster homes in Tennessee, western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia and northern Georgia. We place an average of 120-140 dogs annually as well as operate as a sanctuary for those dogs either too old or too ill to place. At this time, we have approximately a dozen foster homes within our organization and nearly four dozen agents and representatives who are willing to transport, pull or otherwise help a dog in need as well as a sizable “HELP list” of volunteers from all over the eastern 2/3’s of the country who are willing to move to help a dog on a moment’s notice. Many of these kind people are also members of other Boston Terrier rescues where we have formed partnerships.
Our mission and our focus is to rescue Boston Terriers, mixes and any other kind of dog that we can manage from a bad situation and place it into a good, forever home after any needed veterinary care or convalescence. For the old dogs, sick dogs and otherwise unadoptable dogs, we provide a sanctuary.
All those managing this program are already professionals, many retired, with successes in business enterprises. We realize that in order to survive in RESCUE, one must apply the same attention to cost management while still providing superior care to our kids. Therefore, we seek those opportunities to reduce costs whilst maintaining a superior program. Examples of this are some of the routine veterinary processes that we can provide for ourselves, e.g., routine “worming” and certain vaccinations that require only training to properly administer.
Our program seeks to pull Boston Terriers, Boston Terrier mixes and others from kill shelters and other undesirable situations such as abusive environments. Our focus is on Boston Terriers since we know that in being breed specific we can better address specific needs and quirks of Boston Terriers and their mixes. We also seek to work collaboratively with other similar breed rescues, .e.g., bulldog, boxer, French Bulldog, pug, etc. inasmuch as their peculiarities and needs are often similar to Bostons.
As active members of several mixed breed groups and organizations, we further seek to find homes for other breed and mixed breed dogs and spend a good deal of effort matching dogs in need with rescues.
In those unfortunate and all too commonplace situations when a shelter is in trouble, or a rescue needs help, we work together with other like minded rescues to organize funding/transport and support. Recently, our work in Leland, MS resulted in community focus brought together from phone calls and internet postings which helped provide public and private funding to help that poor shelter out of an economic crisis.
We have some dogs that are simply too old, too sick or having behavioral characteristics that make them poor adoption candidates. An example is Rodney Buster, a “bait dog” from Georgia who’s lost most of his ears and an eye. He was used to train fighting dogs and is a very bad risk. He and the old dogs, 11-15 years old don’t stand much of a chance of being adopted. They stay with us and help to make the other dogs comfortable and when we occasionally have puppies, they get to babysit.
If it’s a Boston Terrier or a Boston mix, we take it. We take the sick, the old and the otherwise unadoptable. That’s our commitment to this wonderful breed of very smart little dogs.
