RESCUE ME

— though volunteering often is a far cry from Pritchard’s precious first experience. Reality is that volunteers operate in a sea of disappointments and treading-water, getting-nowhere feelings.

“It can be a neverending, thankless, often seemingly hopeless job,” she says of rescuing. “[Volunteers] write grant [applications], beg for donations, deliver supplies, schedule and drive dogs to medical appointments, arrange adoption events and rush out in the middle of the night when a dog is injured ...”

She recalls one live puppy found among its dead siblings inside a bag tossed off a Southern Dallas overpass. She religiously watches “euthanasia lists” supplied by shelters in Dallas, Garland and surrounding cities, sometimes knowing there is no more she can do.

“It just never seems to be enough,” she says, expressing gratitude for all of Dallas’ animal rescue groups and volunteers.

Her most recent foster, Gatsby, so named for his black and white coat that resembles a tuxedo, was wandering the streets of Southern Dallas with an open leg wound, suffering demodectic mange and severe malnourishment. In Pritchard’s care, Gatsby recovered and proved to be a cuddly, loving friend to fellow fosters in the home. And he’s a paragon of why the toil is worthwhile, she says.

“What an amazing feeling, to swoop a dog up out of the jaws of death, nurse it back to health ... and then watch that dog find a loving forever home.”