Where love and patience replace euthanasia in an effort to find good homes for abandoned and stray dogs and cats
Second Chance Animal Shelter
Story and photos By David Moore
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ad to say, but you don’t have to love a dog or a cat to own one. That’s why places such as Second Chance Animal Shelter in Boaz exist … too many unloved animals. But to operate Second Chance or any such non-profit shelter – whether it’s a no-kill facility or not – does require people who love dogs and cats. All dogs and cats. Even those hard to love. Likewise, if you operate such a shelter with your spouse, you best love that person, too. A lot. And it probably helps if you’re both a little crazy. Some folks know Doug and Wanda McGee, Second Chance founders and owners, as “the crazy dog people.” And “crazy” may well predate the dogs. They met at the Albertville Police station when Doug arrested Wanda. And then nobly bonded her out. Full disclosure: Wanda then manager of McDonald’s in Albertville, had been “arrested” as part of a jail and bail fundraiser for muscular dystrophy. During the event, Doug arrested her at work at and took her to “jail.” She had to make phone calls to raise her bail money. “I gave her $5,” he grins. “It was all I had.” Nothing says I love you like a sorely needed Lincoln. The family lore moment held no harbingers of their life to come … well, not unless those jail bars symbolize the 233 dogs that today wait in cages at the shelter for a kind soul to pay their $40 adoption fee and take them to the loving home that’s so far evaded them.
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Wanda McGee loves on Angel, the office dog at Second Chance for 10 years. The shelter is Angel’s home … pretty much Wanda’s, too.
he McGees met in 2005; married in 2006. On their honeymoon to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, they actually had a “what if” talk regarding animal shelters. The true harbinger came when they returned home to find two black Lab puppies on their porch. “It should have been an indicator that we would have something to do with dogs,” Doug says. More puppies squirmed unsought into the McGees’ lives one evening in May 2008. Wanda was then a customer service rep at BancorpSouth. Doug, in his 16th year with the APD, was filling in as dispatcher when he took a call on six puppies someone dumped in a yard on Gethsemane Road. Protocol called for animal control, but Doug knew the city euthanized some 80-90 strays and unwanted dogs a month. “I knew as soon as animal control picked them up, they would die.” So instead he called his wife. “Can I get these puppies and bring them home?” AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020
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