Save A Dog was founded by husband and wife team, Shirley Moore and David Bernier, and former shelter worker, Jayne MacRae, who has recently moved out of the area. After volunteering at local shelters and seeing the detrimental effect that kennel life had on some dogs, they decided to begin fostering and to build a foster network for the dogs they took in from local and remote dog pounds. They targeted many of the big city shelters and would load up their vans with many adoptable dogs, foster them, bring them up to date on shots, spay or neuter them, and adopt them to approved homes. They found that with fostering enabled them to get to know the dog better and hence to make a better match with the right adopter.

One of our primary goals is to provide friendly, good-natured, dogs to people in the Boston Metrowest area. We see the importance of evaluating dogs for temperament early on and providing safe dogs to our adopters. We vow never to foist an aggressive dog on an unsuspecting adopter and to hold high standards to the dogs we evaluate for our program. As well, we decided that we owe it to the dogs we rescue to place them in homes where proper nurturing and training will be provided. Evaluating dogs for temperament and adoptability has been the key factor in our being able to provide such great dogs to the people of Metrowest Boston and the New England area. We have the combined skills of previous shelter experience and numerous dog evaluation training classes and workshops. We have provided this training to our volunteers and have sponsored this type of training to local animal control officers and other shelter and rescue workers in our locale.

Our rescue work often brings us to rural shelters because the overcrowded conditions forces early euthanasia for many young dogs and puppies. As we have a bit of a shortage of young, adoptable dogs in the North East, we are able to offer many of the southern dogs a great opportunity to be rescued and adopted into loving homes. We have also found that many of the dogs from rural areas do not have the inter-breeding issues that you might find in large city shelters. These dogs tend to be friendly and generally forgiving of any neglect they may have experienced at the hands of humans. By offering adoptable dogs to people in the New England area our goal is to save lives while providing a good resource of dogs to people who might have otherwise unknowingly supported a puppy mill by buying a dog from a pet store.

Our rescued dogs are up to date on the mandatory vaccines and adult dogs are spayed or neutered prior to adoption except in the case of a medical issue. We do not spay and neuter puppies as they have developing immune systems and need to have their puppy vaccines and rabies well completed before opening them up to surgery. We use a holistic protocol in caring for our rescued dogs and we have found that we don't need to use all the antibiotics and suppressive medicines that tend to weaken the dog's immune system. Shelter life is stressful on dogs and it has a direct effect on their immune system so all dogs are given supplements and a healthy diet to boost their recovering immune system. We have a solid return policy so that any dog adopted through Save A Dog will not end up in a shelter again. Every dog we rescue is celebrated and doted on by our animal-loving volunteers and we follow their successful adoptions by offering continued support throughout their lives.

We are a privately funded organization and rely on your donations in order to keep the rescue mission going. We hope to kick off a capital fund-raising campaign in the near future so that we can build an adoption center and save many more animals in need. If you would like to help, please go to our Donations page, or email us at saveadog@saveadog.org with your ideas.