- Boomer, where are you, Boy?

- Boomer.

Sometimes the unthinkable happens.

But with the help of Love Lost and its pet image recognition software, you can upload your pet's photo to our national database.

It's open to all.

So whether you lose or find a pet, Love Lost can help reunite families.

At Love Lost we believe pets belong at home with those who love them.

Petco Love Lost.

- What's up?

I'm the shark, Daymond John, and I have loved animals my entire life.

Even in the best of times, there is so much work in helping our homeless pets.

This episode was filmed during the first month of COVID lockdown, as the nation began adjusting to this new challenge.

You're gonna see some inspiring stories about those that stepped up to foster and adopt pets.

- In just one week we had over 700 adoptions in foster homes - And how animal shelters dedicated themselves to helping both pets and people in their communities.

- When New York City shut down and the essential workers stayed, we realized very quickly that that included us.

- We could be genuinely putting our lives at risk, but I know that our community, they know we're here working for all the pets in the city.

- Due to the pandemic, people are stepping up.

- You'll also see more than a hundred dogs find a new home after a 2000-mile journey across the country.

- She's finally here.

- Proving that even in the most trying of times, we can accomplish so much more when we work together.

- I'm Danielle, from the Animal Care Centers of New York City, trying to make my way into work.

I am the admissions and client care manager at our Manhattan shelter, and we're gonna be going through my day together, starting with this bus ride At the beginning of March when the Coronavirus hit New York City, it was shocking - Fast breaking developments in the Coronavirus emergency in the US.

The number of cases soaring just today.

Beds filling up with patients, critical supplies in some cases running dangerously low.

- For New York City, our shutdown came pretty quickly.

- There are a couple of people out on the street and not everybody wearing a mask, so it's a little concerning, but we are headed down Second Avenue and making our way to the shelter.

It's gonna be a good day We are the New York City Open Admission Shelter, which means that we have a location in every single borough to make sure that any animal, or human that needs our help with their pet, we're able to help them.

- How are you doing?

How was your weekend?

- The weekend was wonderful.

Glad to be back though.

At the Manhattan Care Center, before COVID started, we were housing about 100 dogs and 100 cats.

- In the epicenter of the US viral attack, New York, 10,000 residents have tested positive for the virus.

- When New York City shut down and the essential workers stayed, we realized very quickly that that included us.

We had to keep going, but we had to change how we do things very quickly.

We had to be here.

We had to be here for the animals.

For our shelter, we have over 100 staff members and we had to quickly put everybody into two teams so that we could have a smaller number of people in the care center at all times.

- What is it?

- It's a box of kittens.

- Oh my goodness.

It was a crazy change for everybody.

We really had to figure it out day by day.

With having all of these dogs and cats in our care, we knew that we were gonna have to get some animals out as quickly as humanly possible.

So we put a giant blast out to New York City to find people to help us get these animals out of the building.

- Alright, here's our girl.

Over 2000 people responded to our emergency plea for foster homes, which was great.

- It has made your situation more manageable?

- Absolutely.

In the care center right now we're down to about 30 cats and 50 dogs, which is making it easier, with the number of staff that we have on hand, to give the appropriate care to all the animals.

- I think one of the most special things about this very crazy time is that we're able to spend more time with the animals that are really sick, or just really stressed out in the shelter.

And that's something that we typically aren't able to do.

But with most animals out in foster, or a lot of them have been adopted, now we have extra time for these really scared ones, and just give 'em the time that they really need to be more comfortable here.

- The officers just left.

We did an intake for an injured cat that they found.

And now they're heading out.

- Thank you, officers!

So I'm away from everybody, I can take my mask off finally.

It's pretty stressful.

It's been a crazy 8 to 9 weeks.

We take it one day at a time.

At first it was just day after day after day of when will this end?

When will life go back to normal?

Everybody was really quiet a lot of the times and there were a lot of feelings and then it kind of felt like we were settling into this new normal, which is not good in any way.

And you know, ridiculously long days, - Good days are great.

You know, when we feel like a family and a team, it's amazing.

But some days are really, really rough.

- When animals first started coming into the shelter from COVID positive homes, I think that's when it really started to worry people in shelter.

Because there's all the worries outside, but we weren't ready for the worry inside the shelter.

- But our staff are here, they're putting themselves at risk, they're taking public transport, they are showing up, they're working with clients.

We don't know these people.

You know, we could be genuinely putting our lives at risk.

But everybody here shows up, don't complain, put their head down and get our work done.

I know that our community, those around us, they know we're here, working for all the pets in the city.

- There really have been a lot of different opportunities for the animals that came in through COVID homes.

We quarantined for two weeks, if possible, all those animals.

- Do you wanna go out and play?

We had a dog named Ollie.

He was energetic and he wanted to be outside playing and he ended up going to a rescue partner because the owners weren't able to come back.

We have to be there.

Today, this woman, her dog passed away and, you know, she gave me a hug and I was like, ugh!

And she's like, "I know I'm not supposed to hug you.

I'm so sorry.

I just have all these emotions and I, you know, it was only for a second and it was a hug".

But it was like...it's a lot.

And you don't wanna say anything because she's going through something really serious and just roll with it and make it happen.

And just, you know, there's all these feelings of, not just for myself but all the staff in the building.

When we have to open the door for somebody, we have to talk to somebody in person.

We have to take in pets from COVID exposed homes and what else can you do?

It's just very draining emotionally.

But fortunately a lot of these cases have been resolved.

So I think the biggest joy for me has been when people are able to reunite with their pets.

- This guy's going home.

- Hi.

I think it's been a really successful day.

A lot of animals left, whether it was to new homes or to the families because they were reunited.

And then not too many animals came in.

So that's always a win for us.

- Bye.

Thank you.

- Ah, he looked so happy to be going home.

- Yes, he did.

It was happy.

This worked out perfectly.

- That's great.

Thank you so much.

- Oh, you're welcome.

- The best part of my day is always when there is a grumpy old tiny dog or big dog even that just needs some time away from the kennels and the rooms.

So here I have my little friend, he is a super senior.

He's got about three teeth as you can see from the front there.

And he came to us as a stray.

He was roaming around.

The police brought him in and he's just gonna hang out with me here in the office today.

Getting to see animals that are completely shut down when they come in, open up and get to be happy, healthy, friendly animals.

That also makes me incredibly happy.

- You know, we're just so excited to have you adopt and thank you so much for coming out.

We really appreciate you guys.

- Thank you for all you do during this hard time.

- Of course, of course.

And enjoy.

They're so cute.

One of my little joys is knowing the impact we have, not only on the animals but with with the people.

And that hug today from that woman, that hug, that shouldn't have happened.

It was, I think, I realize now, something I honestly really needed and I didn't know that I needed it, but it was nice.

It was nice to have that moment.

I want this whole story to be a love letter to Animal Care Centers of New York City for being so strong and amazing.

That's what I want.

So every night at 7:00, something really great started to happen around the beginning of COVID.

At 7:00 every night there was a tribute to all the essential workers where everybody would open up their windows or go on their rooftops and they would say thank you.

Overwhelming.

It's an honor.

It makes us feel special.

- My name is Rachel Berger and I live in Los Angeles, California.

So when the pandemic hit, I think there was one particular weekend when just everything hit at the same time and now all of a sudden it's like I'm working from home.

But then, they slowly, it was like, let's not go to grocery stores, let's not hang out with anybody and kind of do everything digitally.

And it's been surreal to say the least.

I think everybody feels that way, though.

I started seeing a lot of articles about how shelters were closing.

I have never fostered before and, having no schedule and a lot of time, I wanted to help in any way I could.

So when we're at the South LA shelter, Nikki and Luna had came in as a bonded pair, but no one had came in to reclaim them.

So that's when we stepped up to be like, we gotta get these guys outta here.

And yeah, we set up everything, we got the supplies, we got them vetted and then immediately took them to her.

- Here we are all ready for our walk.

The trick is making sure the sunglasses don't fog up.

Right guys?

I had them for a grand total of three weeks, but it flew by.

Also knew that shelters were close, so I was motivated to do the social media thing just as a way to help get their name out there because people aren't able to leave their homes.

So that was a way for me to bring the dogs to them.

- So we had an application that was submitted, that saw it through Rachel's Instagram.

So we immediately reached out to them to get more information and yeah, they said they fell in love the moment that they saw her, her post.

- You gonna miss me?

- You're gonna meet your family today.

I'm so excited for you guys.

I think the saddest part was literally the morning of.

It was cool up until like I saw the Paws For Life van in my front yard.

- Hi guys, let's go guys.

- I think from now on because of this pandemic and how of a great impact it did with opening homes to dogs and shelters, it's definitely gonna be a great change.

- Welcome home.

- Just starting with the picture of these two and then looking on the Instagram page that Rachel, foster, started.

Just together, they're the perfect dog.

We're so happy to have them.

- I know there's a ton of amazing rescues out there, but I can't imagine anybody treating the dogs and the prospective parents any more loving than Paws for Life, and Carmen and Rachel.

- Look at you.

Yes you found the perfect mud puddle.

Okay, yeah, you too Luna.

Oh cute.

That was like the moment that like really hit me that I was like able to help make this happen.

They're in our lives 'cause of you Rachel, - And we are so grateful to you for that.

- Hi Beauty.

What do you think of your new home?

- I'm Heather Friedman.

I'm the Chief Marketing Officer at Lifeline Animal Project in Atlanta, Georgia.

We manage two of the largest open admission shelters here in metro Atlanta, and we have an annual intake of about 16,000 animals every year that come into our shelter doors.

- I am Linda Torelli, I'm the Marketing Director with the Brandywine Valley SPCA.

We have five locations.

We cover the western suburbs of Philadelphia and the entire state of Delaware with animal services.

That's one of the things that was pretty unique for us.

During all of the difficulty with COVID, we not only changed what we were doing to take care of our animals and take care of our staff, but also to take care of the people in our community.

- Before the pandemic Lifeline was a place like any open admission shelter across the nation.

We have hundreds and hundreds of animals in our care, up to 400 dogs in the shelter at any given time.

Things really started to change for us around March 13th.

We recognized that this global pandemic was coming to our door very, very quickly and there was so much uncertainty in the air.

We didn't know personally, professionally, for our animals how we were gonna care for these animals if the city were to shut down.

- Brandywine Valley.

SBCA takes care of over 14,000 animals each year, going into really a highly unknown period.

We very quickly shut down all non-essential activities at our shelter, made sure our staff was safe.

- We started emergency planning, we ordered extra food, we got safety supplies for our staff, and we began to initiate protocols for washing, sanitizing, social distancing.

And at the same time we realized we really need to get the word out there to help drive adoptions and fosters immediately so we could get these animals to safety in case our staff got sick, in case our city shut the shelters down.

We put the message out there to our community that we needed help and something extraordinary happened.

They answered in droves.

- As Coronavirus closed in on Atlanta... - We asked Atlanta for their help.

And in just one week we had over 700 adoptions in foster homes for our animals.

- Now almost every kennel and cage is empty, as hundreds of families have found the cure for Coronavirus quarantine.

- When we walked through our shelters that had been filled, this was the first time in the history that Lifeline has seen, and a lot of shelters across the nation have seen, where the shelters were emptied.

Across the nation, if you look at Facebook, every shelter, open county admission shelters were posting their open kennel doors.

And it was such an emotional experience.

- Like a lot of shelters, we took on emptying out the shelter.

Between the fostering and the adoption, we almost completely cleared out our shelter.

We only had a few animals remaining.

So we very quickly looked outside of our shelter and looked outside of our own needs to look at what are the needs gonna be in the community.

We've always had a pet food pantry at our shelter that we run every other Saturday.

But when COVID hit, we knew we had to do something a little bit differently.

We're live at Coatesville Area High School.

We're here with the opening of our drive-through pet food pantry.

We've got free cat and dog food.

We're here to help out families who have been impacted by the pandemic.

No one's been through anything like this before.

It's a very well proven trend that when financial difficulties hit, intakes go up in shelters.

No animal should ever have to leave its family simply because of financial challenges.

We've got a big load of pet food here.

We've got two stations again like we did yesterday in Coatesville.

We coincidentally had a very generous donation of dog food from the Petco Foundation.

They had given us 70,000 pounds of food and we just stepped up to buy the cat food that we needed to take care of the families, while we also asked our community for help.

We had lines that literally went around the block and, and that was pretty invigorating, to have that visual impact of the people we were able to help.

We would load in the food and they were on their way.

It was completely contactless.

- Brandywine Valley SPCA staff and volunteers spent the day passing out supplies for people's pets.

- This is the 12th drive through pet food pantry and third one in Sussex County that the Brandywine Valley SPCA has had since the pandemic began.

Staff and volunteers are here helping families get much needed supplies to keep forever friends in their forever homes.

- I have three dogs and lots of cats on my farm.

So this really helps a lot.

- Serving furry friends in their forever homes so they don't see them again in the shelter.

With coverage you can count on, I'm Mallory Metzner in Georgetown, WRDE Coast TV News.

- We held the pantries across Delaware as well as in our service area in Pennsylvania and have taken care of over 2000 families.

- You're all set.

Have a good day.

We've been in this pandemic now for two and a half months and things have not slowed down.

We were so fortunate to clear our shelters and we heard that there were some neighboring counties that weren't as lucky.

They had to shut their doors and their staff did get infected with COVID and they could no longer care for animals.

And there were a lot of animals that were at risk for euthanasia.

And being that we had empty spaces in our shelter for the first time ever, we were able to become a rescue partner.

And so we went to 10 different shelters and we were able to pull 344 dogs that are now safe in our shelters.

Some were quarantined if they had exposure to COVID.

Others that were at risk for euthanasia are sleeping soundly in foster and adopter homes right now, in Georgia.

So it's been amazing, to be able to extend a lifeline to those animals in need.

- So after today we are pretty sure we're gonna top 100,000 pounds of food distributed to families.

So a lot of community work coming here today to help folks with their cats and dogs.

Here are volunteers who have chosen not only to come out and be of service and be of help, but they also wanted to use it as an example for their kids about being part of a community and what it means to take care of each other when things get difficult.

We had one pantry in particular where we had a young gal, she was assigned to the dog treats.

She took that responsibility very seriously.

There was not gonna be a car that left without ample treats for those dogs.

Seeing the young people involved during COVID and having them really embrace and initiate that ownership for someone else's wellbeing is incredibly moving.

- And it's amazing that a pandemic brought this experience to our doors, to be able to find the silver lining in all of this, and to really support our community that was there and supported us when we needed it most.

- Hello, I'm Erin.

I live in Los Angeles and this is Q-Tip.

I'm fostering her for the rescue organization, Angel City Pit Bulls.

So a month into the lockdown, Q-tip was found in a dumpster in South Los Angeles.

She had severe mange, she was underweight, she had second degree burns from the sun and skin infections, and a laceration on her arm with tendons that were cut, and an exposed joint.

And she was in really rough shape.

And a Good Samaritan brought her to shelter, the shelter called Angel City Pit Bulls.

And soon as I saw her face on the intake channel, I was like, I'll foster her.

So much has changed.

I'm home now all the time and I can open my house to her.

I have a lot of anxiety the first month in quarantine, about what our financial future looks like and just the overall bleakness of the current state of things.

And I think it was really nice to channel my energy into someone who really needs it.

Kind of took the focus off of myself.

The first I would say, like, week and a half, she was just kind of really unsure of everything.

And now she's kind of decompressed, she's starting to have little funny moments.

She does this kind of like meerkat dance right before dinner, where she's like straight up on two legs.

- Hi everybody.

Q-Tip is back for her recheck today.

As you remember, she came to us a couple weeks ago.

As you can see she's been on the special shampoo for only about a week and she has already got peach fuzz growing in, here on her shoulder.

This is really amazing considering how inflamed everything on her body was.

- Like, yeah she was in bad shape, but she's resilient and she's a happy girl despite everything that's happened to her.

So yeah, it totally relates to the current time.

I know during the quarantine a lot of people are feeling kind of stuck because their day-to-day routine is thrown off and I think one of the best ways to push past that is to do something.

To open your house up to a dog or a cat.

And putting your energy into something, especially since we're stuck in the house, is a great way to kind of feel energized and positive.

- What are you doing?

Whatcha doing?

Whatcha doing?

She has brought us a lot of laughter, a lot of joy, a lot of heart squeezing moments during this quarantine.

I am pretty lucky that she got to be our foster during this really difficult time and be able to take care of her until she's ready to get that forever home.

She makes it really easy to love her.

- Isn't that right?

Isn't that right?

- Hi, I'm Tonya.

Hi, I'm McKenna and this is our quarantine foster dog Luna.

- During the pandemic we decided that we were going to foster a dog so we really went looking for a a senior dog 'cause they have a hard time getting adopted.

So we decided to go to the Montgomery County Animal Shelter.

They weren't quite under full quarantine yet, so we were able to go in.

And there was just some connection that McKenna had with Luna.

- She was just like sitting there wagging her tail and like ready to like leave with me.

This is the dog, because like it was something in her eyes that I could just tell, she just wanted to come home with us and like wanted to be part of our family.

- And we're going through what everybody else is going through.

I mean, you know, the anxiety, the depression, just kind of everything.

We just feel like we're just locked in our house most of the time.

She has really given us hope that there is hope out there and you know, she just needed love the way we did.

So I don't know what all she was, you know, had been through, but just in condition she came in, I know that she probably wasn't treated well.

And for her to be as loving, it's amazing.

She was just such an addition to our family.

Just gave us a reason to get up in the mornings, to be on a schedule, just realize that things aren't always as bad as they seem and everybody just needs some love.

- So I like wanted to like adopt Luna but I was like, well Mom has the same idea because I can just tell like by the vibe.

And so I asked her, I was like, so can we adopt her?

Like is that like an option?

And she was like, yeah but we have to ask Dad.

So then we made this funny video.

Right after we sent it to him like 30 seconds later he like called us and was like, okay we can like adopt her.

And he, he said, he goes, I knew that dog was ours when y'all brought it home.

You are beautiful.

I love you so much and you bring so much life and light into my life, and I love you.

- My name is Jennifer McConn and I am the co-founder, with my son Roman, of Project Freedom Ride.

- This is my friend Frieda.

They found her earlier this month as a stray, so she could really use a home Project Freedom Ride's goals is to connect unwanted dogs, predominantly in Texas, with families and receiving rescues in the Northwest and Northeast.

We'll be loading in three different locations on our transport.

- We are headed up to the Pacific Northwest.

Just keep in mind that we've got a hundred dogs on this transport, so it's a big one.

We get to use the semi this time.

- December of 2016 we had our first transport of 31 dogs.

We do about a hundred dogs a month.

To now we've transported a little over 3000 dogs.

- Good morning.

We are here in Seattle.

As a military family, we've lived all over.

Just because we relocated, our commitment has always been to Texas.

Unfortunately it's easier to discard the pet.

In the South you have a major spay and neuter problem, so the dogs are reproducing faster than we can find them homes.

Most of these guys come from, dropped out in the country.

Owner surrender, don't want no more.

We do not have enough adopters here in Texas.

Animals are dying.

I mean, more than we care to know Just because the world stopped for COVID-19 didn't mean there weren't dogs being dumped or abandoned or sitting in shelters needing families.

- Well the pandemic has actually I guess just brought us closer and wanted us to to help the puppies, the dogs and save as many as we can.

Even after him we plan on doing more.

- Hey everyone, it's Jen.

I just wanted to call and let you know real quick that transport is on schedule.

- So leading up to these transports, I'm here in Georgia.

We have five Texas rescue partners that we work with.

It's amazing how fast a dog that can sit in Texas for a year can get adopted in Washington.

- Here's Frankie.

It's so amazing to see her moving on to her forever family.

- Best picture of the day.

- Just the mindset of Texans is different than we see in the Pacific Northwest.

And so this gives these dogs a second chance at life.

- Before Project Freedom Ride, we were adopting maybe two to three, four dogs a month.

And then after we started with the Project Freedom ride in February of 2019, we've been able to adopt anywhere from 15 to 30 dogs per month.

- I realize there's a big need in Texas and that's why we, I just started.

It was just one dog at a time and now it's about 300 dogs.

Mama Lou was pulled from a high-kill shelter about 45 minutes outside of Lubbock, and she was there with nine puppies.

All of her puppies have since been adopted and they have found homes on the East Coast And now Mama Lou is heading to her forever home with the Deupree family in the Seattle area.

- What do you think about Lou coming to hang out with you?

- I like her.

- You hear that Lou?

You got a family.

- She looks so sweet.

Due to the pandemic, with COVID-19 and everything, people are stepping up.

Like, people who wouldn't normally step up.

- So my name is Catherine, I'm in Eugene, Oregon currently and I'm out here for law school.

So I was looking on Petfinder.com, just scrolling through a lot of different, just like mutt rescue puppies, and I landed on Orzo.

Only be on Zoom class, I guess, 'cause that's the new norm, for about four hours every day and getting to spend all this time with a new puppy and getting to get her acclimated to my lifestyle and just building a new connection with each other.

- Well we're absolutely thrilled to hear that because you're our first pick.

We want you to have Orzo.

- Great.

That's so great.

Thank you guys.

- Dante, you are a gorgeous boy.

Hi.

Say hi to the people watching.

- Okay, so Cochise is our special guy.

He was dumped out in the country in a small town called Petersburg, about 30 miles from here.

- Cochise came from a pretty bad situation, was kind of just discarded as another Texas unwanted, you know, dog.

He was scared, he was skinny.

- He's a classic example of how much a little TLC can do.

- He's got a fabulous family waiting on him in Oregon.

- I have the best feeling about y'all being the best pet parents for him.

And I just wanna say I would love nothing more than for y'all to adopt.

- Well thank you so much.

We would love nothing more than to have him.

- Yes we would love to have him.

- Yeah, let's do his freedom walk.

Come on, let's go.

- Alexis has spent a lot of time and energy and love into Cochise, so that moment when he is with his new family and know that this is what life should be like.

Applications are coming in via email, via Petfinder.

Typically the fosters and the rescues are screening those applicants.

- We only went for the ones that we felt emotional connections to and we knew would give them the best love and the best life.

- And the best fit for personality.

- My name is Shelby.

We live in Mulino, Oregon.

We live with my three kids and my husband.

We have been looking for a dog for some time and we came across Roxy on Petfinder, and I got to the second paragraph and saw that she was hearing impaired and it instantly clicked that she was the dog for us.

Our son Lennon, who just turned 3, is extremely speech-delayed, and up until recently he was pretty much nonverbal and we used sign language as our main form of communication.

And seeing Roxy and seeing that she also has struggled with communication and that she could not hear.

It clicked with us that we could use sign language and our family would be able to communicate with her.

- Good girl Roxy And a dog who also had special needs could maybe encourage him to talk and to also realize that just because you have special needs doesn't mean that you can't be happy and functional and adapt.

- Roxy is coming in two days.

- Yay.

- Are you excited?

Are you excited Len?

You excited?

- Since Project Freedom Ride we can save more and help more.

This way you find 'em homes before and you know you get a whole truckload.

- Well since we started, just shy of four years, we've transported a little over 3000 dogs.

- We are located where there is no animal shelter, so we tend to take in a lot of the strays, the abandoned, the abused ones.

People show up at our doorstep.

They're amazing, amazing team, believing in second chances.

- We have been fostering for about a year and a half.

My kids are all very involved with the fosters.

- They love us, we love them.

We give them that sense of like, it's okay, you're gonna be fine.

And then whenever they get adopted they already know what love is.

- So Miss Princess is heading straight to a family.

And then we've been fosters for Zurg here, who's front and center in the middle here.

And then we have Pluto.

And they'll be picked up by two different rescues who will then work with getting them in foster homes there and then onto adoptive homes.

- Good boy.

- And yes, it's hard to say goodbye at the end but we know that there's more dogs that need fostering.

I mean like I'd put a bet on the fact that we will drop these guys on that transport tomorrow and we'll have new fosters before these dogs have even arrived to Seattle.

- We all drive away crying, but it's happy tears.

We know they're off to a great home.

- There they go.

- We love you guys.

Once transport gets underway, I'm a lot like a traffic coordinator.

I am making sure I update the receivers and the senders with any changes in transport.

They'll depart Texas and head to Salt Lake City.

So the following day we have a Salt Lake City delivery.

Then they head north to Meridian, Idaho, Kennewick, Washington.

The day after that, first thing in the morning we have a Mount Vernon Washington drop off, And then Seattle.

- Every time we see these dogs and we find out the backstory on 'em, and we find out that they're going to loving homes, I mean it just makes that, it just makes it so much better knowing that they're gonna be well taken care of.

- We had to navigate things a little bit different with the pandemic and masks and social distancing.

Everybody kind of waits at their car, makes big signs for the dog they're picking up so we know who goes where.

- Been looking a long time.

This is a great, great great program they have going.

- I've been watching the offloads and watched them load up in Texas and we can't wait to get Remy.

- It's almost here.

I know we're so excited.

- I'm smiling.

- Yeah, I'm smiling too.

- Alright, are we ready?

Some of these people have been waiting a month, maybe even two months for this dog and it's like it finally arrives.

- I was the one that was like, I don't know if we're ready.

And now I'm the one that's like, oh I think I'm gonna cry.

And it's just, they're just a bag of emotion.

- We're so excited.

- Our journey is complete.

- Our journey is complete.

Pluto is coming to us from the sending rescue in Texas.

He's going to Gabrielle, one of our newer fosters.

He'll be in good hands with her.

- I think it's just a really great process and a great way to volunteer.

I love animals and and can really help to get them into their final home and help them grow.

- I picked out Frankie online and I read her story about being homeless and it just brought tears to our eyes and I contacted her foster mom, Jerica, and I've been waiting very, very patiently, but really excited since then.

- She's finally here.

- Thank you so much.

- We really didn't know that they were doing the whole transport thing until we had already kind of fallen in love.

So it's been great.

- Milo was one of those special puppies that you know, it's like a rags to riches story.

He was found underneath a mobile home.

The people had vacated the home and he was left behind.

He was very timid and scared and he just didn't have a place to fit.

And so when we paired him up with some playmates and we watched him just blossom into this amazing confident puppy, we knew he was gonna be an amazing dog for a family that really needed that in their lives.

So we got an application from Paige and Todd and the family.

- This is Gracie, our 12-year-old daughter and this is Russell, our 5-year-old.

- When we spoke with Paige, she had told us that they were looking for a long time for a special dog.

That her daughter was just recently diagnosed with a rare form of alopecia with permanent hair loss, and that just broke my heart.

- Yeah.

What was it like waking up this morning knowing that you were gonna come get him?

- It was really exciting 'cause we've been waiting for a really long time for him.

- The family are grateful that their daughter is healthy, so this is not a sickness.

The hair loss has, you know, brought challenges and change, but it's not that she's ill.

She needs a fantastic dog and he needs a fantastic home.

You know, I carried him on to his transport leaving Texas and to see him coming off and go right to Grace, it was such an experience because you know, dogs can change people's lives.

It's amazing to watch them, you know, start their new journey.

- When we get to Portland, get our last dog off to the last family, we know we've done our job.

We're seeing a lot of happy faces and smiles and, and cheers and it makes us feel really good that we are done and everybody's happy.

- What does your sign say?

Yeah, it says "Welcome Roxy".

- When those dogs arrive we tell all the adopters you need to allow them to decompress.

Their whole world just flipped upside down in 48 hours.

- It's very exciting.

I can't wait to see her face and to finally get to meet her.

I've seen her over video chat for months now.

When she first came off the truck I could see that she was a little nervous.

I was really nervous.

It was the first time I'm seeing my baby.

- You're going home now.

- Come here, Sweetheart.

It's a whole new world for her.

I could tell that she was just a little stressed out as I pulled her away from all like the hustle and bustle.

We like just locked eyes and I was like, okay, we're together.

This is it.

This is her family now.

- And once you see that decompression, I mean these dogs are so relaxed and they are just a part of their family.

I don't know.

- I love you too.

All this attention is for you.

It is, this is all for you - Thank you guys so much.

Appreciate everything you do.

- Cochise is a great example of rags to riches.

It's amazing when the Texas rescues have the ability to put in that little extra care, what can happen for these dogs, and never feel that unwanted feeling again.

- We're so excited.

- It was a little nerve wracking.

There was a lot of people there and we were just like, oh gosh, we're really gonna take this dog home today.

The most special moment was watching the kids see her.

We had talked so much about her and really talked about how it might be a little different because she can't hear and everyone's gonna have to adjust and it didn't, like, as soon as we saw her, it didn't matter, and it was like completely effortless for them to get to know each other and they just became a part of each other's lives.

From the get-go.

You could show "no jumping".

- It's been a growing process.

We just figure out what we need to do and continue to evolve and adjust.

We've come a long ways in I guess almost four years to see those moments.

It isn't even just the dog happy, to be honest.

The people are happy, and it was like this missing link within their family.

- The first day that we got him, he just followed me around everywhere and he just opened up to us really easily and it was awesome to have that.

You are not just adopting one dog, you're basically adopting two because you get that dog and then that frees up another space for another dog to come in the shelter and be rescued.

It always makes me sad hearing like stories about dogs like alone and stuff.

And I'm just glad that he has a home that like he doesn't have to worry about being alone again.

- I mean, it's made her smile.

She's smiling right now.

This was the missing piece to our family.

When she was diagnosed with Hashimoto's and her levels were really high, and she's just battled through it all, and I couldn't be more proud of her.

- Okay, ready Milo?

- I think it will help me because if I ever have a bad day at school or something or somebody teases me or something, I'll just come home and Milo won't make fun of me so it'll be okay.

He'll just brighten up my mood.

She has a wonderful energy about her and I think that Milo recognizes that and I think Milo has an amazing energy about him himself as well.

So again, they're just a great match.

- Russell, don't forget, you've gotta pick up the poop.

Just kidding.

- We picked a name because my mom's favorite singer is Billie Eilish, like belly, so we named her Billie - Project Freedom Ride was incredible.

Everyone asked us where she came from.

Well, she got on a big temperature-controlled truck, with really great people, and everybody who participated in Project Freedom Ride was so wonderful along the way, and were so, like, so clearly passionate about their jobs, - They truly love the animals.

So the volunteers through Project Freedom Ride, they're doing amazing work.

They're saving all these dogs from, they definitely would've been euthanized or in bad situations.

So they're doing really great work just shipping up a bunch of dogs to give 'em better lives.

- It's really special that there's so many people that come together to help do this.

So we just dropped off last week, our three dogs that went to the Northwest with Project Freedom Ride and now here we are, we have these puppies and their mom and she actually has nine puppies.

- Yum, yum.

What do y'all think of the mush?

The first day of mush, huh?

How great.

By just giving a little bit of love and cuddling a puppy on his lap.

I mean he's changing this dog's life and for a family then to adopt.

So I think it's, yes, it's great that they're learning those things, but they're also getting so much back from the love that these, that an animal gives you.

- I have a dog themed Christmas tree that I put in my hallway every year at Christmas and every single dog that we've fostered has an ornament on that tree.

Fostering is a very, very, very rewarding adventure.

It's definitely sad when they leave, but it's just really, really, really a good feeling whenever you know that without that little piece that you played in that dog's life, they wouldn't be where they are right now.

Go.

- Good girl.

So I decided to rename Orzo, Luna.

I think it goes really well with like the patterns of her fur.

She has really pretty blue eyes and it's just kind of easier to call out in a dog park, than calling out Orzo.

I got her about four-ish months ago, just during COVID.

I couldn't really get a roommate.

I'm not moving out here with any friends, so every day it's just the two of us.

We're getting along really well, getting connected.

I think that with everything just being so negative, the news, healthcare, everything is just so negative right now that getting a puppy just like brought joy into everything.

- And it's given her a whole life that you know, she maybe wouldn't have had.

When we initially found her online, we were aware that she was deaf, but that also has been less of a challenge than we ever anticipated.

- Come and lay down, - Good job, lay down.

She has changed our lives in ways that we didn't necessarily expect.

She has taught the kids responsibility and she just brings so much joy to our lives.

Even in chaos about pandemic, like, she really, I feel like she made us whole.

She gets to live such a fun life and add so much to our life because Project Freedom Ride was able to bring her here.

- We are a great unit and I think that's what makes us different, is that we are not one.

We're all these moving parts working together.

We have rescuers who are very committed to this process.

We have adopters who respect and appreciate the process.

So what we've been able to do has been pretty special.

We keep making, like, huge strides and growth in what we do.

This is a business that you hope to one day put yourself out of.

You just hope that one day the need isn't there.

- I now foster for the look on the dog's face whenever they see that they're finally home.

- I am never gonna lose my love for him, he's an awesome dog.

- They'll never be unwanted in Texas again.

It's exciting that somebody wants an unwanted dog that they've never met but have somehow connected with.

To get to see, you know, a hundred of those a month is really nice.

It's really nice.

♪ Little did I know when I was ♪ ♪ reaching out to help you ♪ ♪ I was just as much in need of a rescue.

♪ ♪ Tell me who saved who, now?

♪ ♪ Little did I know when I was ♪ ♪ reaching out to help you ♪ ♪ I was just as much in need of a rescue ♪ ♪ Tell me who saved who, now?

♪ - Petco Love Lost.

A national lost and found pet database can help, using image recognition technology.

So every pet can be back where they belong.

- Oh my baby - Home with the families that love them.

Petco Love Lost.