For years, Lydia Savala would drive from her home in a nice area of Santa Ana, California towards the more rundown downtown area and she picked up stray dogs along the way. Or, on trips to her parents’ home in San Bernardino, she would see dogs wandering around and try to round them up. “They were on the street, and were in horrible condition,” says Savala, a researcher for financial companies. This passion for picking up pooches led Savala to start the rescue group PoochMatch, which last year found new homes for over one hundred homeless dogs; in 2009 that number is expected to double.

PoochMatch consists primarily of Savala — who fosters eight to 12 dogs at a time — and one other steady volunteer, Donna Nieto, who sometimes fosters over a dozen dogs at a time (all of the small ones), and a handful of other foster moms. They take in dogs found on the streets and dogs about to be killed in local shelters that Savala says have extraordinarily high euthanasia rates.

“You don’t have to be huge to make a difference,” Savala says. “You don’t have to have 100 people to be effective. If you have a few dedicated people committed to animal rescue, you can accomplish something you can be proud of. It means that those dogs (that PoochMatch pulled from shelters) did not end up in a bucket to die.”

Halo recognized PoochMatch with a donation of 200 cases of Spot’s Stew, food that has been used to bring the malnourished dogs who arrive into their care back to health. Savala always has a few cases of Spot’s Stew in her Honda Element, using the food to lure stray dogs she encounters into her care. “If a dog is not a puppy, it’s hard to catch an adult dog,” she says, “so the best I can do is leave the food out for the dog to eat or use it to coax the dog into someone’s backyard.”

Once Savala saw a homeless woman with a dog, and gave her some of the Spot’s Stew. About four months ago, when the San Bernardino city shelter ran out of food, Savala says she “would personally hand cans of food” to volunteers at the shelter.

One PoochMatch dog that thrived on Spot’s Stew was named Miss Maddie, who Savala rescued from a college student. “I was shocked to see the dog chained up, and the dog’s eyes were watering profusely,” Savala says. The college student admitted she had chained Miss Maddie up for two months.

“Miss Maddie was one of the dogs who benefited greatly from Spot’s Stew,” Savala says. “She was eating garbage for months.” Savala’s sister fostered Miss Maddie, who gained about 10 pounds in the three months she had her before finding her a forever home.

Savala wants to make the cans of Spot’s Stew last as long as possible, and mixes it with the Spot’s Stew kibble she’s bought. Says Savala: “I’ve never had a problem with any dog consuming Halo.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Giving Back. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.