There is just about anything that Susan Hayley would do to rescue homeless dogs. This 71-year-old crawls beneath abandoned homes to save the strays and their puppies she discovers living in filth. This founder of Angel Dog Rescue in Georgetown, Georgia, an area with no animal control and no shelter, built a kennel of her own and fosters almost 20 dogs at a time. Says Palena Dorsey, who runs Sanctuary Animal Refuge in Florida: “She is a petite little thing – yet strong as an oak tree in her determination and commitment to rescue and help the dogs in her area.”

Halo and Freekibble.com joined together in August to donate 1,700 pounds of Halo’s Spot’s Stew dry food to Angel Dog Rescue. “It was a godsend,” says Hayley. “There are so many dogs to feed. And they love it, they all go after it.” The food was shared with Angel Dog’s network of foster parents and a volunteer who feeds strays still roaming the area. All of the foster parents must pay for their own food, as Angel Dog receives no funding and no support from local government.

Unfortunately, there are an overwhelming number of dogs in Hayley’s area who require Angel Dog’s help. “We find them at the side of the road where people dump them, people don’t spay and neuter their animals so there are alot of calls about puppies,” says Hayley. Recently, a little terrier was found in an abandoned home, left by his owners who lost the house to foreclosure. “We only take in dogs who are in danger of not making it,” says Hayley, “those who are really really sick, those most desperately in need.”

Angel Dog got its start following the death of a local stray who was desperately in need in 2005. “At that time I didn’t know much of anything at all, she and the other strays seemed like they were doing ok,” says Hayley. Different residents fed this stray, but she disappeared for awhile. “When I saw her again, she was in bad shape, she was hit by a car, had lost alot of weight, had mange,” says Hayley. “And then got hit by another car. She went downhill really really fast.”

By then, it was too late to save the dog. “I was stunned to see a dog in the condition like this, I never had,” says Hayley. “She was too far gone to be happy and healthy and we had her euthanized. It was so awful.” Since then, Hayley has made it her life’s calling to make sure no other dogs end up like this pup. “I was ignorant,” says Hayley, who founded Angel Dog with a few other people.

With so many dogs and puppies and so few permanent homes in the area for them, Hayley and her group ship many of their charges up north– where there are more available adopters — in their own version of the underground railroad. “It’s called Rescue Railroad,” says Hayley. The dogs are taken from Georgia and handed off to other foster parents as they make their way north, where the dogs are adopted out through one of the northern-based rescues. Says Dorsey of Hayley’s efforts: “Susan has a great heart and soul for rescue and works hard to help as many as she can. Like all rescues she works on a shoestring budget but has made a huge impact in her area.”