On school days, Laurie Montfort of Cuthbert, Georgia teaches life sciences and biology to junior high and high school kids. During most of her other waking hours, Montfort pursues her passion: saving the scores of dogs facing death in a gas chamber at a nearby shelter.

“It’s horrible in South Georgia, when people don’t want a dog or puppy they just dump them somewhere,” says Montfort, who does 100 percent of her work from her heart, as she is not an official rescue and can’t take donations.

With so many homeless dogs and so few homes to take them in her rural area, Montfort ships them off to other states as far away as New Jersey and California, with a larger pool of dedicated forever families. “We’re glad when they can leave the area,” Montfort says, “because I know they got a better chance.”

But before the pups leave the area, Montfort fortifies them with canned Halo Spot’s Stew, thanks to Freekibble.com and Halo’s donation of 2,100 meals earlier this year. Montfort shared the donation with 10 other people in her area who have found and taken in abandoned dogs, people who pay for food and vet care out of their own pockets. One recipient family has 29 dogs, another has 15 dogs and 20 cats. “I’ve had such a good time sharing,” says Montfort, who noticed all of the nine dogs she’s caring for have shinier coats since they started eating Halo. Says Sanctuary Animal Refuge founder Palena Dorsey, who arranged for Montfort’s donation: “She is one wonderful woman that takes rescue to great levels.”

About a year ago, the 54-year-old Montfort made her first rescue, a momma dog and three puppies she found next to a trash trailer. Since then, word got out that Montfort would find homes for these tossed-off creatures or make room for them at her own house, in spare rooms or in the new kennels her husband built for the strays in their back yard. “I have taken in some that were almost starved to death,” says Montfort, who pays for vet costs from her own pocket, “and had no fur due to mange.”

The cost is worth more than money. In the last year, since Montfort started rescuing dogs, not one has been put to sleep at the shelter.

If you are interested in one of the dogs Montfort has rescued, please email her at lfmontfort3@gmail.com.