Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Bond.
Kelly, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Just take a peek in any family photo album and you will see where my story starts. For my 2nd birthday, I got a solid white kitten who I named “Fluffy.” Very original, I know but from that point on pretty much every picture of me includes a cat or a dog.
Fast forward a few years and I moved from small-town Alabama via Aspen and NYC to Dallas. Over the next three years, I adopted three cats of my own Millie, Avery, and Sammie. I knew that I was at my limit, so I set my sights on fostering. I went into PetSmart one Saturday and left the proud foster of two black/white cats I named Blackjack and Jackpot. They were adopted about three months later together and I think I cried for about two weeks. I had to learn along the way that I didn’t need to keep them all and the best part of fostering was seeing them connect with a forever family and being able to save more. I always thought due to my job with American Airlines that I could only foster cats, then along came Lola.
Lola, aka Lolina, Lo, or best dog on the planet, came to me Heartworm positive and needing a little TLC. Lola went everywhere with me, including home to Alabama. It was quickly determined that Lola was never leaving and she was going to be a permanent resident. Once I figured out I could manage work and fostering dogs and cats, I ramped up my rescue efforts.
Over the years, I fostered for several local rescue groups and then in late 2014, my friend Jennifer Lay and I decided to file for non-profit status for Road Trip 4 Paws. Transporting animals out of state at that time was becoming the new way of saving more Texas animals, so I literally picked a different state every day and researched rescues there that I thought would be a good partner for us. After several weeks of coming up empty-handed, we struck gold in Colorado. We found a cat rescue and a dog rescue who were eager to work with us, so we started planning our first road trip. We did our due diligence and made sure these groups had similar adoption requirements, so we had faith our Texas animals were going to be well cared for and adopted by loving families through these new partners.
Our first transport was an all cat transport to our friends at Fort Collins cat rescue and we were able to save 52 cats. I remember leaving around 10 pm and arriving there around noon. We had so much adrenaline that we had lunch and got back in the van and drove back to within four hours of Dallas. Shortly after that, we did our first dog transport and saved 48 dogs. We truly felt like we had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, seeing so many animals taken from high kill shelters to the safety of our rescue partners. Things really grew by leaps and bounds and we were able to send over 1000 animals to Colorado our first year transporting.
Over time we grew our local adoptions, and by 2018 we decided to hang up our driving gloves and focus on finding homes for pets in North Texas. I am proud to say that every year we surpass the year before with adoption numbers, and this year, we are on track to blow 2019 numbers out of the water. We could not continue our efforts at RT4P without foster homes, adopters, and supporters, so for all those people, I am grateful; I hope one day to feel like we made a difference, so until then, I will continue advocating for the animals that cross my path.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I remember so many times when we first started the rescue, we had to pay for things out of our own pockets in order to keep going. The financial part of rescue has certainly caused us the most bumps in the road. I struggle with asking for money/donations but it doesn’t stop us from taking a heartworm positive dog, or kittens with pneumonia, etc. It always seems to work out when you have faith in what you are doing, but I have to admit a little extra padding in the bank account sure would make things a lot less stressful.
Please tell us about Road Trip 4 Paws.
Road Trip 4 Paws is an all dog breed and cat rescue serving North Texas. We spend a lot of time on the application process to make sure our animals are set up for success upon meeting their potential forever family. We have a lot of repeat adopters, and we think that speaks volumes about the experience they had adopting from RT4P.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Through fostering for several other rescue groups and serving on advisory boards over a 10-year span, I took away things I liked and/or disliked about each one. I think a lot of experience was the key ingredient I brought to the table when forming RT4P.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.roadtrip4paws.com
- Phone: 214-923-6171
- Email: kelly@roadtrip4paws.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/roadtrip4paws?igshid=145rwo4y2r106
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Road-Trip-4-Paws-804670659564769/
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