Orphaned pets find a hero [Charleston Daily Mail, W.Va.]

Nov. 30--Perhaps Jackie knew he'd find a kind heart at the house tucked out of the way near the woods.

The little brown pup was no more than a few months old and he had a broken leg. He hadn't been treated very kindly in his short life.

Brad White really didn't intend to keep him, but the dog was right, he had a soft heart. He'd make sure the brown dog was OK.

"It was 20 degrees and dark," White recalled of the winter night six years ago. "He was hanging out by the garage and freezing."

White and his girlfriend, Heather Jones, decided they'd take the injured dog to the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Society. They had another dog at the time.

"Heather kept going to visit him, but I couldn't," White recalled.

White and Jones even called around and found someone to adopt the dog, but the initial adoption didn't work out.

"By that time he'd stolen our hearts," White said.

A Charleston native who works in his family's financial planning business, The White Planning Group, White learned a couple of important things from his family -- a love of animals and the importance of being actively involved in helping your community.

The two have sort of collided in what has become an avocation for White -- helping to place dogs that need good homes.

"I grew up with boxers and I've always just loved dogs," he said.

When he returned to Charleston in 1996 from a job in the Washington, D.C., area, White followed his parents' footsteps, becoming involved in fundraisers for non-profit organizations.

He developed an extensive email list that he had used to ask for support, setting it up to blind copy recipients so that it couldn't be used to mass email spam or other unwanted emails.

One day about six years or so ago, a friend told him her family had a dog, a Golden retriever, they couldn't keep anymore and wondered if White would consider using his email list to try to find the dog a new home.

"I said, 'Absolutely,' he said. "And we somehow placed a dog. Then there was another, and another."

White said friends on the email list often pass along his email to others in their own lists -- casting a pretty wide net.

"I'm just one facet of this," he said. "I have no analysis on how far this has gone." But he almost wishes he had, for White estimates he has worked to place well over 100 dogs in homes.

"I'd say we've had 80 percent success," he said.

If all placements turned out as well as Jackie's, the dogs are lucky, indeed.

Despite his broken leg, Jackie healed and has become a happy member of the White-Jones household. This past August, he got a new sister -- a mixed-breed, short-haired dog named Pinot Noir that White and Jones noticed at the Greenbrier Humane Association shelter when they participated in a golf outing fundraiser for the shelter.

"She was a week away from being euthanized," he said.

White believes rescued dogs are the best dogs.

"They are the most grateful beings," he said.

White also believes dogs are smarter and more empathic than we humans often believe.

"They say dogs understand 150 words. I think they understand more than that," he said. "They also know when we have grief."

White said it is difficult to keep track of the dogs he has helped to place because of the complex web of emails.

But occasionally he hears directly about a success, as in the case of a black Labrador retriever that was placed with a 10-year-old developmentally delayed boy. His companion dog had died and the boy was devastated. The boy's mother reported that the rescue dog and the boy bonded immediately.

"If ever there was a purpose to this, that's it," White said.

White recently expanded his efforts a bit more, by joining the contributors to the Daily Mail's Pet City blog, where he's been invited to tell readers about his adventures with dogs and placing dogs.

"I'm a conduit," White said. "Could this be a little more organized? Yes. Does it work? Yes."

"I think it just goes back to the way I was brought up," he said. "The little things you do make a difference. And they're all God's creatures."

Contact writer Monica Orosz at monica@dailymail.com or 304-348-4830.

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