Nashville woman helps save dogs' lives

It started as just a hobby last summer --walking dogs on Sunday mornings. Within the past year, though, Cathi Eagan's hobby morphed into a life-saving effort for dogs in the Bloomington area that has stretched across America.\nEagan, 54, became deeply concerned when she realized the dogs she walked at the Brown County Humane Society in Nashville, Ind., were being euthanized because of limited space at the shelter. She had 20 years volunteer experience in animal care behind her -- proof of a deep passion -- and couldn't shelf her desire to help.\n"I started wondering what I could do," she said.\nEagan, who is also IU's assistant dean in the Office of Research and University Graduate School, and program director of the McNairs Scholars Program, took a vacation to Italy in fall 2004, where she visited the grave of St. Francis, patron saint of animals.\n"I went up to the grave, and I said, 'Help me do something for the animals that is going to help me make a difference,'" Eagan said.\nA few months later, she remembered an article she had read about a program that transported dogs from Puerto Rico to Northeast U.S. animal shelters. The region's shelters lack the animals to meet adoption demands because of a successful government-funded low-cost spay and neuter program. \n"If the shelters took in dogs from Puerto Rico, why not from Indiana?" she thought.\nInspired, Eagan tied her passions and past experiences together to organize a transport called CanINE Express for dogs from the Bloomington-area's overcrowded shelters to those in the Northeast United States. She drove north with the first van full of dogs in December 2004, and at least one transport has been completed every month since, sometimes with two to three vans and up to 70 dogs.\nToday, CanINE Express connects five south-central Indiana shelters with eight New England shelters and has transported more than 500 dogs that otherwise would have been euthanized. \nOn the other end, Northeast shelters are also reaping the benefits. \n"The impact to our shelter is just phenomenal," said Karen Caswell, adoption counselor with New Hampshire Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Stratham, N.H.\nNHSPCA accepts 20 to 40 dogs monthly from the transport. The dogs are held for a seven-day quarantine period, but on the first day they are ready for adoption, 50 to 70 percent find new homes, Caswell said. The remaining dogs usually are placed within the week.\nDespite the transport's success, sometimes Eagan catches heat for her dedication to saving animal lives when she could devote her passion to other causes.\n"People say, 'What about the homeless?' And I tell them, 'You do that. You pick that as your passion and do it 100 percent because if we all do that, the world will be a better place," she said. "I think we all have to learn to work together to make it all work as it should."\nEagan won't give up on her passion for the animal world's down-and-out, though. She said she can't even remember living without it.\n"I always wanted to have stuffed animals instead of dolls," she said. She remembers, as a child, bringing shampoo, soap and dog treats to Chip, a friend's dog that was chained outside. Her heart even went out to raccoons breaking into her house 20 years ago when she lived in Martinsville, Ind. \nNow living in Nashville, Eagan and her husband, Steve Perry, own 10 cats and three dogs, including a stray she found in Puerto Rico and flew home with her. \nWithout children, their animals are their family, Eagan said.\nJaime Robbins, Brown County Humane Society's shelter manager, sees that same love as Eagan works with the shelters' dogs.\n"She loves every last dog as if they were her own. She really does," she said.\nRobbins, an IU undergraduate studying biology, will help with the next transport Sept. 29. With more than a week to go, Brown County's small shelter is already at maximum capacity, as are all the other Indiana shelters involved with Eagan's program.\nEagan said she looks forward to the day Indiana shelters never reach maximum capacity because it will mean the end of euthanizing for space. She strongly advocates spaying and neutering cats and dogs as the only solution to decreasing the number of unwanted animals.\nAs long as animals exceed shelter space, though, transport day will always be bittersweet. \n"The hardest part of what I do is to go pick up the dogs for the transport and to see the ones left behind," Eagan said, "To see their eyes and know all they want is to find homes and be loved, it's very hard."\nFor more information visit www.petsalivespayneuter.org.