You can hear the emotion and passion in Renee’s voice as she talks about her rescue dog. “He didn’t know how to play, he didn't know how to be around people… he’s sweet and he’s cute. He deserves to have a good life.” Zack is no ordinary rescue. Without Renee, Zack would have wound up tortured and served on a plate in South Korea. Saving dogs from the dog meat market in Asia was never something Renee imagined for her life. However, she recently co-founded her organization; Asian Dogs Rescue Allies (ADRA) and now, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Born and raised on a farm in Illinois, Renee was surrounded by plenty of animals and took a particular liking to dogs and cats. After retiring from her forty years of ordained ministry, Renee worked as a Veterinary Chaplin alongside only about 50 others in the entire country. It was then, Renee met Lori. Lori had been interested in saving dogs from Asia for quite a while and tried to get Renee interested, too and though Renee wanted to help all she could, she didn’t feel a connection to the issue.
Until one day, she stumbled upon a YouTube video. Eager to learn about Lori’s passion, Renee clicked on it. The video showed two men boiling a dog alive. Every time the dog tried to jump out of a giant pot, the men would push it back in. Renee said, “I couldn’t even watch the end of it. When I realized what I was seeing, I had to turn it off.
After seeing that video, it literally just woke me up. I became aware of what Lori had been trying to tell me for months. You can say the word “torture,” but until you see what actually happens, seeing them push that dog back down into boiling water, it shocked me. It was like getting kicked in the chest.”
Renee immediately took action. She responded to a Facebook advert asking if anyone could pick up two dogs from South Korea flying into SFO. Zack was one of the dog’s Renee picked up. The two have been inseparable for over a year now.
“Boy was she impacted,” Lori said. “She called me on the drive home from San Francisco, letting me know she had two dogs in her car!”
When Renee returned home, the two sat down, devised a plan of action and Asian Dogs Rescue Allies was born.
~ Interview by Mya Miller.