Volunteers Karen and Gary McDonald take care of about 40 dogs and 40 cats that need forever homes with loving owners.
The couple are in their mid-70s and foster some animals for Red Sky Rescue, a not-for-profit rescue organization that offers a safe haven to stray and abandoned animals and provides them with food, shelter and medical care in Jackson County.
The shelter was located near Medora and run by Ruth Riley before she moved away, and some people think the shelter has closed. Due to the confusion, the McDonalds would like to set things straight.
The couple live in the southern part of Seymour on property that Gary has lived on his entire life, and unfortunately, it’s an area where people sometimes dump off dogs or cats and just keep going, not knowing if the animals will live or die, he said. Gary was a teacher for 43 years in Columbus and has been retired for about 10 years.
“Before I retired, we got involved with Red Sky Rescue because we’d find stray dogs and take them over there to Ruth Riley at Red Sky,” Gary said. “My wife did a lot of work over there with Ruth while I was still teaching. Then about five or six years ago, somebody dumped nine Shar-Peis out here in the bottoms right across from our property.”
Four of the dogs were taken to no-kill shelters in Indiana and Wisconsin, Riley took three of them to her shelter and two more were on the loose, but they were later found and brought to the shelter.
“So that sent us on the road to work more with Red Sky trying to help the dogs find homes,” Gary said. “There were people from all over the United Stated wanting Shar-Peis.”
Riley said all of the Shar-Pei dogs were successfully rescued and adopted by loving homes.
“The one named Hope was severely crippled and found an amazing lady who devoted herself to rehabilitation for Hope,” Riley said. “I believe her name was Tonya Surber near Indianapolis.”
Riley said Kelly Bishop of Seymour and her friend, Chris Klakamp of Brownstown, were instrumental in the rescue effort.
“I am still acting director of the organization, working behind the scenes most recently due to personal health issues,” she said. “I give all credit to Karen and Gary McDonald, who have made it possible for Red Sky Rescue to carry on our mission of saving the lives of homeless pets in Jackson County.”
Gary said he and his wife work with the dogs they keep on their property to get them ready for adoption. One dog was brought to them awhile back and was insecure, but now, he’s doing a lot better.
“Here’s another one, Albert, who is a Shar-Pei/beagle mix, and at first, we called him Screech because he didn’t bark, he screeched, but he has passed all of that now,” Gary said. “Before he came here, he was kept closed up in an apartment, but now, he’s able to be outside, and he sleeps in the house at night along with a couple of other dogs.”
When Riley sold the property where Red Sky was located and moved to Florida, she maintained her 501(c)(3) license for the animal rescue, Gary said.
“Ruth is still the director of Red Sky and does the same things from Florida that she did here, and she’s on petfinder.com and she knows people all over the United States who are involved in rescues,” Gary said.
Gary said after Riley moved, she asked him and Karen if they would take in some dogs at their place, so they took a few at first. Then it got to be more and more.
“Some people ask how Ruth can run the rescue from down in Florida, but there’s this thing called the Internet,” Gary said. “All we do is feed and take care of the dogs, and Ruth has a lot of shelter connections, like Johnson County for example.”
When Riley was still in Medora, she would sometimes ask the McDonalds to go up to Johnson County, where the shelter manager was a friend of hers.
“Ruth told me Johnson County was building and growing like crazy, and people up there wanted shelter dogs, but they couldn’t keep enough in, so Ruth would have some of the Red Sky dogs transported up there,” Gary said.
“As a result, the Johnson County rescue shared some of their donations with us and other shelters because they get a lot and can’t use it all, like cages and so forth,” he said. “Sometimes, we get dog food and blankets and all sorts of things, and about once or twice a month, they’ll call us and we’ll take the van up there and load it up, and what we can’t use we’ll give to other shelters.”
Gary said right now, they can’t take in any more animals because they don’t have enough room or help, and most of the shelters they know of are full, too.
“I believe the situation might have come about due to COVID and people were home and wanted pets, and now that things are opened up and people are back to work, they don’t have time to take care of a pet,” he said.
He also stressed the importance of The Big Fix spay and neuter program operating under the umbrella of the Humane Society of Jackson County. The Big Fix is a collaboration between Jackson County animal welfare organizations working to reduce companion animal overpopulation through spay and neuter.
Gary was told by Jamie Jones, a representative for The Big Fix, that they have spayed and neutered more than 2,000 dogs and cats over the past three years.
For information about The Big Fix, visit jchumane.org/the-big-fix or call 812-276-3070.
Gary said in early November, he and Karen loaded up their van with 32 cats and took them to Bloomington to get them spayed and neutered.
Also helping to fund spay and neuter programs is the Pet Friendly license plate. Whenever one of those is purchased, a portion of the funds goes to help more than 300 rescues and shelters statewide get free spay and neuter surgeries for cats and dogs.
According to petfriendlyservices.org, this addresses the root cause of pet overpopulation and saves adoptable animals from euthanasia. The Pet Friendly license plate is $40 with $25 going directly to Pet Friendly Services of Indiana.
The McDonalds also take care of cats, which they keep in a separate location from the dogs just up the road on their property.
“When someone adopts a pet from Red Sky and it doesn’t work out, the animal can always be brought back,” Gary said. “But most of the time, they don’t bring them back.”
Red Sky relies totally on private donors and volunteers to continue its work to save the lives of animals. The Facebook page has stories of pets they have helped, many injured, sick or victims of neglect.
“We’re doing OK on food right now because we have plenty of access to that because of Ruth,” Gary said. “What we need is people to come work with the dogs and walk them, and a few people from work release have been coming out on Sunday afternoons to help and seem to enjoy it.”
Some students from Seymour High School National Honor Society stop by to spend time with the dogs, too, Karen said.
“The kids name some of the dogs out here, and Katya Cox, president of the Key Club and a member of the National Honor Society, named one of the dogs who is deaf, Blossom,” Gary said. “She says she’d love to be able to adopt her someday if she could.”
With the number of dogs and cats Gary and Karen are taking care of, they can’t do it all on their own.
“I haven’t been to bed in a couple of days, and we’re right in the middle of some electrical work,” Gary said. “Usually, I get up to take care of the animals at 6 a.m., and I’m not done until around 1 a.m. and midnight if I’m lucky.”
Karen said they do what they do all for the animals, and they have adopted a few of the rescues themselves. They continue to use every resource available to find new loving families for the homeless pets that have found their way to the shelter.
Anyone interested in fostering or adopting a dog or cat from Red Sky Rescue or being a volunteer may visit redskyrescue.org.