news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Nearly 30 of them dart around the room in a growing frenzy, running into each other, the walls and any legs that get in their way.

“Now, just go in there, sit down, and see who comes up to you,” Brian Manley says, ushering in a group of kids.

It’s love at first lick.

Four or five dogs pile on, pushing one boy onto his back. They run over his arms and legs, lying down on his stomach and leaning over his face.

The dogs will spend the week here, in the back room at Dog Days on Battleground Avenue, meeting new friends — and hopefully their new families.

The terriers — all 36 of them — came to Greensboro from Pinetown on Sunday. Angela and Wade Cullifer, their owners, have bred terriers for years, never turning one away, afraid they’d be put to sleep at an animal shelter.

Recently, though, the couple found themselves overwhelmed.

After Wade suffered a stroke, Angela had to care for her husband, more than 40 dogs and a 100-acre farm on her own.

When she reached out to rescue groups, many said they couldn’t help. Finding homes for 36 dogs at one time was just too much to handle.

But Robin Manley, a Greensboro woman who has rescued more than 200 dogs in five years, said she would give it a shot.

She started a group — Finding Great Homes for Jack Russell Terriers — and put out calls.

The response, she said, was unbelievable.

Dog Days owner Lonnie Sterling said the pups could stay at his shop. The Humane Society of the Piedmont donated a truck for transportation. Planned Pethood, as well as veterinarian Dr. Karen Nasisse, offered to spay and neuter the dogs and give them shots.

For Manley — a woman who started rescuing dogs after her daughters went to college as a way to battle empty-nest syndrome — seeing an adoption of this magnitude come together in just more than a week has been remarkable.

“People that love animals never have disappointed me,” she says, “I’m humbled. I’m blown away by it.”

The dogs will be available for viewing again today at Dog Days. Applications are on-hand for anyone hoping to adopt. After a day at Planned Pethood on Wednesday, they can join their new families on Thursday.

Manley is asking for $150 from adopters, which will go toward further rescue efforts.

“I hope that by the end of the business day, 6 o’clock on Thursday, every one of these dogs has found a great home,” she says.

By the look of things, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Three adoptions were pending within 30 minutes of the dogs’ arrival in Greensboro. By 10 a.m. Monday, paperwork had been filled out for at least five more.

Monica Weathers and her daughter arrived early Monday, hoping to adopt one of the puppies.

“They just need somebody,” Weathers says. “It will be nice to give them a home.”

But finding families for some of the dogs may be difficult, Brian Manley says. One pup is missing a back leg. Four others are skittish around visitors.

Still, the volunteers say each deserves a home.

Susan Hanners, transport coordinator for the Human Society, made the four-hour trip on Sunday to Pinetown to load the dogs in the back of her truck.

“We like to think it’s about ourselves; it’s about the people,” she said. “It’s not. These are 36 little lives. … These are 36 little animals that are waiting for us.”
 

Contact Tricia L. Nadolny at 373-7028 or tricia.nadolny@news-record.com