interview with Lucas Hoge

Country music artist Lucas Hoge answered some questions for Barking Stars about his work in the animal rescue world...and his response was so wonderful, that I'm simply posting his email!

My wife and I have fostered pets, both dogs and cats.  We tend to stop in the middle of the road when we see a stray, it's just a gut reaction.  We also started getting into personal relay transport many years ago. Meaning, if there was a pet that needs to get across the country and the owner couldn’t afford commercial transport, we would all get together and coordinate our efforts along the way to get the pet from state to state, until it was home. We haven’t been able to do any transporting lately, simply because of our busy schedule right now.  When my wife saw that Animal Planet was looking for a country singer for a pet rescue show (Last Chance Highway) she emailed them right away.  Laura is not only a wonderful wife, but an amazing manger.  The show was being produced by Al Roker, and once they found out I was a country singer that had really worked in animal rescue it seemed to be a perfect fit! I feel very blessed with the time I spent on the show and those dogs we got to save.

We started getting involved with Nashville Cat Rescue quite awhile ago.  My wife and enjoy helping out with the fostering.  We would have anywhere from 3 to 10 baby kittens at a time that all had to be bottle fed.  We would keep them for months at time until they were ready to be adopted out.  Nashville Cat Rescue works with Petsmart, so we get the kittens their shots, spayed and neutered, and then when they are old enough they go to Petsmart for adoption.  We have two cats of our own, both boys, who really seem to like little kittens much better than older cats.  We always took in the babies when I'm not touring because we can be home with them between 3 hour feedings.  We also have two small Chihuahua's that love kittens, so once they are old enough, we start socializing them with our older cats and our dogs, which then helps them in getting adopted and an easier transition into a home with other pets.

Some of the other pet organizations I work with are Guardian Angel for Soldiers Pets, which I am a spokesperson for.  The organization helps find foster homes for service men and women who get deployed and have no one at home to take care there pets.  We also are starting to work with Tennessee Death Row Dogs, a non-profit dog rescue in TN.

I became most active in the rescue world when I met my wife; she is so passionate about saving and helping out all animals and seeing her passion made me become passionate about it.

One of the first stories that got me more involved was, when my wife and I used to flip houses in east Nashville, and it seemed like there were so many dogs just running wild and seeing dogs chained up in back yards with no shelter, food or water. We got sick of it and started bringing the dogs food and building them dogs houses and in a few cases even taking the dogs home with us.

We also try and stay active on the legal side of things.  We went to Memphis when a bill was being passed for their mandatory spay and neuter law.  We drove down, stood with other animal lovers who saw that this would help, waiting our turn and spoke in front of the council in support of the bill.  It got passed that day, thanks to everyone who came out to support it!

We go thru petitions and keep up with our senators on what's coming up for animals that can benefit them, write letters in support or against laws and bills that effect the animals and their welfare.  I even chained myself to a dog house one day downtown in support of Dogs Deserve Better; they would love to see a no chain law passed, and so would I.

www.lucashoge.com