I believe most people would say that they love animals but would you go out of your way to help them? I’m not necessarily talking about saving your own animals, such as a pet dog or cat, I’m talking about saving animals that you have never met before and perhaps doing so at the risk of your own life. Some people would say that they would do it without question but for one man, there isn’t a question in our mind that he would do it. After all, he’s done it already.
Tony Alsup is a man bought a bus and turned it into something that really makes a difference in the life of many animals. In fact, some people say that he turned the bus into a makeshift Noah’s Ark when he went around to pick up any pets that were left over at animal shelters after they were evacuated because of a hurricane. That is what he did when he went from Tennessee to South Carolina and saved over 60 animals when hurricane Florence came through. The last count was 53 dogs and 11 cats.
“I’m like, look, these are lives too,” Alsup said.
“Animals – especially shelter pets – they always have to take the back seat of the bus. But I’ll give them their own bus. If I have to I’ll pay for all the fuel, or even a boat, to get these dogs out of there.”
Alsup got his start with hurricane Harvey. When it hit Texas, many of the animal shelters were overcrowded.
“I thought, well what can I do?” he said. “I’ll just go buy a bus.”
He used the bus to transport animals from the shelter to another one that had room or was vacant. He also helped during hurricanes Maria and Irma.
He put out a message on Facebook during a recent hurricane. He wanted to be sent to the most needed areas in South Carolina.
“It’s all true. Tony swooped in at 4 a.m.Wednesday morning to pick up our ‘leftovers’ – the dogs with blocky heads, the ones with heartworm,” the Saint Frances Animal Center wrote on Facebook. “The ones no one else will ever take. And he got them to safety. Not the most conventional evacuation, but surely the one with the most heart.”
When Tony says that no one is left behind, he lives up to it.
“It’s so easy for people to adopt the small pets and the cuties and the cuddly,” Alsup told Greenville News. “We take on the ones that deserve a chance even though they are big and a little ugly. But I love big dogs, and we find places for them.”
After Alsup picked up the dogs left over after hurricane Florence, he went to Foley, Alabama and dropped them off at a friend’s shelter.
They were all given baths and blankets and they stayed until they were cared for or given to foster homes. All of that took place in a single day.
Some of the animals found a forever home right away. Other animals were brought to Knoxville, Tennessee where about 40 of them were given to volunteers and shelters.
After resting up he headed for Wilmington, North Carolina to save more animals.
He didn’t know how he was going to get through because of the flooding but he had to try. Nobody was going to be left behind on his shift.
Source: Animal Channel
