With nothing more than a shoestring budget and hearts of gold, The ARF Shack doesn’t have a central shelter to offer their rescues. Instead they rely on generous volunteers who offer a piece of their homes to become what ARF refers to as “fosters.”

“A lot of our fosters wind up being what we call ‘foster failures’ because they fall in love with the dogs they take in and wind up adopting them,” says Susan Hewlings, founder and director of The ARF Shack. A UCF College of Medicine professor by day, Hewlings runs The ARF Shack completely based on donations and funds from her own pocket because of her passion for dogs.

Susan Hewlings, founder and director of The ARF Shack, with three of the dogs the group has recently rescued.

Each foster home typically accepts one or two dogs until they’re adopted. “Our idea is not about numbers, we’re all about quality,” says Hewlings. “We want to give each dog we take in the best possible life we can give them, and part of that is making sure they get the attention they deserve.”

Even though the organization has limited capability, they save and place between 100-200 dogs every year into households around Central Florida. “There’s a huge rescue effort for Central Florida and we still have a hard time making a dent, but we do everything we can,” she says.

Many of the dogs come from local animal shelters that would otherwise put the animals to sleep. A smaller margin of animals comes from owner surrenders and dogs that volunteers find roaming on the streets of their neighborhoods.

“We don’t turn any dogs away because of medical condition, age or breed; we take everyone we possibly can,” says Hewlings. “We’ve had dogs with broken legs, one that had got shot in the feet, we’ve had multiples that are heartworm positive - we have great veterinarians that work with us, but we still have to pay them something and that’s why donations mean so much.”

That’s been the largest challenge for The ARF Shack - finding the necessary funds to pay for the expenses that each rescue brings along with it, not that Hewlings is complaining. “The largest expense is on the medical side, but there’s also food because we provide each dog with high-end food to help with skin issues that a lot of them have,” she says. “It’s like the old saying, ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul,’ - we say ‘ok we got this puppy adopted, so now we can pay for that dog’s heartworm treatment.’”

Even with all of the demands the position creates, Hewlings wouldn’t have it any other way. A dog person all her life, she takes on as many as she currently can herself - five. “My first dog was the center of my life for 14 years. Since then I’ve raised three seeing eye dogs and I started rescuing dogs before ARF, it’s been like a lifetime evolution for me,” she says.

Part of the reason she loves dogs so much is the indescribable bond she feels dogs share with their caretakers. “Dogs are a mirror. They tell me what I’m projecting, what I’m feeling. They’re so connected to us that if I am sort of stressed out, my dog will let me know,” she says. “It’s hard to put human language behind because dogs communicate through body language and energy, so they tell me how I feel and it makes me strive to return back to normal and be more balanced. I’ve just always felt more ‘right’ when I have a dog with me.”

That’s why she has made it the number one goal of The ARF Shack to match the dog with the right person upon adoption. Knowing that certain dogs require specific energy levels, she chooses which applicants adopt which dogs very carefully, for the best interest of both the dog and the caretaker. “I know a lot of people get put off when they apply and we don’t grant them adoption,” she says. “But because we’re so small we get to know our dogs very well so we can factor that into whoever we match them with.”

Even though The ARF Shack continues to grow throughout Lake Nona and the Central Florida community, the one principle that the organization started on will always hold true for Hewlings and her volunteers. “Every dog counts, and we’re here to make sure they find the perfect place to call home,” she says.

Article by Corey Gehrold

FOSTER HOMES NEEDED

If you are willing to open your heart and your home to foster, please complete a Foster Application (which can be found under the 'Forms' Section on the left hand side of this screen).