Laughter drifted across the soccer field as two boys ran alongside Desi, a skinny Labrador retriever. The sun bounced off the dog's black coat as he cantered easily beside the 8-year-old holding his leash.

"I love that dog," William Schmalz said, grinning at his wife, Jacqueline, as they watched their sons play with Desi. The family had come to the September dog adoption in Wilton, Conn., hoping to find a golden retriever. Instead, they were asked to look at Desi.
As the boys raced back to their parents, Desi at their side, Jacqueline Schmalz turned to the rescue worker and smiled. "I guess what we really wanted was a black Lab," she said, patting the panting dog's head.
Desi's journey had started three weeks and 1,000 miles earlier in a field in Fairburn. But in this field in Wilton, Conn., Desi found the one thing he didn't have in Georgia.
A home.

Shelter shock
Stacey Hall, an adoption counselor at Fulton County Animal Services, spent three weeks planning Desi's trip north. For days she walked among more than 200 dogs at the shelter, singling out potential family pets.
Along with Desi, she chose other dogs, like Puff Daddy, a golden spitz mix, and Velma, an Australian shepherd mix who had been in the shelter nearly six weeks. Despite their good temperaments, these dogs had not been adopted -- part of the more than 10,000 homeless animals in Fulton County each year. Currently Georgia law requires that every animal adopted from a shelter must be spayed or neutered, but it doesn't require that shelters do the procedure. Many shelters ask adoptive families to do it. However, follow-up is often spotty, contributing to the number of homeless dogs in the state, many of which end up back in the shelters.
"Puppies are easiest [to place], and a lot of groups will take adult small dogs, but it's really hard to find anyone who will take medium to large adult dogs," said Hall.
But Hall had found a no-kill shelter that said it could place older dogs. Unfortunately, the shelter was in Connecticut, about 1,000 miles from Atlanta. Still, to save dogs, Hall was willing to give it a try.
Cross-country transports are not without risk or controversy. And everyone -- from local shelter employees to national animal welfare groups -- recognizes that transports are, at best, a short-term solution to a long-term problem. But for the 21 older dogs Hall eventually chose, it was probably their best chance to find a loving family.
Transports are one of the latest measures taken by Southern Hope Humane Society, which took control of the Fulton County Animal Shelter in July 2003. For 29 years, the shelter was run by the Atlanta Humane Society, which killed 80 percent or more of the animals brought in -- often more than 10,000 deaths a year. When the Fulton County commissioners awarded Southern Hope the contract, one of the goals was a lower kill rate. To accomplish that, Southern Hope immediately opened the shelter for adoptions, created a Web site to showcase the animals and took animals to off-site adoptions each week. By last month, those and other measures had cut the kill rate to 45 percent -- lower than most surrounding counties.
Last fall, Southern Hope began using donations to fund puppy transports to out-of-state shelters, especially in the Northeast, where puppies are in short supply due to stricter spay/neuter laws.
But Hall, who also is president of Southern Hope, spent weeks trying to find shelters that would accept the hardest dogs to place -- mixed-breed older puppies and adults.
Fred Acker, executive director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Connecticut, a no-kill shelter, agreed to take 20 such dogs for potential placement. So on a rainy Friday morning, Hall and two other shelter workers spent an hour loading dogs and puppies into two vans for the journey north.

On the road with dogs
"Nope, she isn't going," Hall said, pulling a chocolate Lab mix off the van. "We only have room for two big dogs. I'm taking Desi and Selena." She glanced up at the drizzly sky, then talked with the other two making the trip. They had loaded one van with 19 adult dogs and older puppies, the other with 32 small puppies and two adult dogs. The young puppies were last-minute additions, added after North Shore Animal League America, a rescue group out of Port Washington, N.Y., agreed to meet the vans at the Connecticut shelter.
With the remnants of Hurricane Ivan blowing in, the staffers discussed the best route for the 16- to 18-hour drive ahead.
The three shelter workers had planned to drive straight through to Connecticut, arriving around midnight. But Ivan had other plans. The vans shook, battered by torrential rains and wind. Traffic often slowed to a crawl. By 10:30 p.m., the vans were just past Washington, D.C,. and Hall accepted the inevitable. They stopped for a second time, letting the dogs out for food and water and to clean their cages.
By the time they found motel rooms, it was midnight. Hall called several pizza places, but they were closed, so the three went to bed without dinner. By 8 a.m., they were back on the road. Hall, whose shoes were still wet from the day before, had lined them with plastic torn from the trash can liner in her room.

Waiting . . .
At 12:30 p.m., Hall took her sixth phone call from Acker in Connecticut.
He'd put some of the dogs' pictures up on his Web site two days earlier, and people were already standing in the rain waiting for them.
"How far away are you?" he asked.
"Hours, Fred, hours," replied Hall.
When the van arrived at 5:30 p.m., North Shore was there waiting for their puppies, while another group, the Danbury Animal Welfare Society, also picked up six puppies and an adult dog.
But the potential adopters had given up and left.
"We had people who'd driven an hour and waited several hours in the rain for these dogs," Acker said. "I told everyone to come back to the adoption we're doing tomorrow at 1 p.m."
Hall was amazed people were already trying to adopt the dogs, but Acker explained that the type of dogs they'd brought aren't readily available in New England. Coveted breeds, such as Labs, smaller terriers and shepherd mixes, are hard to find, he said. The reason: In New England, more people spay or neuter their dogs. The harsh winters also cut down on the number of strays that can survive.
So it's not unusual for animals to be transported in from other areas. But transferring stray dogs from other parts of the country can be controversial. The trips can be difficult for smaller puppies if they aren't properly fed, watered and cleaned. And some object to bringing in dogs when others are being destroyed in local shelters.
National animal welfare officials say moving unwanted pets around should only be viewed as a short-term remedy.
"This is really a stop-gap measure . . . unless [the shelter shipping out the dogs] takes steps to decrease the number of animals coming into [it]," said Martha Armstrong, senior vice president of the Humane Society of the United States. "But when a transfer program is done right, it can be a win, win, win situation." Acker said he believes the transports not only save animals, but also prevent more from being created.
"People will get the kind of dog they want, even if they have to go to a breeder for it," he said. "So why not save a dog from somewhere else, rather than breed another dog."
That's why some people, like Melissa Pellegrino and Matthew Scialabba of Gilford, Conn., arrived at the adoption site 30 minutes early on Sunday. The couple went to Acker's shelter the day before hoping to snatch up Wavy, a gangly German shepherd mix they saw on the shelter's Web site.
"We've been looking for a dog for two months," said Scialabba. "It's not as easy as it seems to adopt one."
And the couple knew they wanted to save a dog by adopting.
"But there's nothing like this in our shelters," said Pellegrino, cradling the large puppy in her arms.
Within an hour, they were leaving with Wavy, who'd come into the Fulton County shelter a month earlier after being found wandering along Old National Highway in College Park.
"I took [Wavy] to off-site adoptions, but nobody even looked at her," Hall said.
Alyssa, a reddish pup who had languished for two months in the Fulton shelter, was snapped up within the first hour by John and Karen Lathbridge of Wilton and their children, John, 15, and Caroline, 11.
"We've been talking about getting a dog for a while, but up here, all you find in the shelters are Rottweilers and pit bull mixes," Karen Lathbridge said. A home for Fluffie
Lisa and Darrin Behrens drove more than an hour from Paramus, N.J., to look for a dog for their three daughters.
"We've applied for some others and missed getting them by just an hour," Lisa Behrens said.
The family chose Fluffie, a black chow mix, a dog Hall said in Georgia she "couldn't give away with a $50 bill tied to her collar."
Fulton shelter volunteers take about 15 to 20 dogs and cats to three different Petsmarts each weekend. Typically three to six animals get adopted -- at most. Still, they do it for the exposure. Under the Atlanta Humane Society, Fulton County was the only shelter in the state that didn't allow adoptions.
"Because the shelter wasn't open for so long, nobody even knows we're here," said Susan Feingold, assistant director of the Fulton shelter.
Also, Fulton County is one of only two publicly operated Georgia shelters that spays or neuters every animal adopted in an attempt to cut down on the overpopulation problem, Feingold said. Acker paid Fulton to spay or neuter all of the dogs brought to Connecticut.
By 5 p.m., about half of the Fulton dogs had been adopted. But Hall was particularly concerned about one dog who hadn't found a home. Betty, a terrified terrier mix, had spent the day shaking in the back of her cage.
Richard Smith and Sean Lynch had waited for the Fulton dogs on Saturday and returned on Sunday, looking for a terrier mix. But when shown the trembling Betty, they didn't seem too impressed.
Betty didn't want to walk, and she didn't want to play. She wanted to be picked up. Lynch obliged, and the frightened dog quickly wrapped her paws around his shoulders and hid her face in his neck. Lynch looked at his partner. Betty had found a home.
"That makes everything -- the hurricane, the long drive, all the problems -- worth it," Hall said, watching as Betty, quickly renamed Sandy, was carried away by the couple.
By 6 p.m., the adoptions were over. Acker had charged $295 for each of the dogs. In Fulton County, the rate is $85 for the same, completely vetted dog. Hall gave Acker a hug, then turned the van back toward Georgia.
By the end of the first week, Acker reported that only four of the original 20 dogs remained at his shelter. By the end of the second week, one was left. He was adopted a few days later.
Acker has offered to take as many as 20 dogs a week. Hall is trying to find a way to deliver them.

Desi's happy ending
Today, Desi the black Lab lives in a house in Shelton, Conn., where he enjoys the best of foods, has plenty of toys and gets long walks several times a day. His playmates, Alexander, 12, and Andreas, 8, give him plenty of love and exercise, say mom Jacqueline Schmalz.
"He's a wonderful dog. He's just gorgeous. He's happy, he's wagging his tail all the time," she said. "We all just love him. He was a missing link in the family."