A few times a month, in the early morning, a shiny white van pulls into the garage of the Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley. The driver hops out, swings opens the back door and out pours a wave of noise: the barking, yapping and whining of 40 dogs demanding to be let out.
The dogs have been in the van for 17 hours, making a journey north toward their second chance at life.
All of them were rescued -- sometimes just hours before they were scheduled to be euthanized -- by the Puppy Pipeline Rescue of Georgia. The nonprofit transportation service shuttles unwanted dogs from shelters in the South, where they're likely to be euthanized, to shelters from Maine to Minnesota, where they'll be put up for adoption.
The pipeline got its start in 2006, when Atlantan Mike Dougherty went to a shelter in rural Georgia to pick up two dogs for rescue. Just outside the shelter, he saw animal control officers throwing euthanized dogs into a Dumpster.
"I witnessed the aftermath of 'kill day,'" he said. "And that day changed my life forever."
After researching and networking with other dog rescue operations, Dougherty concluded that many Southern dogs were being euthanized primarily because of supply and demand.
The South, he said, is full of dogs, many of which spend their lives outdoors. "The animal population down here, especially in rural areas, is epidemic."
Perhaps because of that, funding for shelters is scarcer than in other parts of the country, he said, and spay/neuter programs are much rarer.