A crowd of dog lovers gathered in a Santa Fe Drive parking lot this week as the wind howled and the clock struck midnight.
They were shivering, but they were chipper—and they were on a mission. Thirteen dogs were soon to arrive from Los Angeles, where deadly wildfires have strained the city's animal shelters.
It was one of the most unusual dog deliveries ever arranged by A Friend of Jack Rescue, a local nonprofit that connects homeless dogs directly to new homes. The people waiting in the parking lot were going to be foster dog-parents.
But the van transporting the hounds had been delayed for hours on its 1,200-mile journey. As the hours ticked on, many people retreated to their warm cars — until a white van finally came around the bend at about 1:30 a.m.
Volunteers with A Friend Of Jack Rescue wait in the Santa Fe Drive Home Depot parking lot in the early hours of Jan. 22, 2025. Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Los Angeles' shelters have been upended by the fires.
Allie Bradshaw has worked in dog adoptions for 15 years. She founded Friend of Jack in 2020, which connected her with other rescues around the nation.
Last week, Bradshaw flew to Los Angeles to lend a hand with the wildfires that have killed 27 people and countless animals. Two fires have caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage since the start of the year; another 10,000-acre fire broke out on Wednesday.
"It's like a war zone out there," she told us.
It wasn't just the rows of destroyed homes, which she saw from the edges of the city's Pacific Palisades neighborhood. She also heard from an animal rescuer who was allowed into the burn zone.
"What she saw was just horrific. Dead animals just everywhere," she said. "They were able to round up some chickens and some horses and just a lot of dogs."
The disasters inspired an army of volunteers to move pets to safety. Los Angeles' shelters were flooded with lost and injured animals, pushing the county's system to capacity.
To alleviate the pressure, nonprofits have been moving adoptable animals to other cities like Denver. The dogs shipped to Denver had already been in the LA shelters for some time prior to the fires.
The dogs made a long drive from Los Angeles.
It took Tiffany Nitsche a lot longer than she expected to complete the drive from the west Coast to Denver. She had originally expected to arrive at the Home Depot parking lot around 9 p.m. Then 10 p.m. Then midnight.
She runs a small nonprofit that shuttles rescue dogs across the nation, but she had never had a harder road trip. Winds buffeting Interstate 25 made the journey through southern Colorado treacherous.
Joy erupted in the cold parking lot when she finally arrived. The foster volunteers gathered around the van, then cheered as the engine cut out and muffled barking could be heard.
Nitsche unloaded her 13 canine passengers one by one, uniting each dog with a foster parent who would take them home and prepare them for adoption. Seven more were set to arrive on Thursday. Bradshaw said they'll be listed on A Friend of Jack's website in the next few weeks.
These were mostly larger dogs, huskies and shepherds. They're hard to get adopted in Los Angeles, Nitsche said, because they're ill-suited to small, expensive apartments.
Moving them out of state is crucial in this moment, she added. She worries Los Angeles shelters will be quicker to euthanize dogs as the shelters struggle to house displaced animals.
"The more that we get dogs out of state, the clearer our shelters are and we don't need to euthanize," Nitsche told us. "It's happening faster because we need more space."
Chris Valles, spokesperson for LA County Animal Care Control, said shelters are not euthanizing pets out of a need for more space, though he said the county is putting down dogs with medical or behavioral problems as usual. But he added that the efforts of people like Nitsche and Bradshaw are a significant help.
"Our department has been through situations like these before, where we're able to mobilize and respond to any incident," he said. "We reached out to our partners so we could handle the influx."
Los Angeles dogs have been shuttled to Texas, Washington and now Colorado. Bradshaw is confident Denverites will find them happy new homes — even if the air is a little thinner here.
"It is truly crucial to get the dogs out," she said. "That's the most important thing, is giving them a chance."
