Strays rotated through my apartment in Eastern Kentucky. Cages rattled in my car. Weekends were spent investigating starving horses and scooping up sick dogs. I once found myself in a house overrun with half-breed Chihuahuas.

        It's a strange, driven existence. Animal nerds speak the language of catch poles and cat graspers. Feeling responsible for particular lives, they can be conscientious to a fault.

        And war stories? Don't get them started.

        “One of the strangest reasons someone brought a puppy back to me was, "It pooped in my yard,' ” recalls Sharon Browning, a veteran of the life.

        “What did you think it would do?” she asked.

        “Go in someone else's yard.”

Touchy subject

        These days, Ms. Browning is thrilled to be working for the Animal Rescue Fund, which runs a shelter on 17 acres along Lucy Run Road in Batavia Township.

        It's a pleasant place. Deer romp in an enclosure. Swans glide in a pond. Dogs and cats may stay for years, because euthanasia is forbidden.

        This is a touchy subject in animal nerddom. “No-kill shelters” are often full and must turn away animals. Some argue this simply shifts the burden to government facilities, which get stuck with the dirty work of killing.

        Others believe it's immoral to kill animals because of human irresponsibility, and no-kill shelters are the models toward which society must aspire.

        I lean toward the first view. When in the market for a pet, I'll go to a county-run shelter first.

        Still, I enjoyed a recent visit to the Animal Rescue Fund. ARF says it placed 1,008 dogs and 607 cats for adoption last year.

        Ms. Browning and a co-worker, Jennifer Hicks, told me about Etta the dog, who now lives with a cancer patient, and Bummer the cat, who survived a piece of string embedded in its belly.

Guilty relief

        Around their neighborhoods, both women are known for their sympathies, which means people dump unwanted pets in their yards.

        “I could go home tomorrow and find one tied to my tree,” Ms. Browning says.

        “I had three thrown out in my yard,” says Ms. Hicks, who has the classic symptoms of the calling.

        She confesses: “I go to Brown County (shelter) on my days off and take dogs out of there and find them homes.”

        I admire her resilience, because personally, I couldn't hack it. Animal problems are especially relentless in rural areas like Eastern Kentucky. Moving to the city was a huge, guilty relief for me.

        The Animal Rescue Fund will have an open house from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 14. It should be fun: music, pet photography, games, a pet blessing.

        If you go, be sure not to look at T.J. the llama, or he will spit in your face. And feel free to heap praise on the animal people. They don't hear it enough.

        E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com or call (859) 578-5584.

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