Submitted by Matthew Holowienka
That day had begun typically for Scotch Plains native Marianne Bondarowicz. For the past five years, she and her family have opened their home to rescue dogs numbering in the hundreds with Berkeley Heights-based nonprofit Home for Good Dog Rescue.
However, as she returned from a brisk 6 a.m. walk on March 30, 2018, with her current charge, a pregnant rescue dog by the name of Tori, Bondarowicz immediately knew the big moment had arrived.
“By the way Tori was walking, she looked a little different,” she explained. “And as soon as we got in, her water broke. The first puppy was arriving! I called my husband and my daughter, and we got to work.”
The safe arrival of Tori’s puppies that morning marked a conclusion to a miraculous journey already several weeks in the making.
“Tori was originally found abandoned and unwanted in South Carolina, crying out for a second chance,” Home for Good Dog Rescue’s treasurer and co-founder, Richard Errico, said. “When we first met her, we knew she was carrying puppies, and without someone intervening, she and her babies may not have made it.”
According to Errico, Home for Good Dog Rescue is a 100-percent foster-based organization dedicated to rescuing animals from high-kill shelters throughout South Carolina and Georgia, nurturing them at their rescue property in Aiken, South Carolina, and finally transporting them northward for adoption.
“But because our current rescue property in Aiken does not yet have a designated birthing area, we quickly put Tori on a volunteer rescue flight for New Jersey,” he continued. “Here, our entire team, including our on-staff veterinary technician, could oversee this entire process.”
In New Jersey, he explained, none of Home for Good Dog Rescue’s animals spends time in a shelter or kennel environment. Rather, they live with volunteer families like the Bondarowiczes, with whom they can enjoy the benefits of domestic life prior to adoption.
“We adopted our own dog, and then, we just wanted to do something to give back after she passed away,” Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School sophomore Kailey Bondarowicz, 16, said. “We wanted to make her legacy live on because she was such a good dog.”
“Home for Good has given us the opportunity to help so many more dogs in need,” her mother, Marianne Bondarowicz, continued.
But while the entire family has opened their home to hundreds of rescue dogs since joining Home for Good’s unprecedented dog fostering program in 2013, Tori marked the first mother dog they had welcomed into their lives.
“It was a little scary at first,” Kailey Bondarowicz said. “Since we just took the pet CPR and first aid class recently, we felt more confident. As the first puppy was born, my dad helped us keep track of the times of birth and other information.”
“Tori’s instincts started to kick in, and when we first heard that puppy make a sound, we all started crying because it was okay,” Marianne Bondarowicz added.
Thanks to an innovative dog-fostering grant from Maddie’s Fund, Home for Good Dog Rescue is able to offer all of its more than 90 New Jersey foster homes canine CPR and first-aid training free of charge, Morgan Sosnowski, Home for Good Dog Rescue’s on-staff veterinary technician, explained.
She herself was able to help guide the Bondarowicz family through the birthing process on March 30 and provide them constant updates on post-natal care.
“After delivering the first one, I already started to feel more confident,” Kailey said. “We had a good system down to make sure that each newborn was recognized by the mother and cleaned up to make sure they can breathe on their own.”
But Tori’s 12 puppies only mark the latest in a string of ten successful births overseen by Home for Good Dog Rescue since the beginning of 2017.
“We plan to one day build a state-of-the-art facility in Aiken, SC called the Almost Home Wellness Center,” Errico said. “This facility will boast a designated birthing suite to allow us to save even more dogs just like Tori.”
Almost Home will rehabilitate dogs saved from high-kill shelters that are initially too ill or too young to travel, he explained. At Almost Home, they will receive life-saving medical care and time to recuperate until they can continue on the journey to their home for good. It will double or even triple the number of lives Home for Good is able to save each year, a number already nearing 900 annually.
“But until that vision is realized, we are so grateful to be able to rely on our New Jersey foster network to give these dogs the second chance they so obviously deserve,” Errico concluded.
“All the puppies are doing great. A few of them have even opened their eyes for the first time,” Kailey said. “It was so rewarding since we had to hand-feed a few of them, as the runts would sometimes get pushed to the side.”
“I always tell people what a difference fostering makes,” Marianne Bondarowicz continued. “They say, ‘I could never part with the dogs.’ But we see the amount of dogs who get a second chance with us.”
“It’s such a good thing for everyone and anyone,” Kailey agreed. “You can learn so much. For us, it started as a small one-time thing, but over the last five years, it’s become bigger than we ever thought it could. Fostering has changed our lives.”
For more information on becoming a foster, on supporting the construction of the Almost Home Wellness Center, or on adoption, visit HomeforGoodDogs.org.
Home for Good Dog Rescue (HFGDR) is a 100 percent foster-based, non-profit 501(c)(3) dog rescue established in 2010 in Summit, New Jersey with offices in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. We rescue homeless dogs from high-kill shelters in the South, which are overflowing with unwanted dogs on the brink of being euthanized. We socialize, care for, and provide them life-saving medical care at our property in Aiken, South Carolina, transport them to our rescue in New Jersey, and nurture them in our network of foster families while they await adoption into loving homes, giving them a second chance at life. To date, we have saved nearly 6000 dogs from euthanasia.
(above) Volunteer Kailey Bondarowicz, 16, helps the organization at dog transport days and adoption events in addition to fostering.
(above) Rescue dog Tori was originally found abandoned in South Carolina prior to flying to New Jersey.
(above) Marianne Bondarowicz (pictured) and her family have fostered hundreds of rescue dogs through Home for Good Dog Rescue
