This week, I am on a mission to bring 16 beagles from shelters in the Midwest to loving families in the Pacific Northwest. In Operation Frodo, an army of volunteer car journalists, dog rescue organizations, automakers, and even electric vehicle charging providers have teamed up to take forgotten, abandoned beagles and link them to their forever homes. There will be two dogs in my care for the next few days, and I’d love for you to meet them. This is Libby and Naomi!
Humans love companion animals. They’re members of our family, bring us warmth, and even bring aid. But not every animal gets to live that fairytale life, at least not at first. Millions of dogs enter shelters every single year after being abandoned, abused, given up, or used for medical experimentation. Of these helpless animals, the ASPCA says, shelters across America are overburdened with animals that are not being adopted. Hundreds of thousands of these lovely creatures end up euthanized after waiting for a family that never comes.
Numerous shelters here in the Midwest have been tracking the unfortunate phenomenon of beagles who end up without families. Many of these dogs have been neglected or used for breeding, hunting, or experimentation. Then, they are abandoned and end up in shelters. As the ASPCA notes, the time that dogs have been staying in shelters before finding homes has increased. This, along with the sheer number of animals going to shelters, is contributing to a capacity crisis. New rescue animals cannot go to a shelter if existing animals remain. This is especially true for beagles in shelters in smaller Midwestern cities where there may not be a great demand for shelter animals.
Nik Miles of the Animal Rescue Rigs non-profit, the Bassett and Beagle Rescue of the Heartland (BBRH), the Cascade Beagle Rescue in Oregon, the Seattle Beagle Rescue, and the Utah Beagle Rescue have come up with a solution. If people aren’t coming for the dogs, the dogs can be brought to the people. Every year, car journalists volunteer to drive up to two dozen dogs from Omaha, Nebraska, to Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, to deliver rescued beagles to happy forever homes. Since 2022, over 100 beagles that did not find families in the Midwest have been delivered to homes out west. If you want to read more about Operation Frodo, click here to read my first entry.
I am honored to take part in Operation Frodo this year, and thus far, it has been a blast. On Saturday, I drove a new Hyundai Ioniq 9 from Northern Illinois, about 470 miles to the start point in Omaha, Nebraska. There, a shelter prepared 16 beagles for their long quest across America.
The Cars And The Dogs
The rescue mission kicked off in earnest on Sunday when all eight car journalists piled into the Hyundai, a Lucid Gravity, a Cadillac Escalade IQ, and a Kia EV9 to pick up the beagles from a local PetSmart that was holding the animals for us.
The 16 beagles we’re driving across America are as unique as each person is. Our crew includes two puppies, many young adults, some beagles that were mixed with other breeds, and the “elder” of the group, which is seven years old.
Many of the females were used for breeding, were put through several litters, and were sent to shelters once the breeder figured they were no longer productive. We’ve been told that the females that are in better health and are better trained came from an Amish breeder. They were generally taken care of, but once the breeder was done, the dogs were gotten rid of.
Sadly, not all of the ladies were so lucky. This little one has trembled for the entire trip thus far. She didn’t interact with any of the people and even hid in a corner, far away from the 15 other dogs.
We’ve been told that this one was also used for breeding, but unlike the Amish breeder, the person who had this one did not care about the well-being of the dog. She was forced to go through litter after litter like a machine. Sadly, she’s been deeply traumatized from whatever she went through, and her rescue family has a long road ahead of them.
Many of the males were used as studs, and like the females, were discarded when they were seen as no longer useful. I don’t know the story about all of these dogs, but the gist of it is that all of them were eventually abandoned, and local shelters couldn’t find local families for them. So, they’re going across America with us.
On Sunday, we drove from Omaha to Cheyenne, Wyoming, a distance of about 500 miles. This trip included two charging stops for every EV but the Escalade, which has a battery so comically huge that it was able to sit around doing nothing while the other three cars charged at the first stop.
We had only two hiccups during the charging stops. In the first stop, the Hyundai bricked itself for about 30 minutes. The symptoms were awfully similar to those of an ICCU failure. Disconnecting the 12V battery for a moment forced the car into a sort of reboot, and the car came back out of the other side fully functional.
We rented a car as a backup vehicle in case the Hyundai bricked itself again. Thankfully, the vehicle never had an issue again for the rest of the drive to Cheyenne. Once at the hotel, Hyundai’s excellent team dispatched a brand-new Ioniq 9 from Denver, which was a 90-minute drive away. That replacement vehicle is working great. Hyundai’s technicians have yet to put their fingers on the Ioniq 9 that gave us the issue, but, apparently, they think the issue could be as simple as a bad 12V battery or a bad ground.
The only other issue we encountered had nothing to do with a vehicle in the fleet, but with charging stations. One of the stations that we hooked the Escalade up to proudly proclaimed charging speeds of 350 kW, but put out no more than 62 kW. Given the Escalade’s 205 kW pack, a charge that slow might as well have taken three business days.
Weirdly, the issue was resolved simply by switching to the other cable at the very same station. Our best guess was that the other cable was having liquid-cooling issues and, as a result, was throttled.
All things considered, neither of these issues even threatened to derail Operation Frodo, and we soldiered on, making it to the hotel with more than enough time to have a good dinner, walk the dogs, and decompress.
Meet Libby And Naomi
Transporting 16 dogs takes a lot of careful planning, and it also requires plenty of participation from the volunteers. There are eight car journalists here, so we divided up the dogs equally. Each of us have two dogs that we’ll be responsible for caring for at every overnight hop during the trip. My two companions are these lovely ladies, Libby and Naomi.
I don’t really know their stories, so I am learning about them in real time. Honestly, both of them are making my heart melt. Libby is three years old, while Naomi is two years old.
Libby is a 20-pound firecracker. She does what she wants to, when she wants to, and she always has to do it big. When she wants to be petted, she will get up on her hind legs, place her front legs on your body, and pester you until you give her what she wants. If you ignore her, she will whine non-stop.
These demands to be petted overrule what any other dog wants. If Naomi wants my attention, Libby will move her out of her way to get to my hands first. Libby is also ridiculously strong, and when I take her for walks, it feels like she’s walking me. It’s wild because, again, she only weighs as much as carry-on luggage! She was also strong enough to kick down one of the walls of her crate, which impressed me!
She’s also very impatient. I left her uncrated in the hotel room while I went downstairs to eat. In the time of maybe an hour, she managed to pull a hairdryer off the wall, destroy a roll of toilet paper, overturn the garbage cans, and break into Naomi’s jug of food. That last one is confusing as the jug was secured with a screw cap. What the? Thankfully, they eat the same food, so it was okay, but it genuinely confused me.
What I’m getting at here is that Libby is pure chaos. She goes zero to 100 quickly and doesn’t slow down until she falls asleep. I love it.
On the other hand, Naomi, who also weighs 20 pounds, is the exact opposite. She is the most chill dog I have ever seen that’s supposedly a beagle. All she wants to do is relax, take slow walks, and get belly rubs. She loves rubs so much that she will sit on the hotel bed for hours just waiting for me to come back and give her a rub.
Naomi is so laid back that the only noises I’ve heard from her thus far are the noises of being satiated with being petted. The really cute thing about her is that if I stop petting her and she thinks she didn’t get her fill, she’ll gently grab my hand, pull it back, and give me a look that says, “continue, please.”
She also seems to be bonding with me. At first, Naomi didn’t want me to put a leash on her. When I walked her, she tried to run as hard and as fast as Libby.
However, now, a day later, Naomi is so much different. Not only is she okay with getting the leash on, but she’ll help me get it on her. Then, when we walk, she walks at the pace I go, which is really slow because my busted knee is still healing. She enjoys it all the same with her tail happily wagging along.
What really blew my mind was when we stopped at an enclosed dog park. We let all 14 adult beagles off their leashes and all of them went nuts playing around. Naomi did, too, but what really warmed my heart was that she frequently checked in on me. She’d walk to me, ask to be petted, then go play with her friends again before she came back. If I happened to start walking around the park, she’d quickly run over to my side and start walking with me. That totally blew my mind. Here she was without a leash, and she chose to spend that time with me.
That said, you can tell that these dogs had sketchy pasts. At random times, Naomi will briefly go into a sort of flight state, almost like something terrified her. Or, she will jostle herself awake, not unlike a human experiencing a nightmare. She also appears to have some moderate anxiety. Libby also seems to have anxiety, or whatever the dog equivalent would be. Naomi refuses to eat or poop when humans are watching her. Libby will eat in the presence of a person, but not poop.
Onward To A Happier Life
Now, I will readily admit that I’m not a dog expert. I’ve only ever had one dog in my entire life, and I got only two years with him before he passed. I grew up with parrots, so beagles are largely outside of my wheelhouse. So, I have no actual idea of what Libby and Naomi are up to in relation to me. I also have no idea if I’m even close to the mark on their behaviors. But what they are doing is warming my heart.
I can also say that both of these dogs are bringing me into a whole new world. I’m learning how to take care of these pups, and I don’t just mean the acts of feeding and walking them. I try to work with their unique personalities and their quirks. I try to do what I can to assure them that whatever past they came from is not going to be their future. Their food and water are unlimited, my love unconditional, and their mistakes are shrugged off. If either of them poop on the floor, it isn’t a big deal. I’ll clean it and move on with my life.
As Portland grows closer with each passing day, I have no doubt that whoever gets these dogs will get loyal companions until the end of time. None of this would have been possible without the car journalists, animal shelters, and automakers that have made Operation Frodo happen. Because of all of these people, these dogs are being given a second chance. Meanwhile, we volunteers are discovering parts of ourselves that we didn’t know existed.
You can help the Operation Frodo mission out by visiting the Animal Rescue Rigs website, as well as the named rescues in this story. You can also follow the Operation Frodo journey on social media through #FrodoEV26.
As I close out this post, I’m about to put a blanket over both of my ladies as I wish them a good night’s sleep. Then, I too will grab some shut-eye. Then, when I wake up, I’ll pack up myself and the dogs, hop in an EV, and do it all over again. I cannot wait.
Top photo: Google Maps/Mercedes Streeter
My mom did this for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She mainly rescued Bouviers and Giant Schnauzers. She ruined a Dodge Durango and a Mercury Sable in the process.
Hopefully those dogs have some Prozac in their future. My dog was chained to a tree for 4 years before I adopted him and fluoxetine has been a game changer.
Beagles are great – my sister had one in college. They are so full of personality and bizarre quirks. He had to have one specific brand of dog food that was chunky chicken. One time they were out of “chunky” chicken and she got “chopped” chicken instead and he turned his nose up at it.
A beagle that refused to eat something? I can’t believe it!
To me, the biggest thing with beagles is that they are all counter surfers. They don’t look like they can get food off the counter, but they are smart and highly motivated and will get it.
Squeeee!!!
I have the feeling you’re going to go home w/ Naomi.
Just Sayin’
You guys are truly doing God’s work to give those beagles a chance at life. There’s so much I want to type about those types of breeders but I can’t think of any way to phrase it that doesn’t make me sound like a homicidal maniac so I’ll keep those opinions to myself.
Damn, getting paid to LIVE THE DREAM!!! Dogs and cars… heaven on earth
I love that you are doing this. I did my own little mini-version of this 15 or so years ago. I was living in Kansas City, and had adopted a basset hound. I was also fostering bassets for a local rescue (Hounds Haven Basset Rescue), where I was often the first stop on the foster train. Dogs would come in from “the farm,” which was where they’d often get dumped. I would go pick them up at a vet the rescue paid for. They’d get shots and any care they needed, and then I’d bring them home to my small apartment with my hound Katie, and I’d give them a bath, cut their nails, and work on socializing them, and take pictures. I’d send updates to the rescue of how the dogs did on leash, how they did with other dogs, personality, etc. Then, they’d go to be adopted. Often, I’d have senior bassets who’d be with me for a while. I remember that I had a older girl, Brownie, who had been with me for about a month, and I was going to be driving back to New Hampshire to see family around Christmas. I told the rescue, and they decided to sponsor/fund the trip, if they could adopt Brownie in New England. Which is how, on Christmas Eve, I ended up bring two basset hounds in a Jeep Grand Cherokee from Missouri to Massachusetts to bring a dog to her new forever home before I got to go see my family. Such a memorable trip!
I would turn around with Naomi and take her home with me if that was possible.
Dogs + The Autopian = best combo
They need a new tag Dogtopian
I hate to say it but at first I read this as “Naomi refuses to eat poop when humans are watching her.”
You weren’t the only one, if it’s any consolation.
Yeah, I too prefer privacy. You should steer clear of anybody who eats poop with an audience.
What darling pups, Libby seems pretty beagle-y! While you’re in the Portland area, I hope you have a chance to visit the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum (WAAAM) in Hood River, they’re having a big glider exhibit this Saturday.
Your route will take you close to Richland, WA. If you have a chance, go to Adventures Underground in Richland. It’s an old department store that is nothing but used books, used records, used comics, cool board games, models, role playing games, etc. etc. etc. etc. It’s basically a giant store for giant geeks (like me). I miss it more than any place else in that area.
There is also a cool tours of Reactor B and the river there.
PS, you will be driving the Gorge to the Portland area and I am jealous.