Arvada woman rescues dogs and foster kids after she was rescued as a baby
Colorado's animal shelters are overflowing with dogs as a record number of people relinquish their pets.
Tens of thousands of dogs need homes. Some of them have been waiting for months.
Those are the dogs Lynn Gerber of Arvada is drawn to, the dogs no one else wants: "It's almost too much but this is why I do what do."
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What she does is save dogs from a life of hell. Eight have been lucky enough to make it through the pearly gates of her 2-acre ranch to a heaven-on-earth for dogs.
"God uses these dogs to speak to our hearts," she told CBS News Colorado.
Rescuing dogs, she says, is her calling, perhaps because she herself is a rescue. She was given up for adoption at birth. For years, she says, she struggled with feelings of abandonment.
She has a special connection to pit bulls, who are often the last to be adopted from a shelter: "Coming from a broken background, I have an affinity for dogs that are euthanized. We have more pit bulls euthanized in Colorado and nationally. They are the most amazing dogs. They will give you their heart and soul."
She's not only taken in dogs, she and her husband Billy have taken in 11 foster kids over the years.
Her capacity to give is seemingly endless, but she says part of being a good rescuer is knowing your limit, something she says her husband doesn't know.
"I don't take every dog," she said. "People think I'm just crazy and I take all these dogs when Billy says 'we don't need another dog.' We have dogs because Billy wanted to keep them." The accusation makes her husband laugh.
The dogs Gerber can't bring home, she works every waking hour to find homes for. The need, she says, has never been greater: "Right now, Colorado is absolutely saturated. We are at a tipping point."
Foothills Animal Shelter is among those at capacity. Gerber works with Director Connie Howard to find room for dogs being relinquished in record numbers.
"We're seeing more and more people struggle with housing," says Howard.
A former salesperson, Gerber has a vast network of contacts that she uses to save dogs on death row. Howard describes Gerber as "a force of nature".
Gerber not only finds dog lovers willing to adopt, but she also educates the public about where to adopt. She says some rescues traffic dogs rather than save them, contributing to the overcrowding. The five biggest rescues in Colorado, she says, imported nearly 7,000 dogs last year -- most of them puppies -- even as shelters took in 92,000 dogs that needed homes.
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Gerber uses social media to encourage people to adopt dogs from shelters. Her Facebook page Good Dog Good Life has more than 34,000 followers. In addition to rescuing dogs and raising awareness, Gerber also works for a program called "Pawsitive Pathways" which trains shelter dogs to make them more adoptable.
In her spare time, she pushes for legislation to improve conditions in shelters and kennels. She helped pass a law that requires kennels to have exercise plans for dogs and shelters to have plans for disease control and post-adoption support.
