Shelter Dog Gets New Life at Purina Farms in St. Louis, MO

A dog found wandering, alone and scared, is now on his way to a new home and a new career, thanks to help from the Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter and the Purina Foundation.

Shelter director Sheri Lockhart says the dog was found in January wandering near I-85 in Lavonia.

“She came in from the City of Lavonia,” Lockhart said. “She was found wandering near the Race Trac gas station on New Year’s Eve. She was skinny with a collar and a rope around her neck from where she had been tied up. The officer brought her to the shelter that night and we housed her for her stray hold.”

Lockhart said the Australian Cattle dog was about a year old, but no one came in to claim her and she was put up for adoption.  That’s when Lockhart said they got a call from a woman in St.Louis who works for Purina Farms, who was interested in adopting her and training her for their agility program. 

  All seemed to be going well until the dog, the staff named Haley, was examined by a vet.

“When we took her in to be spayed we found out she had heartworms,” Lockhart said. “But Purina Farms paid for her heartworm treatment and I fostered her at my house for the six weeks of her heartworm treatment.”

During that time, Haley learned to live with multiple dogs on Lockhart’s farm and got some other kinds of basic house training. Haley has now recovered from the heart worm infection and today will be flying to her new home in

St. Louis where Lockhart said she will also have a new career.

“They do agility, dog diving, disc and other activities, so Haley will live with her and be trained to do demonstrations at Purina Farms,” Lockhart said.

While the shelter routinely puts dogs and puppies on transports to other rescue groups in other states so they can find homes, this is the first time, Lockhart said, that a shelter dog has been taken into the Purina^® Pro Plan^® Performance Team Agility Program.