Duck Team Six Leader Jean-Paul
"J.P." Bonnelly & Rescue Dog
Miss Piggy Need our Help

DallasDogLife Readers, one of our community heroes and his dog, a Hurricane Katrina survivor, are facing tough times. For those of you who follow the DallasDogLife Facebook page, you are aware of a little group of independent rescuers that call ourselves "Duck Team Six." The leader of this team is someone I am proud to know and to call a friend, a wonderful man and local hero - Jean-Paul ("J.P.") Bonnelly.

J.P.'s beloved Shar Pei, Miss Piggy, has suddenly become very ill. Her kidneys are failing, and the vet bills are piling up. I am writing to ask each of you to consider donating a few dollars to a non-profit organization that provides funding for cases such as this. But before you decide, I'd like to give you more information about J.P. and the work that he does for the dogs in our community.

J.P. is known throughout the DFW animal rescue community for his uncanny ability to trap even the most elusive of feral dogs. I first met J.P. when I came upon a stray dog living on the grassy areas next to LBJ Freeway in Dallas. I didn't know it at the time, but many people had been trying to rescue this dog for months without any luck. Luckily, someone was wise enough to call J.P. and after a quick planning session, J.P. and several volunteers managed to capture "LBJ Dog" and get her safely into the care of Operation Kindness.

A few months later, I had the privilege of working with J.P. to capture "Jack the Church Dog," who had been living on church grounds in Dallas and was in danger of being shot by the church's pastor! Again, we were lucky as the pastor gave us a little extra time, and J.P. quickly assembled a team of volunteers. It took us until 3am, but J.P. managed to capture Jack safely, without any harm coming to the dog or any of the volunteers. J.P. brought Jack to his home until a foster home could be found, like he does with so many of the dogs he's captured.

Remember Norah, the Pleasant Grove dog living in a storm drain for over four years? J.P. and his crew tracked Norah for weeks before finally catching her and her NINE puppies. A dog we called Boy, the Oak Cliff Rottweiler mix, had been living near a car wash for months (and creating many little Baby Boys during that time) before J.P. caught him and brought him to a waiting foster home. Most recently, J.P. rallied the team again to save a mama dog and six newborn pups from the streets next to a DART Rail Station in Dallas.

I cannot count the number of times J.P. has acted as a doting midwife to mama dogs or how many newborn puppies that he has bottle-fed every two hours. And J.P. does not receive one penny for his work. He only fundraises for the care of the dogs, but never for his own expenses - including the nets, catch poles, crates, traps, and night-vision goggles (I'm not kidding), not to mention the gas that he uses driving from McKinney to almost every corner of Dallas.

Miss Piggy has her own story as well. After Hurricane Katrina, J.P. went to the Gulf to see how he could help the animals left behind by the devastation. There he found Miss Piggy, who was very sick with Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease. A faulty test showed that she was heartworm negative, but later J.P. found out that she actually did have heartworm and she soon came down with Caval Syndrome, requiring J.P to rush her to the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine for emergency cardiac surgery. Piggy was not expected to survive, but she did. And now she is facing another challenge with kidney failure, a disease common to Shar Peis. All her previous illnesses from Katrina as well as her genetics have taken their toll on Miss Piggy's kidneys, but she's fighting to survive.

Miss Piggy is currently in emergency care for 24-hour IV fluids, medication, and monitoring. J.P., as well as all of us who love him, have hope for Piggy to recover. She may not be cured of her kidney disease, but it can be managed. We just want Miss Piggy to have a great quality of life for as long as she can, and she is so lucky to be cared for by someone who has never given up on a dog - even dogs he's only seen from afar while he's watching them day after day, hoping to learn their patterns so that he can get them to safety.

I'm not saying any of this to embarrass J.P. or to give him an ego boost. I just want to explain how much he does for the homeless and hurting dogs in our community. I have no idea how he maintains the strength to see the pain of the dogs he saves and terrible acts from humans that make him have to work day in and day out. I know he would not appreciate me saying this, but lately, it's become hard for J.P. to do his rescue work. There are so many people wanting and needing his help, and it can become overwhelming. He also has to take care of his own needs and the needs of his four-legged family. And this...this latest setback is too much for him to bear alone.

But he does NOT have to go through this alone. We can ease some of the financial burden by donating to the Flower Fund, set up by the Flower Mound Humane Society. Miss Piggy's expenses are expected to run from $700-800 per day, and J.P. has used up all his emergency funds. Just a few dollars from each of us will help J.P. to get some well-deserved relief and it would be a wonderful way to say thank you for all the work he's done for us.

To donate, simply visit the Humane Society of Flower Mound's website, and click "Donate Now" to be directed to their PayPal site. Once at the PayPal site, enter your donation amount in the "Item Price" field on the left side. Then, if you have a PayPal account, simply log in. If you don't have a PayPal account, you can click the "Don't have a PayPal account?" link underneath the login fields. (Click here for an example.) Once you have entered in your payment method, BE SURE to add a "Note to Seller" (found underneath the Shipping Address) that says that your donation is going towards the Flower Fund. That's it! No amount is too small. As I learned with Percy, even the $1 donations helped to cover his vet bills and I will never, ever be able to express how much that meant to me. You may not think you can make a difference, but when we all work together, we can have a huge impact. And your donations are tax-deductible!

Thank you in advance for your generosity. And if you can't donate now, please send up a prayer for Miss Piggy. That kindness is free but is appreciated just the same.