Thirty-one dogs pulled from Kern County euthanasia lists climbed aboard a yellow bus bound for Colorado early Thursday morning, arriving at their new foster-based rescues that same night. The dogs, most of them medium or large breeds, were saved by Good Dog Ranch, a Bakersfield volunteer group that has made a mission out of driving animals away from the shelter system's deadline.
A Volunteer-Run Lifeline for the Hardest-to-Place Dogs
According to 23ABC News Bakersfield, Good Dog Ranch sent the 31 dogs to two foster-based rescues in Colorado — German Shepherd Rescue of Colorado and El Paso Canine Rescue. Volunteers told the station that medium and large dogs are among the hardest animals to place, and that they are euthanized at a rate of about 30 to 40 percent, a figure attributed to volunteer Bernadette Ferguson. Good Dog Ranch is solely a volunteer effort, with handlers and drivers donating their own time to load, transport and hand off the animals.
Connor Long, one of the volunteers who helped organize the trip, said he spent years working inside a shelter before joining the rescue effort. He described being part of a team that had to euthanize dogs simply to make room for new intakes, and said he watched healthy, social dogs lose their lives because they ran out of time. That experience, he said, is why he volunteers now — because, as he put it, many animals in Kern County need a second chance.
Kern County's Overcrowded Shelters Fuel the Urgency
The rescue comes against the backdrop of a shelter system straining under volume. The Bakersfield Animal Care Center took in more than 6,100 dogs and 800 cats in 2024, according to KGET, which reported more than 1,100 dog adoptions, over 1,900 rescues, and nearly 2,200 dog euthanasias that year. Kern County Animal Services, meanwhile, took in 9,851 dogs and 4,706 cats in 2024 and reported euthanizing more than 2,264 dogs, per the same report.
The strain shows up in the kennels themselves. The Bakersfield Animal Care Center was found housing 300 dogs in just 175 kennels, despite being built to hold fewer than 200, according to a separate 23ABC News Bakersfield report on the county's overcrowding. Nationally, the problem is even starker — U.S. shelters euthanized more than 600,000 animals in 2024, according to KKTV.
Out-of-State Transports Are Becoming a Common Escape Route
Good Dog Ranch's bus run is part of a broader pattern of interstate transport efforts aimed at relieving crowded California shelters. The Bakersfield Animal Care Center itself has previously sent dogs at risk of euthanasia to out-of-state rescues, including a prior trip that moved 33 dogs to rescues in Washington, as KGET reported separately.
Colorado in particular has become a common destination. The Denver Post reported in 2018 that the Peaceful Animal Adoption Shelter ran a weekly transport called Ride to Rescue, carrying as many as 50 dogs at a time into Denver. More recently, CBS News Colorado reported that rescue organizations trucked in 18,000 dogs from out of state in a single year, even as Colorado's own shelters were overflowing. Nationally, the ASPCA's relocation program has moved more than 300,000 animals over the past decade by partnering with more than 140 shelters, according to KKTV.
For Good Dog Ranch's volunteers, the math is simpler than the policy debates swirling around it: a yellow bus, 31 dogs, and two rescues in Colorado willing to take them in before time ran out.
