In the tiny village of Aniak — located on the bank of the Kuskokwim River in a remote part of western Alaska, accessible only by plane or boat —- rescuing abused and abandoned dogs is nothing short of challenging.

There’s no animal control officer to enforce ordinances or pet store to buy supplies, and veterinary care is practically nonexistent in the community of 500 people, where most dogs run free and are rarely neutered.

During the brutal winter months when temperatures dip to 40 below zero, dogs kept outdoors often freeze or starve to death. Others, when deemed a nuisance or inconvenience, are taken to the dump, chained-up and shot.

“Out here in rural Alaska, dogs have played a different role than in the urban cities of the United States,” explains Beverly LeMaster, a native Arizonian who moved to Alaska more than two decades ago. “They’re not pets. They’re not members of the family. They’re not friends.

Dogs are used as alarms for intruders.”

But a kinder and more compassionate attitude toward animals is slowly emerging, thanks to LeMaster and her two friends — Kathy Sweeney and Susan Luchsinger. The three hardworking women recently banded together to form Canine Comfort, the area’s first animal rescue group. Their mission is to find homes for unwanted animals and educate people about responsible pet ownership.

The women got together in 2008 after an incident in which a family, living next to Sweeney, had gone to a neighboring village for several weeks, and left behind their Labrador mix and her newly born black and white puppies to fend for themselves.

Three times a day Sweeney trekked through knee-deep snow to the barren shed in the neighbor’s backyard where the canine family took refuge from the blustery cold, bringing with her a warm mixture of commercial dog food. After a few days, when the protective mother began to trust her, Sweeney decided to take a closer look at the pups to see which ones were male and which ones were female.

“When I picked up the last puppy, something fell and caught my eye,” recalls Sweeney.

That something was the puppy’s tail. It had died from frostbite and fallen off.

After the incident Sweeney remodeled a shed for them on her property by laying plywood flooring on the exposed beams and tacking down carpeting. The dogs snuggled into their new home, and Sweeney continued to feed them three meals a day and provide them freshly laundered blankets to stay warm.

Nearly six weeks had passed when the phone rang. Her neighbors had returned from their trip and wanted their dogs back.

”I didn’t want them to go back over there so I walked over to their house and asked the mother and teenage daughter why they took off and did not make arrangements with somebody to take care of these dogs,” Sweeney says.

The conversation quickly grew intense. Sweeney hoped the mother would sign an ownership relinquishment document.

Finally, the teenage girl, who was sitting on the floor listening to the exchange, began crying. The mother agreed to sign paperwork giving Sweeney legal custody of the dogs. Only four of the 14 puppies survived.

Finding Homes for Dogs
That incident prompted Sweeney, Luchsinger and LeMaster — each who had been rescuing animals on their own — to join forces last year. So far, the women have placed 29 strays into new homes and returned 10 lost dogs to their owners.

Some people call the group asking for help rehoming their dog. Other times, if the women notice a dog that looks too thin tied up in someone’s yard, they’ll politely talk to the owner about taking better care of the pet.

“If they cannot afford to feed the dog, then we offer to find it a new home,” says Sweeney.

In the beginning, a local airline agreed to fly free of charge unwanted pets the nearly two hours to the Anchorage Animal Care and Control (AACC), where they stood a better chance of being adopted. But earlier this year the women received bad news. A stray sent to the city’s pound from another rural village had tested positive for rabies after biting several people, prompting animal control officials to stop accepting dogs from outside the municipality.

Brooke Taylor, spokeswoman for AACC, says the prohibition, announced in early March, isn’t likely to change in the foreseeable future. “Our facility is not set up to be a statewide center, and when we accept animals from outside Anchorage, it spreads our resources much thinner,” she says. “Our capacity is less, and we’re less able to provide services to the people and animals here.”

Since the setback, Canine Comfort relies on word of mouth to find homes. The group also posts pictures of adoptable animals on Internet sites and its own Web site at www.canine-comfort.org.

Covering the costs of their small rescue operation without going broke is tough. Money is raised by selling baked goods and pet products bought online at the city’s two annual fairs.

An article in the Anchorage Daily News about the group’s rescue effort has also helped beef up their coffers. After the article appeared an outpouring of support and donations flowed in from animal lovers throughout the country.

“The news has just been spreading about us,” says Luchsinger, who moved to Aniak eight years ago when her husband took a teaching job. “We’re just so pleasantly surprised.”

One of the people who read the article and who’s stepping up to help is Donna Sullivan, founder of Ryley’s Run, a New York-based group that raises money for struggling animal welfare organizations nationwide. Even though Sullivan has never met the women face to face, she’s holding a fundraiser for them, hoping to raise $10,000 or more.

A summer outdoor concert in Albany, N.Y., called “Pipeline to Rescue,” will feature several local bands. Vendors will sell food, arts and crafts, and pet products. Concertgoers are encouraged to donate items such as collars, leashes, towels and dog food that will be delivered to Alaska by Pilots N Paws, a volunteer animal transportation group.

“Money from everything we sell that day — concert tickets, food, crafts — is going to Canine Comfort,” Sullivan says.

Meanwhile, the Alaska SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) in Anchorage has sent a large shipment of pet food to Aniak. Food prices, for both pets and people, are astronomical in the tiny village because all supplies must be shipped by either air or boat. No roads lead to the area.

Pet supplies are about four times higher than in the lower 48 states. A bag of generic dog kibble, for example, is $60, and small cans of cat food top $2 each.

In addition to the challenges new rescue groups everywhere must overcome, Alaska SPCA executive director Sally Clampitt says Canine Comfort faces “a culture often found in rural Alaskan villages that doesn’t hold pet care to the same high standards that we do in our culture. Animals sometimes starve to death, are not cared for or live their entire lives on chains, or are shot. It’s a very difficult problem.”

Sweeney isn’t deterred though. She handles each situation as it comes, including having to rehome two of the abandoned puppies she first saved. In one case, the adoptive family became frustrated when the female pup, now 6 months old, continually got loose from the yard and kept running back to Sweeney’s home.

In the other case, the woman had initially promised to keep the pup indoors as a house pet. Several months later, after the woman became pregnant, she no longer wanted the hassle of caring for the dog. She happily agreed to give him back.

Both puppies now live with new adoptive owners in Anchorage.

A Biannual Veterinary Clinic
Some residents intentionally harm loose dogs. “People around here get very frustrated with dogs running in front of their four-wheelers so they will hit them on purpose, or if a dog is running beside them on the road, they will swerve and bump that dog,” says Sweeney.

The most recent victim is a 4-month-old yellow Labrador mix, named “Rambo.” The injured pup was brought to the medical clinic in town by two youngsters hoping someone could help their injured pet.

With no veterinarian in town, Sweeney has become the go-to girl when veterinary issues arise. The clinic’s receptionist called Sweeney, who along with her daughter, Rachael, a veterinary technician visiting from California, rushed over to evaluate the dog’s injuries.

“The hind leg was broken,” she says. “The leg definitely needed a pin in it, and people around here are not going to fly the dog into Anchorage and pay a huge veterinary bill.”

A round-trip flight with a dog costs about $500.

Veterinary care is almost nonexistent in remote parts of the state. Some owners do what they can to treat their pets. Sweeney has arranged for a physician’s assistant to stitch up canine wounds and even pull out porcupine quills.

A veterinarian flies to Aniak twice a year — usually in the spring and fall — spending only one day to treat sick animals and perform spay and neuter surgeries. Luchsinger takes appointments for the veterinarian’s clinic, but many people in town can’t afford to take their pets.

Low clinic turnout has the veterinarian wondering if he should continue making the biannual visits, says Luchsinger. If he decides to stop coming, it’d be devastating for the community. No on-site veterinary care means an increase in animal suffering and population and a greater risk of rabies.

Clampitt, of the SPCA, emphasizes the importance of access to veterinary care in rural areas of the state. “The most important of all is getting veterinarians out there to do spay-neuter surgeries so that by attrition we start reducing the unwanted overpopulation of village dogs in a humane way, and in a more permanent, long-term way,” she says.

The visiting veterinarian charges a flat spay-neuter fee of $245. In an effort to get more dogs fixed, Canine Comfort has partially paid for nine spay surgeries, covering about 40 percent of the cost.

“We couldn’t possibly tell the owners what we really wanted to get,” says a frustrated Luchsinger. “We targeted certain people whose adult dogs kept having litters. We called them and said, ‘Please, bring your dog. We’ll subsidize.’”

Still, none of the people had any interest in getting their dogs altered.

The pet population continues to grow. Three dogs recently had litters, and several owners are talking about how nice it’d be to hear the pitter patter of little paws around the house, Luchsinger says. The women are actively trying to change the owners’ minds.

Sweeney dreams of one day having a building dedicated to Canine Comfort, where people could bring dogs with veterinary problems. It would also provide a secure place to store supplies and medical equipment for the veterinarian.

“This might help us have longer, more regular veterinary visits,” she says. “Now, we constantly have problems storing supplies that should be kept refrigerated or dry.”

Until then, she hopes to build a temporary shelter. A piece of city land, located behind the public works department, has been chosen for an outdoor pen big enough for about six dogs. Inside the chain link fencing, dog houses, hand-built by local teens, will give lost, stray and unwanted pets protection from the elements.

City Manager Ron Powell feels the shelter will be good for the village, and has even spoken to Sweeney about hiring her as an animal control officer, if he can get the funding.

“The gals are just doing a heck of a job,” Powell says. “I support them 100 percent.”