Gay couples life among the dogs gets profiled in new documentary
Say you’re a long-term couple. You’ve been together for decades, worked hard, amassed a decent chunk of retirement money. Now’s the time you’d relax, right? Maybe spend your time living laconic lives, prepping for grandkid visits or your next vacation.
That may be the case with most couples, but Danny Robertshaw and Ron Danta — a South Carolina couple who have been together for 30 years — have dedicated their lives to something else: Together, over the past 10 years, they’ve rescued more than 10,000 dogs, most of them from puppy mills, dogfighting rings, abusive situations and/or the brink of being euthanized.
The pair — and their pups — are the subject of new documentary, Life in the Doghouse, from director Ron Davis. Robertshaw and Danta, along with Davis, will be at Plano’s Studio Movie Grill for a special screening, Q&A and photo op of the film this weekend. And while Life in the Doghouse has gained traction along the movie festival circuit, it’s clear the they aren’t in it for fame or money.
Professional horse trainers by trade, Robertshaw and Danta loved animals well before they ever met, much less before being the subject of a documentary. “I know people who never grew up with a dog, cat, horse, whatever — I personally can’t imagine life without an animal,” Danta says. “I just have such great respect for them. They just pour out so much love.”
The couple returned that love early on. As a couple in the early 2000s, they would visit shelters and bring home the two or three dogs closest to being euthanized. “We’d bring them home, rehab them, and try to find them homes through our horse community,” Robertshaw explains. Once those two or three were re-homed, they’d return to the shelter and start the process over again.
Their informal operation scaled up dramatically when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. “It was quite devastating to see all the dogs that were on roofs and in trees and swimming in the water,” Robertshaw says. They began a system: They’d load up their horse trailer with supplies for the citizens of affected areas. A friend would drive it down, drop off supplies, and return with dogs. By the end of the whole thing, they’d rescued almost 600 dogs. Having done it all on the fly, they found themselves in a bit over their heads.
“We were taking money out of our retirement fund to spay, neuter and medicate most of the dogs — I bet about 95 percent of the dogs from Katrina were heartworm positive,” Robertshaw says.
Both Robertshaw and Danta believe that abused and neglected dogs can only truly recover if they are in a loving, consistent space, not just a no-kill shelter. “We started this on an individual basis, with the attitude that any dog passed on to us we were going to take care of it as if it were our very own,” Robertshaw says. So they set about converting their own home into a haven where they could provide the best care for each animal.
The result was their nonprofit Danny and Ron’s Rescue, which now has a staff, including a veterinarian (neither founder receives a salary from the organization). Staffing up and adding a structure — and support from grants, donations and endowments — had allowed the couple to dramatically increase the extent of their care. Each dog is spayed/neutered, microchipped, dewormed, groomed and given a checkup. Each dog gets its own bowl and bed. Perhaps most importantly, Danta and Robertshaw give the animal as much time as it needs to recover from trauma.
Still, it’s a lot of work. And the stories of that trauma can be heartbreaking. Danta recounts the different ways their dogs have been hurt before they arrived at the rescue: some have been burned or otherwise tortured; some were trapped in small cages at puppy mills with zero contact with other dogs or humans; one was thrown onto a highway from a car going 70 miles per hour. “Emotionally, it’s very hard,” Danta says. “It’s very hard to see these dogs that have been abused. There are a lot of ups and downs. But also physically, there’s a lot of care to it. A lot of them have health issues, so it’s a lot to get them back to a healthy state.”
For every tough story, however, the pair has one that will bring a smile to even the most cynical face. Robertshaw recounts the story of a perfect match. “We had a dog that was so shy and turned inward. Just terribly petrified,” he says. Around the same time, a friend of the couples swung by. Her own dog had died recently, and she was depressed. She came over not to get a new dog, but only to test the waters of being around them. The scared little dog had other ideas. “This dog just immediately attached himself to her, like nobody’s business” Robertshaw says. “It was just an instant love affair. And it still is.” Needless to say, their friend went home with a new friend for life.
“We probably have hundreds of stories like that,” Robertshaw says. “It’s things like that that keep us going.”
— Jonanna Widner
