If you’re looking to save a life in West Texas, look for the vultures circling
It’s a long road ahead — for Heather Hall, that is — on one of her many drives with a van full of dogs rolling on through the night to get to their flight in the morning.
Along the dark, deserted roads of West Texas, the mile markers passing by her windows seem to be the only thing around. There is no one ahead or behind her, and there are no city lights. Just an endless blanket of stars to illuminate her path. All she knows is the long road ahead.
If you blow a tire, if you run out of gas, if you cannot possibly drive another mile, that comes at the cost of the dogs you’re carrying in the back of that van. At least, that was the thought that kept Heather going.
But to get here, Heather’s journey in West Texas started hundreds of miles ago back in 2019.
Heather’s definition of a modest beginning is a little different from most people’s. “One dog leads to another dog, leads to another dog,” she says. Saving 101 dogs in her first year in the area, she thought she was a concerned citizen filling a need.
Today, Heather is the executive director of One Tail at a Time-West Texas, an organization serving eight counties across a region slightly larger than South Carolina.
The eight counties stretch across hundreds of miles, from border communities to towns in the middle of the most active oil field in the country. The entire region has only five veterinarians, three of whom are in their 70s and would like to retire but keep working because of the need.
Heather lives off the grid in Terlingua, near Big Bend National Park. Her home runs on solar power, and the water catchment system depends on about 4 inches of rain a year. It takes her 20 minutes to reach a highway, 100 miles to get to a grocery store, and 120 miles to reach her veterinarian.
Clearly, people in West Texas are accustomed to making do with what they have. But Heather wanted people to know they had resources and people to lean on –– especially for their beloved pets.
In 2019, that looked like starting with some standard protocols: finding transport partnerships, building a community of foster homes, providing access to veterinary care, and mentoring shelter leaders in the region.
But on another day, it looked like paying two high school students $30 to spend four hours underneath a trailer rescuing a family of dogs.
“I don’t know if this is in anybody’s protocol,” Heather says. “We do what we need to do to meet people where they’re at, to help the animals where they’re at, even if it’s underneath a trailer.”
And because Heather got creative and made it work, the family of dogs was put on a flight with Dog Is My CoPilot to One Tail at a Time’s sister organization in Portland, Oregon, where foster homes were waiting.
And then Heather and her team did it again. And again. Because it’s a discipline.
Maybe one of the clearest examples of this discipline is Presidio Animal Shelter, a small shelter closest to where Heather lives. It is a six-kennel metal shed between the town dump and the stockyards with no street address, and its closest veterinarian is 100 miles away.
Heather jokes that if you are trying to find the shelter, just look for the vultures circling. Summer temperatures can reach 125 degrees. And before Heather got involved, an estimated 80-85% of the dogs who entered did not make it out alive.
Today, they are saving 90% of all the animals who enter their shelter. The shelter still has a room that had once been used routinely for ending animals’ lives, although no animal has gone through that door in five years. Now, the room serves as a reminder of the progress they’ve made.
On both sides of the door to that room, the team painted a message in English and Spanish. It reads: This is a place of hope. Este es un lugar de esperanza. Heather points out that the shelter is still just a utilitarian metal shed by the dump, but walking in there feels different now.
Heather is not only saving dogs in shelters. She is proving to every animal saved that they belong. That their life is worth something.
When I spoke with her at this year’s Best Friends National Conference, she told me something I have thought about ever since: This work has made her a better person.
Being a witness to so much hardship can really shut down a person. But not Heather. She feels empowered by this work and continues to show all of us that we belong –– making us all better people because of it.
There may be many dark roads ahead, but Heather keeps driving.
To support Heather and One Tail at a Time-West Texas, visit otatwtx.org.
-Julie
