Grassroots effort helps unsheltered dogs stay warm

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On cold mornings, Krystal Kraig Labate makes a few detours on her drive to work. Frequent stops include Wallace Marine Park in West Salem, and the ARCHES Day Center downtown. After work, she does it again.

She’s on the lookout for dogs. Specifically, dogs without coats.

Kraig Labate’s trunk is stacked with dog coats and ponchos in sizes ranging from Chihuahua to Great Dane. For the past decade, she’s been giving away the coats to the dogs’ owners, who are living unsheltered in Salem.

In the past two weeks, she’s given away 16.

“The best part about it is I’m starting to see a lot more dogs in coats,” she said. “I have had nothing but appreciation from the people that are receiving these.”

The grassroots effort started in 2014, after a friend mentioned seeing an unsheltered dog that looked cold. The idea struck Kraig Labate, who began collecting donations for dog ponchos on Facebook.

Today, she has a small network of community members who keep an eye out for discount dog coats at stores and buy them for Kraig Labate to distribute. She also takes online donations to fund purchases. Often, friends drop the coats at The Marble Center, the granite supply business on Northeast Front Street she co-owns with her husband.

It’s just one of many ways Kraig Labate goes out of her way to help the dogs, cats and occasional goat in the Salem area, from fostering to roadside rescues to surgery fundraising.

Kraig Labate has always loved animals, and grew up on a rural property in Chewelah, Washington where dogs in need tended to somehow show up at their door, and her family would welcome them.

She traces her animal advocacy back to a summer visit home during college. A male cat on the property brought her a kitten that was so young its eyes were still closed. She followed the cat back to a storage building on the property, where she found three abandoned kittens. One died that night.

She called a local vet for help saving the other two. The vet told her how to bottle feed and care for them. 

“Those cats made it, and lived with us forever,” she said.

That sparked an interest in animal welfare. Later that year, she got an A+ on a public speaking assignment on the issues of cat overpopulation and the shelter system. She brought a basketful of borrowed, adoptable kittens to make her case.

She began fostering dogs about 17 years ago, and has fostered over 300 since. She specializes in helping antisocial dogs get comfortable in homes and around other dogs, especially dachshunds, and was known as the “wiener dog whisperer” at the Oregon Humane Society. 

She and her husband live on a 15 acre farm in Amity. Her husband, an architect, recently built a kennel for the foster dogs complete with indoor and heated outdoor access. She especially enjoys fostering pregnant dogs, and helping welcome litters.

“To me, it is the most incredible thing in the world,” she said. Her home set up includes supplies to tube feed neonatal puppies and kittens.

She also works with the Oregon Humane Society’s “trap, neuter, release” program, catching cats in humane traps and delivering them for basic vet care and sterilization to help keep populations down. After a tip from a friend, she helped 16 cats from a colony by an Amity gas station over a three month period, while collecting donations of $50 for each cat online.

Some of the animal meetings have been accidental. She has stopped her car for tiny abandoned kittens, injured cats and in one instance an injured husky dragging itself along Highway 99. She took it to an emergency vet, and after a Facebook post her friends raised $2,000 to fix the dog’s pelvis.

With emergency rescues and fostering on top of a full-time job, she described the outreach to homeless pet owners as more “laissez faire,” comparatively. But it’s helping make the difference for dogs on cold nights. 

She also hands out small bags of dog food, and dog blankets so they have insulation between the cold concrete. She said the coats help keep the dogs dry and insulated, especially short hair breeds which are common in Salem.

“It’s 20 degrees at night, and they’re laying on either wet or frozen grass or concrete, on a sidewalk,” she said. 

She said that homeless people are some of the most caring pet owners she’s met.

“(Dogs) are the one thing that love them unconditionally, and provide some comfort for them when the rest of the world may not,” Kraig Labate said.

On Tuesday morning, she said she gave a woman two coats for her dogs. The woman then asked her for advice on where to buy booties for the dogs, to protect their paws from freezing.

“This is how much they love their dogs,” Kraig Labate said. “(They) probably give way more attention and love than I give my dogs on a daily basis. They are with them all day long.”

With permission from the owners, Kraig Labate posts photographs of the dogs in their new coats online to thank the donors. Her camera roll is full of them.

She said the work, and the community support for it, has shown her that people are craving sources of positivity.

“People want to be good in the world, but sometimes it’s overwhelming. You just don’t even know where to start,” she said.

If anyone finds a lost or injured pet, Kraig Labate recommends contacting Marion County or Polk County dog services, checking social media for lost dog posts or taking it to a veterinarian to scan for a microchip.

Kraig Labate plans to soon launch her own website, “Paws and a Purpose,” to help people navigate local resources to help pets, and help coordinate donation efforts.

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.

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