Buzz Miller was 64 when he had an epiphany.
He was a top tax and real-estate lawyer, very successful, very wealthy, but ….
“I can’t see myself doing this another year,” he heard himself saying.
“I’m tired. I’m bored. I don’t like some of the people I deal with.” His bones told him to do something with animals.
After some thought, with his wife Judi, he opened a “pet department store,” Buzzy’s Bow Wow Meow on Philadelphia’s storied Main Line, jumping in with a lousy business plan, despite his law degree from Penn and his masters in tax law from NYU. Somewhat ruefully he admits, “I followed my heart instead of my brain.”
Buzz and Judi spent so much time, money, and effort on no-fee adoptions and free, catered educational sessions, they were losing money hand over paw. It was the worst financial bump they hit in their 35 years together.
Judi was out running chores as Buzz and I talked in the spacious kitchen/dining area in his rambling country farm-style home. Ricky, a 6-year-old goldendoodle rescued from an Amish puppy mill, sat at his feet. Ricky is nervous around males he does not know, that would be me, and he carried a small rubber toy in his mouth like a pacifier.
Buzz has an easy smile under a billowing cloud of white hair.
Eventually, Buzz and Judi sold the pet store, walking away with the good feelings of having adopted out thousands of cats and dogs, and with a list of contacts at every animal shelter in the area. That list would eventually provide the foundation for PACT, a nonprofit they founded in 2011.
PACT was sparked when Buzz learned, to his anger, that when military members were called up, the government had no policy for caring for their pets.
Service men and women were forced to give away their companion animals, or surrender them to an uncertain fate at shelters.
These situations broke Buzz’s heart. He saw them as a hole in a fence that needed to be repaired.
“They were called up and had nowhere to leave their animals,” he says. “I mean, you got people that are going over there that could get killed, they could get wounded. . . And no one will take their animals? That’s inhumane for this government. So I said if nobody else is doing it, then somebody’s got to do it.”
And that somebody was Buzz and Judi, whose background was real estate.
PACT was designed to secure good foster homes for animals owned by military members who were being sent overseas.
Even as he was establishing PACT — which stands for People + Animals = Companions Together — he heard of a man in the Navy who had been activated, and had no one to care for his Husky.
With a bit of difficulty, Buzz found a foster home for the Husky, saying with a laugh, “I had no idea what the hell I was getting into.”
Other people heard about PACT through word of mouth, and then social media provided exposure, followed by newspaper, magazine and TV features. The yells for help came pouring in.
He has since placed 4,000 “cherished animals,” as Buzz calls them — dogs and then cats, in temporary, safe foster homes. PACT does not charge for its services, nor does it pay foster families, who do it out of love of pets and patriotism. The owner pays for the pet’s food and medical bills.
It was dogs only at the start, but now 30% of the pets placed in foster care are cats. Two years after PACT launched, it began accepting animals from civilians who were experiencing medical emergencies.
One service member who caught PACT’s lifeline was Air Force Master Sergeant Michael King.
During his long military career, King, 50, an avionics technician, was deployed 13 times. It was never a problem until one deployment near the end of his career. He had a beloved female pit bull named Guinness which he entrusted to the care of acquaintances while he was overseas.
Without his knowledge, they surrendered her to a shelter while he was away. “It broke me like you wouldn’t believe,” says King, who vowed he would never do that again.
And yet, a similar situation arose before his final deployment, six months in Afghanistan, which came up on extremely short notice, less than two weeks.
Desperate, King made calls to everyone he could think of to place Bandit, a 100-pound rottweiler mix, and Ruger, a 40-pound pit bull that King had rescued from a dog-fighting ring.
Everywhere he turned, doors were closed. “Somehow Buzzy called me out of the blue and said he would place both dogs,” says King, who lives in Newark, Del.
That call came just a few days before King’s deployment, and both dogs were placed with a New Jersey family, with whom King has bonded.
——-
From humble beginnings, Buzz now lists 1,000 foster families located across the nation, with at least one in every state.
“We have more in some states,” he says, “but only one in Alaska and Hawaii.”
It’s worked for 13 years, but it’s about to change.
Sometime before spring, the PACT acronym will land in the litter box of history, and a new, more descriptive name will emerge for the nonprofit — Operation Foster.
Buzz says it costs about $1,600 to place each animal. I asked why.
First, neither Buzz, now 83, nor Judi take a red cent, but they do have four full-time employees with a payroll of about $200,000. There are legal and accounting expenses, plus the cost to register in states that require it, some 38 in all. Local volunteers check out the suitability and background of the foster families. There are expenses involved in the required background checks.
There’s no charge for rent because PACT’s offices are located in the basement of Buzz and Judi’s home, which Judi turned into a complete business space at her own expense.
Now, as Operation Force gets ready to launch, they need just three things, says Buzz.
1- More volunteer foster homes.
2- More people learning the organization exists.
3- More funding.
I am working on No. 2 with this story.
If you want to volunteer, or donate, go to the website: www.pactforanimals.org
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Thank you Stu for a heartwarming story about people who are doing something great. I got misty eyed reading it.
While you spread the word I will do that as well in addition to giving them a donation.