South Whidbey man runs old-age home for dogs

By KATE POSS

Special to The Record

There’s a whole lotta four-legged good juju at Ron Kerrigan’s home, which is a former Langley parson’s dwelling that was moved to Clinton years ago.

He shares his home with old dogs whose owners can no longer care for them, boards them for Dogs on Deployment and houses them for friends who can’t keep dogs where they live.

During an interview on Kerrigan’s porch, Qehua, Loki, Qoqo and Fenrir warmed themselves in the sun and occasionally asked for ear scratches. Kerrigan currently has five dogs staying with him — he’s had up to 10 at times; one of the newest is Qehua.

Kerrigan has kept a book, called the “No More Dogs” chronicle, which details the 69 dogs he’s adopted, fostered, boarded through Dogs On Deployment and had as guests “when friends go to Hawaii and don’t think to take me along,” he wrote in an email. Dogs on Deployment is a nonprofit providing a network of volunteers who care for the dogs while their owners are away serving the country. The numbered dogs do not include all the fosters and guest dogs, who are indicated by alphabet letters – all 26 – and now he uses the Greek alphabet to document additional dogs.

Kerrigan’s long-time friend Ela winters in Maui and volunteers at the Maui Humane Society walking dogs. Late last year, Ela stopped by to walk a blind dog, only to discover the dog was being walked by a friend. But another dog waited for a walk. Ela took one look and felt it was the reincarnated spirit of her beloved dog Stella who was killed 30 years ago when she lived in Alaska.

In Maui, the dog’s name was Lehua Honey and had arrived in bad shape at the shelter as a stray on Halloween. Despite her forlorn appearance, Lehua’s brown legs and muzzle, black head and back even looked like Ela’s dog Stella from the past.

“No fur around her eyes, or feet — huge swatches of fur gone — she looked pathetic,” Ela recalled. “It broke my heart. I’m like, I will take care of you. I told her I’d get her out of there.”

She contacted Kerrigan, who agreed to take the pooch.

The shelter estimated the dog was 3-8 years old and had given birth to a litter of pups in the past. Typically, Kerrigan doesn’t take dogs who are young, as he feels they might need more activity than his older dogs do.

“When she asked me to take her, I agreed, but on the stipulation that she would take care of the vet bills to get the dog in a healthy state,” Kerrigan wrote in his dog chronicles.

Kerrigan likes renaming the dogs who stay with him, and since he likes the letter Q, he renamed the presumed shepherd/Kelpie mix Qehua, with Ela’s approval, though there’s no letter Q in the Hawaiian alphabet of 13 letters.

Kerrigan has homed, boarded and fostered dogs since 1960, first as a preteen with his first dog Lady, a spaniel mix, while he lived in the Bronx with his single mom and sister.

“I don’t have many memories of Lady, but I think soon after she arrived we moved into another apartment in a ‘no dogs’ building, so Lady had to go,” Kerrigan wrote in his book. “I remember being sad as I watched my mother’s friend walk her down the street. They gave me the age-old baloney about her going to a ranch in Montana, which even then, I knew was bull.”

One of Kerrigan’s great dogs was Wizard, 18 months old and deaf when brought to a shelter with his mother on Whidbey. Although his mother was adopted right away, Wizard remained for another year and a half at the shelter. Kerrigan was volunteering and wanted to walk Wizard, but was told, “he’ll hurt you,” by a staff member.

“She was right, but not in the physical way she meant,” he wrote. “It hurt me to see him not get the attention he deserved.”

Kerrigan adopted Wizard in 2007 and was with him 12 years before he passed on.

Kerrigan’s book chronicles the lives of many dogs, including a love story. Kerrigan adopted the elderly Mia, who he later named Skookum — in 2015. Mia found a boyfriend in one of Ron’s dogs, Nebuchadnezzar, a senior pit bull mix — a “perfect antidote to the pit bull reputation,” according to Kerrigan.

Mia loved playing with her buddy, wading in the water and rolling in the sand — her version of arthritis therapy. She would start barking if the people she was with were talking about things she thought were boring, bringing the humans back to the present moment. She lived with Kerrigan and his canine family for a little more than four years, outliving all the dogs of her pack when she first arrived. Her remains are buried next to Nebuchadnezzar.

The old dog sanctuary is a unique kind of place where the dogs feel safe, are treated well, are cared for by a vet, fed special diets and go on regular walks in the enclosed forest behind his home.

My goal is not to drop dead with too many dogs,” Kerrigan said. “I do have paperwork explaining what I want for each dog if I drop dead. It’s in my ‘If I die’ folder. Not that I’m maudlin. Something you’ve got to think about. I told Ela when I took Qehua — she’s her responsibility after I go.”