Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/442406
BY LARRY HURRLE, EDITOR I t was a chance meeting. When a group of friends walked through the door of a small, unassuming coffee shop in the rural, mountain town of Cascade, Idaho, no one knew the ramifications. Aaron McGehee was on a week's leave from the U.S. Army at Fort Polk, LA, and had returned home to Payette, Idaho, to visit his ailing grandmother. While home, Aaron, along with his mother, Shelly McGehee, and a group of friends had traveled to Cascade, where they decided to visit a coffee shop in town. Aaron was the last of the group to order, but when he did, he had a surprise visitor from behind the counter. Scooby, the coffee shop owner's dog, came out to meet and greet the visitors. e visit quickly spurred a conversation between Aaron and shop owner, Reme' Maple. While the two had never met before, the conversation turned to Aaron explaining he needed to find a way to get his dog — a cocker spaniel named Vegeta — home from Louisiana to Idaho before he received his discharge from the Army. By coincidence, Maple had the answer. Both Scooby and another dog, Gypsy, had been transported across the country to Cascade though a program known as "Operation Roger," a volunteer operation that uses truck drivers traveling throughout the United States to transport pets. As soon as Maple told Aaron McGehee about the program, he knew that was the way to go. "It was awesome," Maple said. "It was kind of like it was meant to be." Maple had experience with Operation Roger, having the two shelter dogs transported across the country, one from Louisiana (Scooby) and the other from Georgia (Gypsy). Scooby was scheduled to be euthanized the same day when Maple found a foster home for her, while she waited to be transported to Cascade. Gypsy, too, was scheduled to be euthanized, but was already in a foster home. Gypsy, a black mouth cur and Staffordshire mix, was eventually brought to Cascade as a companion for a terminally ill man. Aer his death, Maple fostered Gypsy until she was adopted by a couple from Boise in mid-November. Scooby, a black mouth cur and boxer mix, has adopted the Maples as her forever family and was the reason behind McGehee getting Vegeta from Louisiana back to Idaho. "We were talking about her dog because I liked her dog and I just started petting it because it was friendly," Aaron McGehee said. "I started telling her about my issue and she gave me the information." McGehee adopted Vegeta (named aer a character from the animated Dragon Ball Z series) from a litter of puppies. Since he lived in the barracks, he had friends keep the dog for him. e first friend's wife was pregnant, however, and soon didn't want the dog around. "She didn't want him at all because he was destructive (chewing) and she was going through her pregnancy stages," McGehee said. "My only other option was to have him go to another friend's house, but he could only stay for a little while." However, while Vegeta was staying at the second friend's house on-base, a surprise inspection was performed. "ey didn't see the dog, or we would have gotten in trouble," McGehee said. "But they knew he was there. ey said, 'You have to get him out or you're going to be in trouble.' "To have a pet, you have to have them registered on-base. I didn't have the money to register him at the time," McGehee said. "I was kind of freaking out because I knew if I didn't get Vegeta out of there, I was going to have to give him to a new home. Her (Maple) telling me all this information was like, 'Yes, I can finally get him home.'" Aer returning from Idaho to Louisiana, McGehee began the process of filling out a very detailed application through Operation Roger to get the ball rolling. A small up-front fee (now a $40 fee for the paperwork needed to O P E R A T I O N ROGER ' I T WA S AW E S O M E . I T WA S K I N D O F L I K E I T WA S M E A N T T O B E . ' " " 18 IT MAGAZINE Vo l . 9 , N o . 1