Kathleen Tortu-Bowles and her partner, Jorge Reynoso, reunited a dog named Joni with his family after he was missing for almost a week.
Moorestown resident Dotti Henry came across a Facebook post two years ago about a Yorkshire Terrier running around Washington Township without its owner.
She connected with Bailey’s Bridge To Home Rescue & Recovery, a nonprofit that assists in reuniting lost pets with their owners, and helped the organization trap the canine.
“One of the neighbors ran and caught this dog with a blanket, believe it or not,” Henry said. “We had traps; people were going to Wawa buying food to put in all these traps … One of the neighbors was able to put a sheet over the dog, capture the dog …
“That’s how I got involved in the group.”
Bailey’s Bridge founder Kathleen Tortu-Bowles started the volunteer tracking and trapping group in 2015 after rescuing a dog named Bailey. At the time, Bailey and her sibling, Buddy, were staying in a shelter in Oklahoma, and after a friend of Tortu-Bowles’ adopted the dogs, they raised money for them to be spayed and neutered.
Bailey and her brother then briefly stayed with a foster family in Louisiana before being sent to a rescue there, but the dogs ran away. Tortu-Bowles traveled to the state to look for the canines, driving around for miles each day. She eventually found Bailey, but not Buddy, and another search in 2016 was unsuccessful.
“I took Bailey back to my friend’s house in Louisiana and she stayed there for, it was probably nine months that she stayed there, and I said, ‘I have to get her transported to me in New Jersey,’” Tortu-Bowles recalled. ” … Bailey came to me, and she passed away in 2019 in her sleep … This just came to me one day, because we’re technically a bridge for bringing pets back to their families. So we’re the bridge that connects them.
“That started and then I just went from there,” she added. “ … I bought a trap, and then this past December, I became a nonprofit. But before all of that, I did have a partner and we trapped a lot of dogs together; last year, we reunited 63 dogs with their owners.”
Tortu-Bowles and her partner Jorge Reynoso safely trapped a dog named Joni from Moorestown in September, after the animal was lost for almost a week. When it was finally returned to his owners, it was a joyous moment for everyone involved.
“They have another dog, he ran right to that dog and did some zoomies around the apartment, and he was very happy,” Tortu-Bowles said. “Once they get in the trap, they kind of know that it’s over, and nine times out of 10, they just lay down and say, ‘Okay, you got me. Like I give up and I want to go home.’”
Bailey’s Bridge To Home Rescue & Recovery is currently seeking volunteers, and Tortu-Bowles encourages anyone interested to contact the nonprofit through its Facebook and Instagram pages or baileysbridge.tohome@gmail.com.
“I would like people to know that there are people like us out there that will be more than willing to help them find their dog,” she explained, “and to not worry about what it’s going to cost, because I don’t care if you’re rich. I don’t care if you have nothing.
“I’m still going to come and help you find your dog.”
