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05/04/2022 08:30 AMEast Haven native Lynn LaFogg grew up loving animals. Today, when not caring for and enjoying her own dogs—Diva, a blue heeler-Chow mix, and Gunner, a Labrador retriever mixed with three other breeds—she volunteers to help both abandoned pets and feral animals through the organizations she supports.
While Lynn lends her time to the Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter in Branford whenever she can, the main animal welfare organization she volunteers for is integrally tied to her passion for riding motorcycles.
That organization, which makes its home in North Haven, is called Bikers Against Animal Cruelty, Inc (BAAC). The 501(c)(3) non-profit, which is run exclusively by volunteers, was founded in 2007 by a group of 22 motorcycle enthusiasts who became aware of the problem of animal cruelty and abandonment and wanted to do something about it.
That’s when the idea was formed to combine the group’s love of motorcycle riding with helping homeless and abused animals.
When Lynn first joined BAAC seven years ago, she was a passenger and not a rider.
“A year later I went and got my license,” she says, and purchased her own motorcycle, a 2017 Suzuki Boulevard S40, “which was a smaller bike to learn on and get comfortable riding. [By] age 45 was my goal to get my [motorcycle] license.”
Today, Lynn rides a larger 2018 Suzuki Boulevard S50.
It was a friend who first introduced Lynn to the BAAC organization when they went on what’s called a poker run together, with a biker group that was working with another animal rescue effort.
“That’s when I met the president, vice-president, and a couple of other people at BAAC,” recalls Lynn. “We rode with them all day, talked with them, and by the end of the event I wanted to join them.”
A poker run consists of different biker groups riding to various restaurants, picking a playing card (like in poker) at each restaurant, “and when you come back to the end gathering spot,” Lynn explains, “whoever has the best hand gets a prize and whoever has the worst hand gets a prize, and usually, there is food and raffles.”
The BAAC organization will be holding its next poker run event in June, as part of yet another event designed, ultimately, to help our four-legged friends.
“We have [BAAC] members from different states, like Massachusetts and Rhode Island,” says Lynn. “In fact, our president and vice-president are going down to Virginia to bring merchandise because there is another [BAAC] member down there doing an event in a couple of weeks. And we also have a woman in Aruba who just joined us, so we are all, like, ‘Can we have our meetings there, in Aruba?’” Lynn says with a laugh.
On Saturday, May 21, starting at 11 a.m., BAAC members will conduct what they call a shelter run, which starts at the Simon Foundation at 120 Rescue Lane in Bloomfield and ends at Chutes Gate at 327 Main Street in Terryville.
“All riders are welcome,” Lynn notes, adding, “It’s a free ride, so anyone who wants to join can come. After we drop off items at the various locations, we eat [together] at a restaurant at the end of the ride.”
While the shelter supply ride is free to riders, supply donations in the form of dry or canned food and other supplies for sheltered animals are encouraged. During the May 21 shelter ride, BAAC will stop to distribute donations to Dog Star Rescue, Burlington Animal Control, and the Animal Rescue Foundation.
“We get all these different donations and visit all these different rescues and animal shelters,” Lynn explains, “and we bring them food, [animal] toys, cleaning supplies, whatever they ask for.”
And riders don’t have to be bikers, Lynn notes.
“Some of our members don’t ride,” she explains, “So we load up their vehicles [cars and trucks] with the items to distribute. And we usually have at least one person with a trailer or in a pick-up truck who follows us so if anything breaks down, we can put a motorcycle in the trailer or the back of the pick-up.”
The help that BAAC provides also extends to feral animals, and Lynn explains further BAAC’s mission.
“We don’t do intake of animals; we help guide them to the right veterinarian, animal shelter, or animal rescue,” she says.
“[BAAC volunteers] just collect donations and bring those to different animal shelters, and we will use donated money to pay for vet bills to help defray the costs for any animal that has been abused or neglected or is homeless because it cannot be an owned animal, like a feral cat,” she says.
BAAC also has a spay and neuter program, called “speuter,” according to Lynn.
“For low-income people who cannot afford to have a pet fixed,” explains Lynn, “they can go online, fill out an application, and one of our members will contact them to help pay for the vet bill directly. We never hand the people the money.”
Lynn’s volunteer work at the Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter in Branford was the result of her volunteer work for BAAC.
“I was dropping off needed supplies to them and asked if they needed any help at the shelter,” Lynn says of her first visit to Cosgrove. “Now I help them organize their food and put it in date order, so they are grabbing the oldest first. And they get a lot of dog food they may not use, so they will call us up when they have [been given] Pedigree dog food, and we bring the food to the Ansonia Animal Shelter for them, because Ansonia only takes Pedigree for their animals.”
Lynn’s work for Cosgrove resulted in her helping one of their sheltered pets directly.
“I adopted Gunner from the Cosgrove shelter,” she says.
As Lynn was once a passenger on the back of a motorcycle, today Lynn carries a passenger of her own, in the form of a stuffed-toy dog named Saver, who wears a black BAAC logo T-shirt.
“I got him years ago when we had an event at Savers [thrift shops] in Newington,” Lynn concludes. “We collected donations of clothes, blankets, towels, and sheets, and Savers donated a check to BAAC for the weight of what we brought in that day. They were kind enough to donate [the toy dog] to me with the promise he goes on rides.”
For more information about Bikers Against Animal Cruelty, write BAAC, P.O. Box 68, North Haven, CT 06473, or visit www.bikersagainstanimalcruelty.org.