Hi, we're Reggie and Jack!
When University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire students return from their immersion trips they bring all sorts of things home with them, be it a new appreciation for other cultures or keepsakes made by local artisans.You can now add stray dogs to the list, thanks to Blugolds Maddie Eggert and Eddie Flottemesch.
“There was no way we could leave them behind,” Flottemesch says of the year-old canine brothers — now named Reggie and Jack — who flew home with them after their Winterim service immersion in Puerto Rico. Eggert agrees, saying that “this was a service trip, so we had to bring them with us.”
Flottemesch and Eggert were among the 12 students and two faculty and staff members who spent 10 days in Puerto Rico completing a series of daylong service projects. When they arrived at their volunteer campsite, they found two stray dogs there. Initially aggressive, the dogs quickly befriended the group.
“They came to trust us and would sleep outside our residence building and even visit us during morning yoga sessions,” says Dr. Cheryl Jiménez Frei, an assistant professor of history who co-led the program. “They became our little mascots. The thought of leaving them was painful to everyone in the group, so we worked with Paradise Rescue, a shelter we had volunteered with in Puerto Rico, to get them prepped to be brought to the Midwest for foster.”
lottemesch and Eggert flew home with Reggie and Jack, and Katy Rand, the coordinator of student leadership and Greek life who co-led the trip, is fostering them until they find their forever homes.
Paradise Rescue has an “angel program” that asks people to fly with dogs to the continental U.S., where they have a better chance of being adopted. They have partner shelters in Minneapolis and Wisconsin, so the director asked if any Blugolds would fly back with a dog. Several students said yes, as did Jiménez Frei.
“We said of course; we were there to do service and do good,” says Jiménez Frei, who flew back with Eugene, an abandoned senior dog who is now in his forever home with a volunteer from Tails of Hope Animal Rescue in Alma.
Another Blugold, Nevaeh DeKeyser, flew back with Naomi, a 14-week-old puppy. She says she cried happy tears when she learned the dog was adopted within days of arriving in Minneapolis.