Riding the Underdog Railroad

Laurie hugged Paddy and kissed his graying snout. He raised his furry eyebrows happily, oblivious to anyone but her.

She shut the door gently, and the Knotts headed their Subaru Forester onto the interstate.

Dog People

Linda Knott, a lifelong animal lover, found out about canine underground railroads on the Internet. She and her husband have taken in all the animals they can handle -- 11 dogs, nine cats and two horses -- so the transports are their way of still helping. Outside the Knotts' car windows, the rolling hills were blanketed in spectacular orange, gold and scarlet foliage. The route would follow I-40, a trucker's favorite, all the way west.

An hour into the trip, it was time for another handoff. After refusing to get out of the Subaru at the Star Motor Inn in Cookeville, Paddy had to be carried to the car of Lane Scarborough, 21, a college student from Jackson, Tenn., who does transports to earn required community service hours for her sorority.

"I think it's brilliant," she said. "Any way to get dogs a good home is great. It's no effort on my part, just a little bit of gas."

Paddy sniffed the back seat nervously. He wasn't the only one sniffing. "Paddy, we need a vent, babe! You need a shower!" Scarborough said, cranking the window open wide.

But she had been warned. Sescilla puts a disclaimer on the bottom of all run sheets: "Dogs sometimes vomit, pee, poop, drool, shed, whine, smell and do other unpredictable things.... If you were not aware of this, now you are. If you are smiling at this, then you are a 'dog person'.... If you gasped while reading this, please do not take a chance that you will be a victim of these horrible atrocities."

Two hours later, it was time for Stop Three.

Deanna Trietsch, 44, a legal secretary in Nashville, waited for her charge wearing a leopard-skin top with matching umbrella, which happened to match Paddy's leopard paw print collar.

She leaned in to look at the woolly brown dog.

"You OK sweetie?" she asked in a soft Southern accent. "He's scared. Let's go pee-pee, Paddy, let's go potty."

The dog obediently squatted in wet grass next to the parking lot. "There you go, that's better."

Trietsch allows herself to keep just two dogs and two cats, for the animals' sake.

She regularly gives last walks to strays about to be euthanized in public shelters, to "make their last hours feel like they were loved," she said.