This story is part of a larger feature on 10 do-gooders from Saratoga and the rest of the Capital Region. To meet the other nine honorees and purchase tickets for annual fundraising event, visit our Capital Region Gives Back event page.
When Dan Graham fostered a rescue Pit Bull in April 2020, he made it less than a day before he gave in and adopted her. “After having her for about 14 hours, the rescue called to tell me that dogs were being adopted very fast and if I was interested in her I needed to speak up,” he says. “I hung up the phone, looked at her face and said, ‘Well, that was quick. Welcome home, pup.’”
Graham adopted Nikka through New York City’s Rescue Dogs Rock, but wanted to get involved with a more local rescue. He heard about Argyle’s Lucky Puppy Rescue, which was hosting a “Pups & Pints” event at Common Roots Brewing. “I went up there, introduced myself and offered to help them raise money,” he says. “And they looked at me like, sure.”
But Graham was a man of his word, and has since hosted fundraisers including a Pups & Pints event at Frog Alley and an outdoor volleyball tournament at East Side Rec. “Two or three dogs got adopted because of the events I ran,” he says. “It’s really, really fulfilling.”
But while seeing puppies get adopted is what warms the heart, Graham says funding is just as important. It takes money to maintain Lucky Puppy’s two pristine farms—one in Florida and one in Washington County—and more money to transport the dogs on school buses from Florida to Argyle two to three times a month. Speaking of the Florida farm, it takes in a lot of pregnant dogs, and therefore the Argyle adoption center has a lot of puppies available (hence the name Lucky Puppy). “Some people think that they’re going to get this old, beat-up dog when they adopt,” Graham says. “There are dogs that are absolutely amazing that are puppies.”