Mico, Amber, Grace and 12 other stray dogs were rescued from the streets of Kaohsiung City in recent months by volunteers of the Animal Rescue Team Taiwan (ARTT), who noticed that the dogs were ill-treated and famished.

Soon after their rescue, the ARTT transferred the dogs to a local veterinary hospital where they were treated for malnourishment and facial injuries, an ARTT volunteer told The China Post.

Much interest was generated after the ARTT contacted its counterpart in Seattle, which will be in charge of finding homes for the lucky dogs.

On Aug. 3, a group of ARTT members accompanied Mico, Amber, grace and the other animals to the U.S.

In Taiwan, there are many reasons that animals end up in the streets, according to the ARTT. Some professional breeders, for instance, simply discard dogs when they cannot produce anymore puppies or when the puppies cannot be sold for a good profit.

Since stray dogs are by and large of medium size and locals prefer pets to be either very small so they don’t take up too much space in their homes, or very big so they can serve as watch dogs, adoption rates in the country are very low.

Moreover, a lot of pet owners in Taiwan do not see dogs as part of the family, so many are confined to stay outside the house or caged or leashed most of the time.

Another reason that accounts for low adoption numbers in the country is the rather common notion that certain dogs bring bad luck, such as black dogs with white paws, which are virtually impossible to adopt out.

In view of low adoption rates at the local level, the ARTT began to contact several animal care organizations in the United States a few years ago and posted their stories with photos of the creatures on their Web site (http://www.savedogs.org/).

Dubbed “Journey of Love,” ARTT’s cross-ocean adoption plan has placed over 600 cats and dogs in overseas homes in the past three years. In order to save on traveling costs, the ARTT recruits “dog escorts,” volunteer passengers who take the dogs as their checked-in luggage.

The ARTT finances the dogs’ traveling expenses and prepares the quarantine documents and vaccination proofs. Dog escorts need only pick up the dogs at the airport on the day of their departure and hand them over to the dogs’ adopted families upon their arrival in the United States.

The association stressed, however, that it is currently in dire need of dog escorts who plan to travel to New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle. More information is available by contacting ARTT at savedogs@save-dogs.org.

Founded in 1995, ARTT is a non-profit civilian group led by Joseph Nee, a retired math teacher, who has been devoted to protecting and rescuing animals in Taiwan for years. So far, the ARTT has helped over 3,000 dogs in central and southern Taiwan.