Charlotte’s Shelter Dogs Now Have Their Own Run Club

Most run clubs begin with a meeting point, a route and maybe coffee afterward. In Charlotte, North Carolina, one of them begins at an animal shelter.

On Sunday mornings, volunteers gather at the city’s Toomey Avenue shelter, where they are paired with adoptable dogs before heading outside for a walk or run. Some dogs want to move. Some want to sniff every patch of grass they pass. Others seem far more interested in the outing than in maintaining anything resembling a respectable pace.

Together, they make up Zoomie Toomey Run Club, a volunteer-led effort that has turned one man’s Sunday routine into a community of dozens.

Ricky Highsmith began spending his Sunday mornings taking shelter dogs out individually for exercise. There were often around 18 to 20 dogs he wanted to help, so he would take one out for a mile or two, bring that dog back, then head out again with another.

It worked, technically. It just wasn’t particularly sustainable.

Highsmith eventually asked other people to join him, and a few runners started showing up. Then a few more came. What began with three people has since grown into gatherings of roughly 60 to 70 volunteers, according to Highsmith, with some Sundays drawing as many as 80.

The scale changed everything. Instead of one person trying to squeeze an extraordinary number of dog miles into a morning, dozens of people could each take one dog out and give many more of them meaningful time away from the shelter.

Zoomie Toomey isn’t an official Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Care & Control program, but it operates alongside the shelter’s existing Daycation program, which allows eligible dogs to spend time away from the facility with members of the public.

For the dogs, the benefit goes beyond burning off energy. Even with attentive care, shelter environments can be busy and stimulating, so an outing offers something different: new smells, open space, movement and one-on-one attention.

Volunteers complete the required paperwork, pick up supplies such as a leash, treats and waste bags, then head toward nearby greenways or neighborhood routes with their assigned dog. Some run, others walk, and the dogs tend to have their own ideas about the pace.

When they return, pools with water and ice help them cool down before heading back inside. But one of the most valuable parts may be what happens along the way: away from the kennel, volunteers get a better sense of each dog’s personality: who loves to jog, who prefers a slow, sniff-heavy walk and who simply wants to stay close to a person.

Those details can make a shelter dog feel less like a profile on an adoption page and more like a dog someone has actually spent time getting to know.

Charlotte’s shelter system has faced capacity pressure, making opportunities for dogs to spend meaningful time outside especially valuable. Highsmith hopes the runs can also help dogs connect with potential fosters and adopters, though organizers have only recently begun tracking those outcomes.

For now, the impact is easier to see in simpler terms: dogs get time outside the shelter, volunteers get to know them beyond the kennel, and the shelter becomes a little more connected to the community around it.

Highsmith started because there were more dogs than one runner could handle. He asked for help, and people showed up.

Now, every Sunday, the starting line belongs to the shelter dogs.