Lifestyle
'Nobody’s coming’ for L.A.’s doomed shelter dogs. This volunteer superstar is changing that
“Grandfather! Look over here!” calls Rita Earl Blackwell, her New York accent dissolving into the whipping wind. Wearing an electric blue jacket emblazoned with the words “Tell Your Dog I Said Hi,” she crouches low to film a dawdling old pug named Jojo with her iPhone.
On this blustery morning, Jojo wears a hooded jacket topped with a redundant pair of ears that flop, to comedic effect, over his own. He sniffs and pees like a guy without a care in the world. Jojo has no idea how narrowly he just escaped euthanasia, thanks to Blackwell and the engaged community she’s built on Instagram.
Blackwell has mastered the art of the shelter dog post as a volunteer predominantly at Lancaster Animal Care Center, which looks a bit like a preschool with its colorful murals of flowers and pets. Yet it also has one of the highest euthanasia rates across L.A. County. Her posts get the attention of celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and good Samaritans such as Terri Jackson, who stands by to transport Jojo to Frosted Faces Foundation, a San Diego-area rescue.
Rita Earl Blackwell films a video of a dog named Bullet at the Lancaster Animal Care Center.
“I saw Rita’s post about this little guy and just couldn’t let him die,” says Jackson. She is not an adopter or volunteer, but she saw Blackwell’s Instagram post about Jojo being cleared for euthanasia and was moved to act. She contacted Frosted Faces, which had an opening if Jojo could find a ride. “I’m driving a 300-mile loop today,” she says, squelching tears.
This is exactly the outcome Blackwell hopes for. “I create the post, but it’s the community, sharing, commenting and tagging, which gets the Instagram algorithm moving,” she says. “Now Terri goes home knowing she saved a life!”
But first, Blackwell must capture Jojo’s “freedom walk.”
In dog rescue parlance, a “freedom walk” is when an animal is seen exiting the shelter because it has been adopted by someone, or taken on by a rescue organization that will ensure its safety and care until it finds its forever home. Blackwell is known on Instagram for her signature freedom walks — always triumphant, life-affirming and beautifully shot. “If I get a million views or more, it’s always with freedom walks,” she says.
“Her social media is brilliant,” says Hillary Rosen of A Purposeful Rescue, who routinely works with Blackwell. “Rita is so personable and good with dogs, but also extremely creative. She has a way of making people feel connected.”
Creating that connection is essential to saving these dogs’ lives.
Rita Earl Blackwell spends time with Bean at the Lancaster Animal Care Center.
A professional photographer by trade, Blackwell’s current medium is video because she wants to show “that wiggle” or “wonky tail,” and “how happy these dogs are just to have somebody talking to them.”
She films herself interacting with the dogs, her long dark hair obscuring her face as she pours love onto the lucky pup of the moment. Her videos reveal moving expressions of interspecies bonding, with dogs voraciously licking her face, or melting into her lap as she massages them. “I want people to imagine the dog in their home, on their couch,” she says, “so I’m always rolling around on the grass, making out with all of these dogs!”
After a full day at the shelter, Blackwell spends hours at home crafting posts: editing video, adding music and liaising with the shelter staff to gather details. Some dogs never make it onto her feed because, with her many rescue organization relationships, she can matchmake offline. For the dogs that do appear on Instagram, her more than 100,000 followers share them far and wide, to Oregon for instance, where a family saw a post and hopped on a plane just hours later to save a German shepherd named Brenda. (“That was crazy!” Blackwell says.) Another post reached an A-list celebrity, who reposted. “That dog got adopted immediately! Thank you, Jennifer Aniston!” gushes Blackwell.
From impending euthanasia to glorious safety in a matter of hours, sometimes minutes — these are the extreme lows and highs at Lancaster and other local shelters drowning in the current overpopulation crisis. The problem is largely one of simple math: the number of dogs coming in far exceeds the number of dogs going out by adoption and rescue. Lancaster has only 176 dog kennels, but from October to December of 2023, an average of 821 dogs came in each month, making euthanasia for space a regular occurrence, even among highly adoptable, healthy, social dogs.
Rita Earl Blackwell walks to the play yard with a dog named Raven at the Lancaster Animal Care Center.
Rita Earl Blackwell connects with Raven in the play yard at the Lancaster Animal Care Center.
In the past, the public would adopt these easygoing dogs, so rescues could focus on saving animals with medical or behavioral issues, Blackwell explains. Now, there are just too many dogs and not enough adopters. “Nobody’s coming, even for these great, happy dogs,” she says.
Embracing this sadness, Blackwell holds space for the euthanized dogs she’s known by posting “RIP” compilations, despite losing hundreds of Instagram followers each time she does. “People don’t want to know this part, but these dogs are my friends,” she says, her voice catching. “I want to honor them, and report the reality that we need help.”
Still, Blackwell focuses on the positive. She artfully maintains emotional balance on Instagram, where the three current “RIP” compilations are buoyed by 12 joyous “freedom walk” montages. At times exasperation bleeds through in her captions, but she counters with inclusive calls to action. A recent post ends in a polite plea: “I beg you to please consider adopting your next dog from the shelter.”
Blackwell is often asked how she remains positive under such dire circumstances. All of her responses boil down the same: it’s what’s best for the dogs.
There are way more dogs than available space at the Lancaster Animal Care Center.
Rita Earl Blackwell interacts with Missy at the Lancaster Animal Care Center.
This clarity of mission contributes to her reputation as a volunteer superstar. “Rita does not get caught up in the drama and sadness of the shelter system,” says Kelly Smíšek, co-founder of Frosted Faces, who’s known Blackwell for over a decade. Don Belton, an L.A. County animal control spokesperson, calls Blackwell “an inspiration.”
Blackwell insists it’s not all altruistic. “Are you kidding me? I get to hang out with all of these gorgeous dogs.”
Born into a large family in Staten Island, N.Y., Blackwell ascribes her extreme dog love to never having had a childhood pet. “My mom was like, ‘No dogs!’ so I feel like maybe that’s why I’m obsessed,” she says.
Living in Los Angeles years later, she adopted a brown pit bull named Cherry from a rescue and realized she could help by photographing the organization’s dogs. This led to her “basically stalking every rescue in L.A.” to offer the same. Now she works for Paws For Life K9 Rescue and volunteers at the shelter in her downtime. “I don’t really have time for photography work anymore because I want to be at the shelter all the time,” she says.
How to help overcrowded shelters
While her obvious aim is to save lives, Blackwell also recognizes the importance of making life as good as possible for the dogs during their time at the shelter. “Spending 20 minutes with a dog can make their day,” she says. These small moments of kindness and connection matter, perhaps most for the ones that don’t make it out.
“Rita works with dogs she knows will be euthanized, just so they can have some love and affection,” says Erica Fox of Wags & Walks rescue. “She faces this more head-on than anybody I know.”
Adoption and rescue alone will not end the overpopulation crisis — Blackwell acknowledges this. Policy and public perception about animal stewardship must change. “Can somebody else please work on that?” she asks, half laughing, half not. “If you need me I’ll be here with the dogs, doing the part I know how to do.”
This reminds Blackwell that there are several dogs whose faces she wants to “scroonch” before she leaves the shelter that day.
Walking the kennels with Blackwell feels like arriving at a surprise party with an exceptionally gregarious guest of honor.
Tiles decorate a play yard at the Lancaster Animal Care Center.
Rita Earl Blackwell reaches her fingers through the bars to give Tina the dog some scratches.
“Oh my god, hello!” she trills at rows of dogs who respond with matched enthusiasm.
“Good morning, babies!” she says with a Fozzie Bear voice, feeding chunks of Pup-peroni to two yowling huskies and a wiggly black lab.
To a matted poodle: “Sweet love, what are you?” To a bouncy boxer: “Where have you been all my life?!”
Blackwell pauses, the cacophony of dogs barking “pick me, pick me!” swelling around her. “If we just put our hearts aside, and think about theirs instead,” she says, flicking a piece of Pup-peroni from her thumb, “we can find all of this love.”
In 2021, Zhao made history as the first woman of color to win the best director Oscar for her film Nomadland. Her Oscar-nominated drama Hamnet has made $70 million worldwide.
Bethany Mollenkof for NPR
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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR
It took a very special kind of spirit to make Hamnet, which is nominated for best picture at this year’s Academy Awards. Chloé Zhao brought her uniquely sensitive, mind-body approach to directing the fictionalized story about how William Shakespeare was inspired to write his masterpiece Hamlet.
Zhao adapted the screenplay from a novel by Maggie O’Farrell, and for directing the film, she’s now nominated for an Oscar. She could make history by becoming the first woman to win the best director award more than once.
Zhao says she believes in ceremonies and rituals, in setting an intention, a mood, a vibration for any event. Before Hamnet premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, she led the audience in a guided meditation and a breathing exercise.
Zhao also likes to loosen up, like she did at a screening of Hamnet in Los Angeles last month, when she got the audience to get up and dance with her to a Rihanna song.
She, her cast and crew had regular dance parties during the production of Hamnet. So for our NPR photo shoot and interview at a Beverly Hills hotel, I invited her to share some music from her playlist. She chose a track she described as “drones and tones.”
Our photographer captured her in her filmy white gown, peeking contemplatively from behind the filmy white curtains of a balcony at the Waldorf Astoria.
Zhao says she believes in ceremonies and rituals, and makes them a part of her filmmaking process.
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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR
Then Zhao and I sat down to talk.
“I had a dream that we were doing this interview,” I told her. “And it started with a photo shoot, and there was a glass globe –”
“No way!” she gasped.
It so happens that on the desk next to us, was a small glass globe — perhaps a paperweight.
I told her that in my dream, she was looking through the globe at some projected images. “We were having fun and it was like we didn’t want it to stop,” I said.
“Oh, well, me and the globe and the lights on the wall: they’re all part of you,” Zhao said. “They’re your inner crystal ball, your inner Chloé.”
“Inner Chloé?” I asked. “What is the inner Chloé like?”
“I don’t know, you tell me,” she said. “Humbly, from my lineage and what I studied is that everything in a dream is a part of our own psyche.”
Dreams and symbols are very much a part of Zhao’s approach to filmmaking, which she describes as a magical and communal experience. She said it’s all part of her directing style.
Chloé Zhao used painting and dance to connect with actors on the set of her latest film Hamnet.
Bethany Mollenkof for NPR
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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR
“If you’re captain of any ship, you are not just giving instructions; people are also looking to you energetically as well,” she explained. “Whether it’s calmness, it’s groundedness, it’s feeling safe: then everyone else is going to tune to you.” Zhao says it has taken many years to get to this awareness. Her own journey began 43 years ago in Beijing, where she was born. She moved to the U.S. as a teen, and studied film at New York University where Spike Lee was one of her teachers. She continued honing her craft at the Sundance Institute labs — along with her friend Ryan Coogler and other indie filmmakers.
Over the years, Zhao’s film catalogue has been eclectic — from her indie debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me, set on a Lakota Sioux reservation, to the big-budget Marvel superhero movie Eternals. She got her first best director Oscar in 2021 for the best picture winner Nomadland. Next up is a reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
“A creative life,” she notes, “is not a linear experience for me.”
Zhao still lingers over the making of Hamnet, a very emotional story about the death of a child. During the production, Zhao says she used somatic and tantric exercises and rituals to open and close shooting days.
She also invited her lead actors Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley to help her set the mood on set. They danced, they painted, they meditated together.
“She created an atmosphere where everybody who chose to step in to tell this story was there for a reason that was deeply within them,” actress Jessie Buckley told me.
Buckley is a leading contender for this year’s best actress Oscar. She said that to prepare for her very intense role as William Shakespeare’s wife, Zhao asked her to write down her dreams “as a kind of access point, to gently stir the waters of where I was feeling.”
Buckley sent Zhao her writings, and also music she felt was “a tone and texture of that essence.”
That kind of became the ritual of how they worked together, Buckley said. “And not just the cast were moving together, but the crew were and the camera was really creating dynamics and a collective unconscious.”
Filmmaker and Hamnet producer Steven Spielberg calls Zhao’s empathy her superpower.
Bethany Mollenkof for NPR
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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR
That was incredibly useful for creating Hamnet — a story about communal grief. Steven Spielberg, who co-produced the film, called Zhao’s empathy her superpower.
“In every glance, in every pause and every touch, in every tear, in every single moment of this film, every choice that Chloé made is evidence of her fearlessness,” Spielberg said when awarding Zhao a Directors Guild of America award. “In Hamnet, Chloé also shows us that there can be life after grief.”
Zhao says it took five years and a midlife crisis for her to develop the emotional tools she used to make Hamnet.
“I hope it could give people a two-hour little ceremony,” she told me. “And in the end, I hope that a point of contact can be made. That means that there’s a heart opening. But it will be painful, right? Because when your heart opens, you feel all the things you usually don’t feel. And then a catharsis can emerge.”
As our interview time came to a close, I told Zhao I have my own little ritual at the end of every interview; I record a few minutes of room tone, the ambient sound of the space we’re in. It’s for production purposes, to smooth out the audio.
Zhao knew just what I meant. She told me a story about her late friend Michael “Wolf” Snyder who was her sound recordist for Nomadland. “He said to me, ‘I don’t always need it, but just so you know, I am going to watch you. And when I tell that you are a little frazzled, I’m going to ask for a room tone … just to give you space.’” she recalled. “‘And if you feel like you need the silence space, you just look at me, nod. I’ll come ask for a room tone.’”
I closed our interview ceremony with that moment of silence, a moment of peace, for director Chloé Zhao.
Lifestyle
This spring, have a tea ceremony inside of an art installation and shop the latest Givenchy
Givenchy by Sarah Burton introduces the Snatch
Givenchy’s “The Snatch” handbag.
(Marc Piasecki / Getty Images)
Echoing the designer’s ready-to-wear sculptural designs, the Snatch from Givenchy by Sarah Burton is sensually shaped by the contours of the person who carries it. Its supple leather, fluid silhouette and three sizes allow it to slip effortlessly and intimately into the hand, over the shoulder or across the body. Now available. givenchy.com
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Guess Jeans store interior.
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Louis Vuitton’s new Color Blossom collection
Louis Vuitton’s new Color Blossom collection highlights sodalite.
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Taylor Swift’s sky may be opalite, but the starry blue hues in the new jewels of Louis Vuitton’s Color Blossom collection belong to sodalite. Rarely used in jewelry, the dark navy of sodalite adds an unexpected layer of depth to Color Blossom’s existing luminous gemstone lineup. Sun and star motifs rendered in gold enhance the gem’s night sky coloring, while the classic flower designs celebrate the 130th anniversary of the Louis Vuitton Monogram. Sodalite pieces available March 6, entire collection available April 4. louisvuitton.com
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Loro Piana’s Library of Knits comes in over 20 shades.
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Margesherwood X Peanuts
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Love is famously in the air this time of year, apparently even for cartoon characters. This enduring love is illustrated (literally) in the Margesherwood X Peanuts collaboration. Inspired by the heart-fluttering love letters Sally writes to Linus, the designs feature instantly recognizable motifs that marry the Peanuts’ charm with Margesherwood’s refined silhouettes. The zig-zag of that famous yellow shirt winkingly graces a crescent baguette, while the black stripes of Linus’s red red shirt wrap around a slouchy shoulder bag. For the true heads and lovers, there’s even a petite hobo emblazoned with Sally’s pet name for Linus: “FOR MY SWEET BABBOO.” Now available. margesherwood.com
Ryan Preciado at Hollyhock House
Ryan Preciado’s site-responsive “Diary of a Fly” at Hollyhock House features Oaxacan-woven textiles.
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Veronica Fernandez at Anat Ebgi
Veronica Fernanadez’s “Prey” filters childhood memories through experience and emotion.
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In the figurative paintings of Veronica Fernandez’s first solo exhibition, “Prey,” the artist’s childhood is recalled through dreamlike and fantastical scenes, with memories filtered through experience and emotion. Many of her works place a child at the center of the scene among family, friends and caretakers, who usually appear shadow-like at the edges of the paintings. As a kid, Fernandez endured periods of homelessness. But rather than depict a childhood of adversity, her paintings empower the kids within them to claim their own space, imbuing her memories with strength and light. Open through April 4. 6150 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. anatebgi.com
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Dior’s J’Adore Intense captures the scent of solar flowers with Rihanna as its muse.
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Rocky’s Matcha X Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán
Rocky’s Matcha hosts Japanese tea ceremonies in an ensō-inspired tea house from Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán.
(Stade New York)
The single, uninhibited brushstroke of the ensō, the circular form in Zen art, serves as a record of a moment. Commissioned by Rocky’s Matcha, Oscar Tuazon’s “Circle House” at Morán Morán shares both the ensō’s form and its call to mindfulness. In the artist’s tea house, constructed from cardboard, wood and tatami mats, architecture is inseparable from ritual: visitors will soon be able to partake in a Japanese tea ceremony inside the installation, thereby participating in a choreography of attention not unlike the act of gliding an ink brush across a sheet of washi. Open through December 31. 641 N. Western Ave. Los Angeles. Subscribe to rocky’s newsletter for tea ceremony information. rockysmatcha.com and moranmorangallery.com
Celebrate Mr. Wash’s new book, “Artists in Space”
Celebrate the launch of Mr. Wash’s new book of studio visits and interviews with other L.A. artists.
(Mr Wash)
Make your first BBQ of the season a meaningful one at the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, where Compton artist and criminal justice advocate, Mr. Wash, will celebrate the release of his book “Artists in Space.” Proceeds from the book, which features interviews and studio visits with 20 Angeleno residents, go toward establishing the new community center where individuals returning home from incarceration will have access to art classes, creative residencies and housing. Mr. Wash will be in conversation with Patrisse Culllors and Evan Pricco (co-publisher and founder of the Unibrow) as well as displaying new works. The event is on March 7 from 2-6 p.m. 15 W. Rosecrans Ave., Compton. artbywash.com
Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.
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Kate Green/Getty Images
Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.
Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.
But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”
The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.
Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.
“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”
Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.
Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features
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Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features
Interview highlights
On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies
I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …
The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.
On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up
I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.
On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance
I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.
On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant
I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.
Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.
I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.
On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works
I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.
Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
For filmmaker Chloé Zhao, creative life was never linear
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