Hoover, a chocolate lab, was found near Columbus. Spirit attacked the family cat and came back. Libby, a black female, lived in a pig pen. Abandoned, mistreated, undisciplined or tearfully let go, these are among the 20 Labrador retrievers awaiting adoption at a Labrador retriever rescue center east of Cincinnati. Some of their adoptions have been handled by Steve Weidner, a 1994 graduate and current graduate student in sport marketing.

In a way, Weidner himself was rescued by the dogs, whose plight grabbed him when he adopted his first dog, Puck, from an Indianapolis shelter. “It pulls you back to the center to what’s really important,” he says. Today, it is leading him to start a rescue of his own at a farm in Indiana when he finishes his degree in December.

In many ways, he says, the rescuing of dogs fits very much in line with the Jesuit tradition of service to others in need. These “others in need” just happen to have four legs and a wagging tail. “They deserve the same integrity of life that any living thing does,” he says.