The dog was spotted running down Interstate 
280. He was clocking about 10 to 15 miles a day, 
roaming as far afield as Berkeley Heights. Fitting­
ly, they named him Miles. Sandford Fishkind con­
tacted Conover and said, “Let’s go find this dog!” 
The two had never met in person, but Conover 
drove to Sandford Fishkind’s house to pick her 
up, unknowingly launching the beginning of their 
rescue partnership. Although they had a lot of ex­
perience with animals, they didn’t have much fa­
miliarity with trapping dogs on the run, so they 
brought in a professional trapper to help and to 
educate them on how to do it. Twelve days later, 
they captured him. 
“When we found Miles, I remember saying it’s 
like winning the lottery … but better!” Sandford 
Fishkind remarks.
“It’s a rush!” Conover adds.
“We started saying, ‘We can do this!’ ” Sandford 
Fishkind says. “It’s a process we continue to learn.” 
Now, they’re known as the go-to people to tag 
on local Facebook groups when a pet goes missing 
or a stray is spotted. 
“I feel like 90 percent of the time that you see 
an animal or somebody posts an animal missing, 
they are on it, and they find them,” says Jennifer 
McManus, a local real-estate agent with Coldwell 
Banker. McManus supports Conover and Sand­
ford Fishkind’s rescue work in a variety of ways, 
such as sponsoring events, sharing lost dog posters 
on Facebook, helping with stakeouts or just gush­
ing over cute dogs. “They tell everybody to send 
in sightings, and the sightings are what help them 
figure it out – like the radar of the dog. It’s just 
insane how they know where the dogs are going to 
turn up after a while!”
In December, there was a case that captured 
everyone’s hearts on Dogs of Soma. A white pit 
bull had been spotted wandering alone in a tough 
section of Newark since October. Neighbors were 
afraid of her. One woman, concerned about the 
increasingly cold weather, finally posted about the 
dog on Ring, the doorbell-camera app. 
Once Conover and Sandford Fishkind got the 
tip, they found a burned-down house where they 
were able to put a camera and feeding station. The 
nighttime stakeouts were challenging. Then their 
camera was stolen. But they received help from a 
few kind souls and eventually were able to trap 
her. She was not a scary pit bull but a sweet girl 
they named Dolly 
(after 
Conover’s 
grandmother), who 
immediately 
won 
them over! Dolly 
spent some time at 
each of their homes 
to 
decompress, 
went to the vet and 
got 
evaluated 
by 
a local behavioral 
expert they often 
work with, Gabriel 
Conover (no rela­
feature story / 13
Dolly was spotted wander­
ing around a tough sec­
tion of Newark but Sand­
ford Fishkind and Conover 
eventually caught her. She 
is available for adoption 
through Brick City Rescue. 
Marcia Sandford Fishkind and Kelly Conover with 
Kayla, a pit bull mix rescued from Puerto Rico that 
Sandford Fishkind adopted. Photo by Julia Maloof 
Verderosa.
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