'A way to honor her': After daughter's death, Glenmora mom starts dog rescue group

GLENMORA — When Leeleanne Perkins saw an animal in need, she did something about it.

That's why she stopped on the late afternoon of Jan. 11, 2022, to help an injured dog lying in the lanes of U.S. Highway 165 in Ball.

Tragically, she and the dog died when a pickup truck hit them as she tried to get the dog out of the road. She was three days from her 22nd birthday.

Her mother, Kristen Perkins, wasn't surprised that her oldest child would do such a thing.

"No, that was a very common thing," Kristen Perkins said on Thursday. "And, growing up, we had those conversations, you know? What would be the proper thing to do?"

But Perkins knows Leeleanne was focused on helping that dog.

"She was just trying to hurry up and get the dog and get out of the way," she said.

Another woman had pulled over to help her and was standing on the side of the road when Leeleanne and the dog died. Although she wasn't physically injured, the experience left her shaken.

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Still, the woman attended Leeleanne's wake and spoke to Perkins.

"I was grateful for that," she said. "It gave me a little bit of closure, what her last moments were."

Leeleanne was an animal lover almost from birth, her mom said.

"From the time she was able to walk and talk, she was rescuing whatever she could find," Perkins said. "Lizards? Her room was covered in lizards."

She would tell Perkins that the lizards had to stay warm. It also served as a way to keep one of her sisters, who hated lizards, out of her room, she laughed.

Leeleanne began working at Turner Animal Clinic when she was in high school. She later joined the Louisiana National Guard and, not long before her death, she started a job at the Pineville Pet Hospital as she worked toward becoming a veterinary technician.

In fact, she rescued a dog from the hospital the day before she died, Perkins said.

After Leeleanne died, she began thinking of a way to honor her daughter.

"Through my grief and the process, I needed a way to honor her and thank her for everything," Perkins said. "She was my oldest child. She taught me more than you could ever imagine. Kids don’t realize how much they actually teach us, so I needed to find a way to thank her."

A rescue group for dogs just made sense. Leeleanne had purchased a life insurance policy when she joined the National Guard, and she had made her mother the sole beneficiary. So she set about establishing Leedle's Dirty Paws in Loving Memory of Leeleanne Perkins, which is a 501(c)(3) organization.

Leedle is a nickname given to her by the father of her childhood best friend. The two met around sixth or seventh grade and became inseparable, Perkins said.

One day, while making up funny names, her friend's dad teased her, saying she was just "a leedle." It stuck, and soon that's what people called her, her mother said.

As the group began, support flooded in from people who knew Leeleanne and those who didn't, but who were touched by her story. An Incrediball tournament raised $1,500 in one day. And she learned more about her daughter, too.

"I had no idea how many connections this child had in the rescue community," Perkins said.

But, as the weeks went by, it became more challenging to get volunteers. She's learned it's "incredibly hard" to run such a rescue. She's also seen that laws supposed to protect animals in the state aren't always enforced as she believes they should be.

The group has gotten a boost recently from Jeff Dorson, executive director of the Humane Society of Louisiana. He has made some Facebook posts on behalf of Leedle's Dirty Paws, which has driven people to like the group's page. She calls him "her guide."

As for the group's future, Perkins said she wants to finish work on kennels for the six rescued dogs she has now. She also wants to build a covered area so that the dogs still can go outside in inclement weather.

Her three children still at home help, she said. Her 14-year-old twin sons, Gus and Garrett, do a lot of work handling the dogs, their own dogs and the five Leeleanne had.

She has one daughter, Jessalynne, who lives in south Louisiana and another, Analise, who still lives at home. Analise prefers to help by doing things like folding blankets used by the dogs, Perkins said.

"If it wasn’t for them, I don’t think I’d ever get any sleep," she said.

She appreciates it because she also works a full-time job in Alexandria and is going back to school to get a bachelor's degree in either human resources or general business, either of which she said would be helpful with the rescue group.

"I'm gonna need it," she said.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Leedle's Dirty Paws: Rescue group honors life of Leeleanne Perkins