“I came here for the couches and I left with the couches and a dog,” James Carr said. “My wife is going to kill me.” Carr said this as he left the Central Alabama Animal Shelter Saturday.

As he pulled away with his truck bed stuffed with couches, an emaciated pit bull sat next to him in the truck.

“I just felt so bad for [him],” Carr said and told animal shelter workers he just couldn’t resist bringing the dog home.

The adoption of several dogs is one of the positive outcomes each year for the Central Alabama Animal Shelter, when the organization Wannabe Rescued comes to the shelter and holds a yard sale. This year the sale had clothes, home goods, books and more with the proceeds all going to help the shelter. The adoption of dogs is just a plus for the sale as people come by and shop and want to bring home an animal. Wannabe Rescued also has a booth at Junebugs that raises money for the same cause, CAAS.

“Every time we do the yard sale, two to three dogs are adopted,” a Wannabe Rescued member said in addition to money being raised for the shelter. The two women who run the organization asked to be nameless because people look them up and drop dogs off at their homes. “Two dogs — that’s better than none getting adopted because that means we are saving their lives.”

Each time a dog is adopted from the shelter, two lives are saved, she explained. Because once one dog leaves, another dog is moved up to “adoption ready” status.

There are six rows of kennels at CAAS and only two of them, the adoptable rows, are safe from being euthanized.

“This yard sale gives 100 percent of the proceeds to the vaccination of the animals and it helps us as a board provide food and all vet care,” Sid Utsey, president of the CAAS board said. “We can also buy beds, cleaning supplies and we are at full capacity in the shelter, so we really need to recruit volunteers.”

Visit Wannabe Rescued on Facebook to like their organization and contribute funds.

“This Christmas we want to encourage people to adopt and not shop,” Utsey said. “It is better to adopt these dogs than to pay $1,200 for a dog somewhere else.”