A man is traveling across the country by bicycle with his rescue dog to raise awareness about rescuing animals from animal shelters.

He stopped by the St. Landry parish animal shelter today.

While there, he found out that more than 30 dogs that were supposed to be euthanized earlier this week will be going to new homes.

Mike Minnick adores his rescue dog Bixby, who is 7 years old. “This amazing creature has rescued me and has given me a way bigger purpose in life,” says Minnick.

“For me, it took adopting this amazing creature from my local animal shelter to give me that little bit of encouragement I needed to actually start doing it,” Minnick says.

Minnick decided to drop everything he had 3 and a half years ago, to ride his bicycle with his main lady.

Together they’ve visited over 100 animal shelters across 44 states, that’s 22,000 miles and counting.

They spread awareness in the communities by word of mouth and by social media.

“If I can use Bixby as an ambassador to shelter dogs and help as many dogs like Bixby as i possibly can,” Minnick tells us. “Then that’s absolutely what I need to be doing.”

Earlier this week, St. Landry Parish Animal Control was going to euthanize 39 pitbulls and pitbull types because there wasn’t enough room at the shelter.

Animal Control Deputy Director Stacey McKnight says at the last minute, an organization stepped in and promised to find these dogs new homes.

Minnick didn’t know about the pitbulls before he came to the shelter, but says he’s pleased to hear they’ll be getting a second chance.

“The biggest thing that I can encourage within this community is to please support this local shelter,” says Minnick. “Every one of those dogs has the potential to be a Bixby and every Bixby has the potential to take their human on a life changing adventure.”

McKnight says it’s overly impressive that a one man team can take on such a dedicated ride. “To think that one person decided ‘im going to make a difference’, imagine if everyone one person in the world did half as much as what hes doing, how the word of shelter and helping a shelter would be effective,” she says.

There’s no finish line in sight for Minnick and Bixby’s adventure.

“Bixbys mantra is ‘dreams are like a stick, you just have to chase them, if you don’t chase your dreams, they’ll never come true, and once you catch up to that stick you just throw it further down the road, and your dreams get bigger and bigger .”

You can follow the journey on WHERESBIXBY.COM