ALEXIS -- A yellow collie named Tyson jumped eagerly against the side of his pen, trying to lick Tri-County Animal Rescue founder Joann Hager.

Tyson first came to the shelter, on Al Hager Road just over the Lincoln-Gaston county line, three years ago. He had been hit by a truck carrying chicken.

He was there a year before a couple adopted him, but they returned him.

It's a familiar story: Finding homes for puppies and small dogs is easy, but the larger ones like Tyson are more difficult to place, Hager said.

Hager, who started the nonprofit Tri-County Rescue in 1996 on her 30-acre spread near Alexis, said the dogs are coming into the shelter faster than they are being adopted.

The Duke Power Co. programmer said she's desperate to find homes for the more than 100 dogs she now has at the shelter.

Dog food is costing her $300 per week. Veterinarian bills run from $8,000 to $12,000 per month for spaying and neutering and administering shots. And the dogs are not being adopted fast enough to pay the nonprofit organization's bills.

To help pay the bills, Tri-County Rescue charges $75 per adoption, compared with the $55-$57 charged by the Lincoln County Animal Shelter. Hager said she is so overrun with large homeless dogs that she's dropping the fee for large dogs to $25.

Tri-County does not euthanize dogs, so once they arrivethey are there until someone adopts them. The shelter is so full now that Hager has had to cut back on the number of dogs and cats she rescues from Mecklenburg, Lincoln and Gaston County pounds.

"They need homes," she said. "They need someone to love them one on one. We try to touch all of them every day, but it's hard."

Tri-County Animal Rescue specializes in saving beagles, but they also have collies like Tyson, huskies, pointers and dozens of adorable mixes, she said.

Hager has been known to rescue up to 24 pooches at a time from local pounds, and often rescues eight to 10 beagles at once. She said most beagles are abandoned because they aren't doing their job as a hunting dog or because their owners lose their hunting grounds to development.

About 50 beagles are living at the Tri-County shelter now, she said.

Hager often takes kittens and puppies to PetsMart in Franklin Square in Gastonia, but it's difficult to take more than a few at a time.

"Normally we encourage people to (go) to PetsMart, but there's so many that have never been seen that I want people to start coming here," Hager said. "I've really got to start saying no to (taking) the bigger ones."

About 20 volunteers care for the shelter's dogs and cats. It takes an hour and a half to feed the dogs and another two to three hours to clean the kennels, Hager said.

"The dogs need a lot of loving," said volunteer Jena Stewart, a 13-year-old from Shelby who spends her weekends helping at the shelter. "We feed them, water them, clean their cages and just love on them."