Wake SPCA’s beloved ‘dog matchmaker,’ who helped aging canines find a home, has died

For more than a decade, Jerry Kroll acted as ambassador for Wake County’s hard-luck dogs, the aging pooches gone white around the chin, mangy behind the ears or shy from years of abuse.

As a volunteer for the SPCA of Wake County, Kroll always asked to show the animals who’d been around the longest, leading them to a bench in the front lobby so their smiles and tail wags would be the first thing any visitor would see.

Well into his 80s, Kroll could coax a family bent on adopting a puppy to take home a silver-haired old-timer instead. And as his fur-covered clients trotted home to a new life, he’d toss a treat out of his apron as a last bit of luck.

“Basically,” he told the N&O in 2018, “I am a dog matchmaker.”

Kroll has died at age 90, the SPCA announced Friday, triggering a massive outpouring of appreciation from his fans on Facebook.

In his time, he found homes for more than 300 dogs, nearly all of them troublesome, fighting illness or otherwise unable to promote themselves.

‘Jerry’s Dogs’

His daughter Lisa Kroll, the SPCA’s vice president, kept a running list of the neediest, calling it “Jerry’s Dogs.”

“It was a great combination of the dogs needing help and his never having met a stranger,” she said Monday. “He had that real gregariousness and an interest in meeting people. He wasn’t just sitting back in the dog area, waiting for people to come and adopt.”

Jerry Kroll, a retired purchasing agent, spent every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the SPCA, sticking with a dog until somebody carried it home.

“He would be able to get to know those dogs and sit in the lobby and really just bring the reality of how amazing this dog is to light,” said Darci VanderSlik, spokeswoman for the SPCA. “He had this ability to make them seem not as unapproachable.”

‘Wagging tails in heaven’

Once, after finding a home for Rose, a brown stray from Scotland County, he didn’t stop to celebrate. Instead, he came back the next day to show off Rose’s sister, Daphne.

He could spot qualities other people would miss. When a black Labrador wouldn’t shake hands, Kroll said, “I wonder if he’s left-handed.” So the southpaw pooch learned a new trick.

“Jerry is being greeted by so many wagging tails in heaven,” wrote Jodi Simmons Battle on the SPCA Facebook page. “We should all be so fortunate.”