We all start somewhere...

I will admit it, I am a crazy dog person. Not the "I have 20 dogs living in my house" kind or the "who's a good puppy-wuppie-baby-boo" kind. No, I am the "head over heals, this is my first dog, she is the most awesome thing on the planet and I want to learn everything possible about her" kind.

I wasn't always this way; I used be be a normal dog lover that would happily pet a dog on a walk or visit a friends house just to play with their dog. I never had one growing up, so it was my way of getting in that puppy love. My parents decided that it would be unfair to have a dog, because my father's job, being a fighter pilot for the Air Force, had the family moving every 2-3 years.

So flash forward a few years after college and marriage. Still, no dog of my own. I decided to get involved in a local rescue to fill up my time while waiting for responses from various job applications. I expected to volunteer, walk some dogs, and just give some love to puppies when it was needed and then leave after 2-3 weeks. What I didn’t expect was to absolutely fall in love with understanding dog behavior and using it to help people around me learn more about their dogs.

Let me explain, I didn’t just walk into that shelter that first day and say, “Wow! This is awesome, I love dogs and I love rescue and now I’ve found my calling!” The first day I volunteered, I left my shift absolutely shell shocked. I was completely unprepared for the realities I was about to face.

Now before we jump to any conclusions here, I do want to take a moment to mention that EVERY shelter and rescue is VASTLY different. EVERY shelter is its own entity, with its own policies, and ways of running their organization. This is MY experience with just ONE rescue and is by NO MEANS an adequate representation of the rescues and shelters across the USA. Many are better than this one, and many are worse too, much worse. So please keep that in mind.

I never expected the distress of, not only the dogs, but the workers, volunteers, and management. It was very chaotic inside the kennel, I received no instructions on what to do or how to do to it. There was clearly a need for help there. So, I threw myself headfirst into this new world of rescue without knowing what to do or what the future held for me.

I wasn’t always happy helping, in fact, most of the time I was stressed, uncomfortable with the condition of the rescue, and empathetic towards the dogs in the kennels. But there were so many amazing moments that I shared with the volunteers, the potential adopters, and, of course, the dogs, that I would go through it all again in a heartbeat. I had the amazing opportunity to constantly observe dog behavior, both the good and bad. I found my dog, Zoe, who I cannot imagine living without. And I made some amazing lifelong friends that have changed me in ways I can only begin to describe.

We all start somewhere, and me, I stumbled into this world of dogs and dog people completely on accident. And now, I am on a path that I exuberantly want to share with anyone will listen. So sit back and get ready for anything and everything dog related. If you love dogs, well, as they say in that movie, “you’ve got a friend in me.”

#dog #rescue