I used to avoid animal shelters. Getting too close to homeless and suffering dogs would depress me. Even when I went to adopt a dog at the SPCA I couldn’t bear to go in and see all the dogs that I couldn’t take home.

Since visiting Care for Dogs, I have learned that feeling sorry from a distance and wishing I could help them just wasn’t enough. I started coming just to play with the doggies here, walk them and talk to them.

The dogs just loved my attention, hugs and scratches behind the ears even if I couldn’t take them home. I fell in love with each and every dog and felt sad after hearing every story. How could people be so clueless and so cruel?

Every unfortunate stray we see on the street is the direct result of human neglect, abuse or apathy. As with most of society’s ills, the cause for this problem is ignorance and the only remedy for ignorance is education. Having been a teacher for many years, I was soon recruited to be a part of the educational program at Care for Dogs. I have helped to develop a Humane Education program that will target the future dog owners and create an understanding that will translate into better lives for our furry friends.

At home I have 3 hounds of my own. Whiskey is a rescue from New Orleans. Espresso was found as a tiny scared pup sitting in the middle of a street we now call Espresso Rd. And our most recent, Pirate, is a three-legged miracle we adopted from Care for Dogs. All the dogs and our rescued cat from San Francisco make our family complete.

We are very happy that Soraya Holbrook joined our team as our new Education Coordinator.

Together with Nienke Parma from LuckyDogs Soraya has developed our new education program “Professor Paws” and brought in all her experience and competence as a teacher. They had a very successful start teaching the program with 8 lesson program at American Pacific International School in April 2008 and will have their second project at the Thai school Anubahn in Chiang Mai starting in May 2008.