It began with my love for my little beagle mix girls, Sandy and Sugar, my ignorance of the overpopulation issues, and a one eyed dachshund black lab mix named Toby. I found Toby in the parking lot of my office complex. He had gotten away from a rescue organization just down the road and crossed the big four lane. He had a tag on so I called them to return him. I found out he had been adopted and r
eturned several times b/c he startled easily b/c of his sight issues. I returned Toby to them but couldn't sleep that night so the next day, I went back and got him. Jean, the director of the rescue, was kind enough to explain to me what a rescue group was and how badly help was needed. That next year I bought my first house. I contacted a group online and offered to help out. Of course, the very first question was "can you foster". I thought, why not! I have a house with a big yard now. The next year, I had 10 dogs and the organization I was with was breaking apart. Each person went their separate ways but no one wanted to take on the 10 large dogs I had in my care. After a lot of stress, panic and anger, I finally said FINE! I will do it myself!!! Through the magic of the internet, I found out how to get licensed, how to file for my non-profit status and everything else that came with running a rescue. I worked a 40 hour a week job and funded Forgotten Paws all alone for the first 10 years. I never asking for donations except at adoption events on weekends where we had buckets out for cash donations. Running my own rescue ALONE was very tough. I remember struggling to pay vet bills and being so exhausted at the end of each day that I would actually have to lean in the direction I needed to go to just get my body to go that way. That first year, I was oblivious. I took applications at events and let total strangers walk away with my precious dogs. I recall the day Tiger got adopted. He was a 40 lbs chow shepherd mix that looked like Teddy Ruxpin. To this day, I tear up when I tell this story (as I am now). I can still see his face looking out of the back window of that car as it pulled away. He had no idea what he had done wrong, who I had given him to or why I let him go with people I had just met. That was the last dog that left me without a home visit. (fyi - Tiger had a great family and I heard from them over the years. He has passed of course). We now do home visits and do not allow pets to leave adoption events. People ask me why I am so strict about our dogs placements and why I think I can be this way when I am rescuing mixed breed dogs. To me a dog is a family member. I don't care if it has papers or is a mix of 45 different things, they all deserve to be treated the same. We function like a pure breed group and I am happy with that. It takes a lot more work to do home visits. We don't adopt out the volume of dogs that other on the spot adoption groups do but we build relationships with our adoptive homes. We are there for the pets and their new homes whenever they need us, days or years later. I know we have done everything we possibly can to match our babies with the right families. Here I am almost 25 years later, and we have outgrown what I can do alone. I have saved thousands of dogs, I have lived through a house fire, and I have had to put down more than my fair share of sanctuary dogs over the years after I have loved them and watched them grow old and sick. I now have a solid group of volunteers/friends who have the passion for animals as I do. The "I" has now turned into a "WE" and I am so grateful to everyone because we are saving lives. There are tough days, and we struggle to stay on top of things and ahead of the game. Our hearts break because we can't save them all but then we look around and see the faces of the ones we have saved and we are reminded of why we do what we do. Why we dedicate our spare time to the animals. Why we dedicate our homes, cars and lives to save them. We can't save them all but the ones we do save are worth everything. Thank you to everyone who supports Forgotten Paws and follows us on Facebook. We need you so that we can keep our sanity and keep saving these precious babies who need us.
