My sister and I used to joke that the only people our mother could say no to was us.  We both seemed to have inherited that genetic defect.  I have done a lot of volunteer work over my life both short term and long term stints.  The longer stints have included being a rape hotline counselor, a Peace Corps Volunteer, a house cleaner and grocery deliverer for HIV/aids patients, a foster and transport driver for Northern California Borzoi Rescue and now I am one of the volunteer placement coordinators for National Borzoi Rescue.  I also get to do the write ups for the dogs that come into rescue. 

 

I have always been a dog lover and now I get to combine two things I like to do.   All of my dogs except my first Borzoi have come into my life by chance and even he did to a certain degree.  I am the poster child for everything that you shouldn’t do when rescuing a dog.  I naively assumed that since the organization was a 501C and that they were listed on Petfinder they would be a reputable organization, I also adopted a breed that I knew nothing about.  I quickly went about learning everything I could about Borzoi and that led me to NBRF and Carol Backers.

 

I put in a volunteer application and learned through Carol about different rescue groups and how to research them.  I live on the West Coast and there was not much happening through NBRF and at that time there was still BRNC (Borzoi Rescue of Northern California). 

 

There was a huge rescue operation in Thurston County in 2017-2018 and I got pulled into action fostering several dogs and transporting several more.  I got to meet a lot of great people and dogs during this process and met my mentor Nancy Joeckel who taught me so much about rescue and Borzoi, when BRNC folded into NBRC I was contacted by Ann Marie about writing the bios for the dogs which I have had lots of fun doing and later I was asked to be one of the volunteer coordinators. 

 

I have really learned a lot in this position and am still learning more with every dog.  I have the least amount of experience, but thank goodness collectively the board and volunteers have hundreds of dogs and years of experience to draw on.

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