Why did I start Texas Humane Society?

Rascal, my 95-pound Yellow Lab, changed the way I understood animals. When he died in 2017, my grief from the loss permanently changed how I viewed the relationship between people and dogs.

Roxy, my Louisiana Catahoula, taught me something different. Training and learning to understand her showed me how much a dog’s behavior is shaped by instinct, experience, environment, and the relationship with the person responsible for them.

Those experiences eventually led me to volunteer at my local animal shelter, where I began working with long-term resident dogs. I trained them, photographed them, created videos, used social media, and shared them through my own network.

That process worked.

Princess Paula had spent more than four years in the shelter and was adopted in less than two weeks. King Louie had been there about two years and was adopted in eight days. Baron, Anya, Legalus, and others also found homes after long stays.

That taught me something important: the public is not separate from the animal shelter system. We are part of it.

Shelters have limited staff, funding, space, and time. Outside those walls are volunteers, businesses, photographers, trainers, donors, fosters, adopters, and ordinary people who can help.

My background in retail supply chain and logistics at Dell also made me see the problem differently. Having something people want is not enough. You have to put it where people can see and interact with it.

The same is true for shelter animals.

Most people do not acquire their dogs and cats from animal shelters. They get them from friends and family, breeders, rescue groups, pet stores, online sources, or by taking in strays. So we bring adoptable shelter animals into the community where more people can meet them.

That idea became part of the foundation for California Humane Society and Texas Humane Society.

Sometimes the difference between a shelter animal spending years in a 4-by-8-foot kennel and finding a loving home is simply a member of the community deciding to help.