community.petpoint.com/dogged

 Good day all,

I guess it is time for a formal introduction here at the community site.

While I have been an animal person all my life, it seem to run along my father's side of the family, I have been formally involved in animal welfare for about five years. My experience is varied there. I have been a kennel attendant - seeing to the daily needs of the pets, an outreach coordinator - doing events and handling some media relations, a behavior specialist - with a focus on dogs, and a humane educator - which was my favorite position. I've worked/volunteered at a number of shelters both in Oregon and California. Those have been a variety of kinds of shelters: from a municipal open-admission shelter, to private open-admission humane societies, to a small limited-admission cat only shelter.

I volunteer for two local shelters (Animal Aid and Oregon Humane Society), an Aussie Rescue, and Delta Society (as a regional lead and a Pet Partner Team - primarily in Head Start classes). I am a board member of a small non-profit (Paws to Freedom) that teaches service dog teams (both dog and handler train together). There are currently four animal members of our household that resides in North Portland: two orange boys - Guido and Vinnie our tabbies, Moon - an Eastern Shoeherd (Border Collie/Spaniel mix) and my Delta Partner, and Rio...Rio is the crazy little Cattledog that got me started in animal welfare to begin with; but that is a different story for another time!

I'm currently looking for full-time work in the field but considering a return to school as well.