My Nonprofit Reviews

I’m going to tell my own story......
Once upon a time, I had a sweet mother who saved all of the cats and kittens in the neighborhoods of all the houses we ever lived in. She would also bring home an occcasinal dog, Lovey being the most notable as she had to sneak her out of a school yard by stuffing her under her shirt. The mean coach had kicked and thrown the dog, and was bitten so he wanted animal control to put her down. I learned a lot about helping the helpless from my mom. As an adult I would also take in the occasional stray cat or kitten and find them homes, the more years that passed the more frequently I was doing it. I got married and we had a little girl. When she was about 3, she started wanting to play with the cats and would try to get them to chase her and play back, the cats weren’t cooperating so my husband and I decided to go rescue a dog from the Humane Society. Not wanting to overwhelm ourselves, we chose a docile, sweet old man dog named Charming. He was heartworm positive and also had a seizure condition. Needless to say, Charming found a comfy spot on the rug and was content to sleep there alllll day! I convinced my husband that we needed ONE more dog, in addition to Charming. On the quest to find ONE more dog, I discovered there were SO MANY good family dogs that were homeless and in shelters. I was shocked! I found several dogs that rugged at my heart and long story short, within 5 months we had adopted, Charming, Fiona, Bell, Fozzy and Duke. My family thought I had lost my mind, and looking back, I think I did! My mom had a friend that fostered and my mom called her to talk some sense into me but what she did was encouraged me to foster as well, that way I could still save dogs and not own them all. The first dog I fostered was Sasha. She was a doll! I only had her about 3 weeks and a lovely couple drove down from Austin to adopt her. I LOVED IT! I couldn’t get another foster fast enough! Over that year, which was 2013, I fostered for several different rescues in the area, learning from each and gaining knowledge on fostering and the different ways things can be done. Still along the way I would help find strays homes and doing my own thing, when at last it became so much easier to operate on my own then having to coordinate with the rescue on what needed to be done. March 20, 2015 I decided, this is happening, and I gave us a name, Charming Pet Rescue. Charming after our first sweet rescue and Pet, instead of dog, because I rescued both dogs and cats and now have even rescued pigs! In September 2015 we got our 501c3. Of course no one says, “cool! You started a rescue, here’s $20,000 to getcha set up”, so I started like every one else with a few kennels stacked in my living room, which turned into a few stacked in the bedroom and front room until we cleared out the downstairs room and turned it into the kennel room, which it was until 2 GLORIOUS weeks ago when a big goal was achieved and I now have an insulated outdoor 10x20 air conditioned building that the dog’s sleep in. Over the years I have put down some good roots and my rescue is becoming more recognized and I have raised money for several shelter improvements within my “in home shelter”. I now have a sectioned off dog yard with covered 10x10 kennels, I’ve replaced 2 falling down chain link fences with sturdy privacy fence, I have a nice shed for storage, a privacy area for mamas with puppies or overly timid dogs, my glorious outdoor kennel building and at the end of this month I have another fence being built that will enclose another part of our yard prividing an additional dog yard. Last year, in 2017 we saved close to 600 dogs and I’m not sure what we are up to this year but I can’t wait to get the final total! Running a rescue is HARD work and some days I want to cry and some days I jump for joy, like yesterday when I had FOUR dogs adopted!!! So this is my story, and my heart.
And they ALL lived happily ever after.