Magazine Article
I came to the Humane Society of the United States in 2014 after a decade (more if you count those years I spent as a kid sitting in cat rooms and walking dogs way too big for me) overseeing operations at animal shelters. I wouldn’t say I was particularly excited about or motivated to fit policy into my daily workload of caring for homeless pets—until I worked for an animal shelter that was located in a city with breed-specific legislation, flawed policies that ban certain types of dogs based on their physical appearance.
Blog Post
In 2008, I was the director of operations at a small but mighty animal shelter in New Hampshire, at a time when animal welfare work in New England was undergoing an enormous transformation. We no longer needed to euthanize healthy and adoptable animals. We were developing creative solutions for treatable pets, addressing animal cruelty in the community and promoting owner-support programs. Hounds and pit bull-type dogs were our canine focus (likely explaining my lifelong love for both groups).