As far back as I can remember I have been an animal lover. I knew all the cats on the block especially the roamers. I brought home all the dogs I found in the desert, including snakes, horned toads, rabbits and hurt birds. I drove my parents insane. But animals got healed or returned to owners. I cried every time I had to give an animal up but my parents always assured me, it was for the best.

I decided I was going to become at a vet at around age 15 until my dad told the vet we were taking my dog to with a broken jaw.  The vet let me hold Beau’s head while he stitched him up and my dad had to catch me as my head almost hit the floor. So much for that dream.

In my 30’s I started working for a vet again and was doing very well. The vet sent me into the room with a couple putting down their dog and I think I was crying harder then them. It was my first euthanasia. I think he had high hopes for me becoming a vet tech but I was having physical problems at the time and didn’t agree with his bedside manner so I moved on.

In 2013 after the death of my son’s boxer/lab, we started looking for another dog for our living boxer girl. I got a notification of a male boxer on Pet Harbor but by t he time I contacted them, he was gone. There was another boxer that popped up, a little girl. Everyone told me not to get a girl but one gentleman who was a boxer lover as well. I called the Stockton Shelter for three weeks checking to see if she was still there. I really wanted a full bred boxer but I could tell by her pic she was a mix.

But something was drawing me to her. Finally I  called my daughter Meghan and said, ” I’m going to the shelter. I want you to meet me there and talk me out of adopting this girl.” I called my husband and told him I was going to “just” go look at her and I was off. Now my husband knew at that moment, we were getting a new member of our family.

I got to the shelter and Meg and I started looking for this girl boxer named Sandra. Sandra immediately stretchered her legs through the bars of her kennel and tried to wrap them around me. We asked if we could take her out to the yard and as soon as that door opened she was running around playing with every toy and jumping in the pool. I was so touched but it was all over when she came over to where I was sitting and put both paws on my shoulders and laid her head on my chest. You see Sandra chose me! I told the lady I would bring my husband back the beginning of the week and my daughter cries out, ” No Mom! You have to take her now!” So Sandra became Jewels at that moment and a part of our family. I always say she is the best gift I ever gave myself.

When we left California in November of this year and moved to Missouri, I started seeing pics and hearing about this shelter on the lost pets sites on Facebook. I  looked them up and thought, “I have to be a part of this.” Meghan and I went driving around site seeing one day and I said, “Hey let’s go check out that animal shelter. I want to get info about volunteering, That’s me in the purple appropriately standing in front of the dogs!