From politics to paws

I haven’t always been involved in animal rescue. I’ve been around dogs my whole life, sure, and loved them every step of the way, but I never realized how fulfilling it could be until I saved one of my own.

I was working in politics for most of my professional career. I think most people don’t quite understand how much traveling is involved with that career path - I certainly didn’t when I started. I traveled to where the work was, spending time in over a dozen states, some of them multiple times over. That kind of travel is fun at first, but it quickly gets a little lonely, since you never know when you’re leaving for the next job.

So, one day sitting in a hotel room in Detroit Michigan, my partner and I had a bright, impulsive idea - what if we got a dog? We had both always loved dogs, and wanted to someday get one of our own. What if we cut the “someday” out of the equation, and made a friend for life? A dog, we figured, would travel with us from state to state, be there for us wherever we are, and could get from us a lifetime of love and new experiences.

So we did it. We went to the shelter in Detroit that takes in all the animals picked up by Animal Control and started meeting dogs. It didn’t take long for us to meet Loki, and we immediately fell in love with him. He was so energetic and full of life, the perfect companion. There was no world in which we left him for another night in the shelter.

As quickly as we could, we signed the paperwork, and he slept in our bed that night.
We moved a few more times after that, eventually ending up here in D.C., which had always been a dream of mine. Getting to share our experiences with Loki made each one better, and I know that both his life and ours are better for having ended up here. Because it was here that I discovered Lucky Dog, and realized that I could make a career out of saving dogs just like Loki every day.

So I did. Now we’re here to stay, and Loki’s story is just the beginning to a story that ends with many, many more dogs saved from the shelter.