Creating a Winning Team Involves Being More Than a Shelter

It is often through adversity that the strongest teams are built.  Over twenty years ago it was the adversity of having her own dog go missing in a rural area that Tracy Keith, Cochrane & Area Humane Society’s (CAHS’s) co-founder and executive director, began to plant the seeds of what has grown into much more than a shelter.  It has become community player; changing and saving lives through rehabilitation, education and most of all hope.

With animals coming in and going home every day at CAHS, every once in a while one comes in that has been through so much that we are left to wonder what will happen now. Cheyenne was one of those animals.

After an emergency visit to our vet hospital, a request was put out to our foster homes looking for loving hands to care for Cheyenne to help bring her back to health.  

Almost 8,000 km away, Ivanie Blondin, Canadian Olympic speed skater, received the request while she was on her way to compete at the 2019 ISU World Single Distance Championships in Inzell, Germany, and was immediately draw to Cheyenne’s photograph.   

“My heart just kind of sunk a little bit,” relays Ivanie.

The once crowned world champion in 2016 won a silver medal at that competition, and shortly after landing at the Calgary International Airport, Cheyenne received her own silver lining of hope when Ivanie and her partner, Konrád Nagy, came to the shelter and took her home to foster.  Cheyenne has now been adopted and is doing very well with her new family.  That is the true meaning of a winning team.

Saving lives begins within and extends to the entire community – a community that gives back on many levels.  To CAHS, being more than a shelter means that each player is cultivated to continually create a win-win-win.  Knowledge is golden and sharing this through education is the silver lining for greater success.

Training animals involves offering training to over 500 volunteers so they can work with confidence.  In March, through our Volunteer-Puppy Boot Camp, not only did five puppies learn manners and foundations that they now model in their new forever-homes, but the volunteers who worked with these animals have also gained valuable tools that they can continue to use within the shelter, at home and in the community.  

Last month CAHS’ Tracy Keith, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KSA and Vanessa Fischbuch, CPDT-KA, CAHS, held a Speak Dog Seminar, sponsored by Global Pet Foods Cochrane, where they shared valuable information with about 70 people through photographs, video and live demonstrations about understanding a dog’s body language, how animals learn and how their people can learn from them for an all-around win-win-win.

When Ivanie won her silver medal she thanked her own teammate. Today CAHS thanks our many teammates who continue to show great strength through the adversities.