As a reminder, each month I give away a free ad space (and this blog post) to a deserving Colorado charity. Occasionally I skip a month. In part, because sometimes a charity doesn’t respond to my inquiry about becoming a recipient of HeidiTown Gives Back. Check your email, folks!
Ruff Start Rescue & Training did get back to me and so they are this September’s recipient of the HeidiTown Gives Back Campaign.
This little nonprofit is “changing the world one dog at a time.” That’s all any of us can hope to do, right?
I learned about Ruff Start when a fellow Berthoud Surveyor writer wrote a story about them for our paper.
I am so thankful that there are people like Ashlea K. King and David Holzapfel in this world. They are the founders of Ruff Start Rescue & Training. A South Dakota native, Ashlea started volunteering at animal rescues when she was just 11 years old. When she grew up, she began rescuing dogs from Indian Reservations in South Dakota. There’s a funny story on the organization’s website about how friends and family stopped answering phone calls from Ashlea and David because they knew they’d be ask to take in another dog.
These dog rescue trips to Indian Reservations eventually led to the opening of Ruff Start Rescue & Training based in Berthoud, Colorado. This is a micro-rescue. Each Ruff Start Rescue dog is fostered until they are adopted. They are also trained. This is a big part of Ashela’s philosophy.
Their website reads:
“We firmly believe that people who value and have a strong bond with their pet are much less likely to surrender their pet to the shelter. By improving companion animal welfare through spay/neuter, force-free training, and concentrating on the human animal bond, Ruff Start seeks to provide a better world for dogs both in Northern Colorado and on the Reservations of South Dakota.”
I agree with this philosophy and that’s why I’m featuring Ruff Start Rescue & Training this month on HeidiTown.com.
Please visit Ruff Start Rescue & Training today to see how you can help this awesome Colorado nonprofit.