Be Brave Friday!
Saving Dogs
There is something beautiful that happens when art meets purpose. This is especially true if dogs are involved. And human goodness.
I learned that again this week.
And there is also something beautiful that happens when people celebrate the beauty in things that are thought of as discarded, of maybe broken.
Those things? They are shelter dogs.
On Monday, I was super lucky and got to do a news article on these people who celebrate the magic in what other people might think are broken. That article is here.
This BE BRAVE FRIDAY is about Kaylee Greer and her partner Sam and their other partners: Emmie and Doug. The four have been traveling the United States for the last year after Kaylee and Sam formed a nonprofit called the Dog Breath’s Foundation.
Kaylee had already built a pretty amazing career taking dog photos for big deal clients. It’s the kind of career most of us dream of. Big clients. Big sponsors. Big ideas. Her photos are alive and capture dogs as the magical adventurers they are. There is skill. There is art. There is genius involved.
She gave it up this past year and hasn’t taken a single paying client, instead embarking (with the three others) on The Great Adventure. Sponsored by a few companies, they travel through the country from shelter to shelter, featuring the dog that’s been in that shelter the longest—the dog that has been needing a home for years.
Where I live that dog was Xube (Zoob) also now known as Scuba Steve or Scooby Steve or Scoob or any combination honestly. He’s mellow with humans and very reactive to other dogs. Because of that? He’s been in shelters his whole five years of life basically, his last shelter is the wonderful one near me. They’ve had him a year.
“He’s pretty much been in a shelter almost his entire existence,” Kaylee said.
He’s awesome.
Greer and the team took Xube’s photo with all their skills. They brought him on one adventure after another across Mount Desert Island and Downeast Maine. They helped him shine and let him live a really big life for a few days—a few days—and hopefully their amazing photos will find him the perfect home, so that those few days can expand into a lifetime of adventure and love.
That’s what Xube deserves. That’s what all of us deserve: dogs, cats, humans, manatees.
A lifetime of adventure.
A lifetime of love.
The dog that sparked it all for Greer (well, one of the main ones) was a fourteen-year-old girl who spent her life—her whole life—in a shelter. She never got the chance to be on someone’s couch. She never got the chance to be someone’s light.
“I heard that story and it really sparked things for me,” Kaylee said.
That spark has become a flame. No, it’s become a signal, a torch that lights the ways for herself, her team, other people, volunteers and shelters.
What’s this have to do with Be Brave Friday?
That’s easy.
Kaylee took a huge leap of faith when she and Sam made the foundation, when they signed on to the trip, when they go out and open their hearts (along with Doug and Emmie) to each dog they meet.
They greet the world with a hug. Kaylee and Emmie especially. And it is almost impossible not to step right into that hug and just act like a pup and lean right in.
That’s magic.
That’s brave.
When Kaylee was making her decision about if she wanted to keep taking dog photos for all those companies and magazines, she asked herself some questions.
“Does that fill my soul? Is that why I was put here on this planet?” she asked. “What if I didn’t use my photography to promote a product?”
What if, instead, she thought, she used her photography to promote an animal, an animal who sat in the back of the cage for years with nobody noticing them, an animal that needs a human, an animal a human needs.
“I want to do this. I want to take out these long term dogs,” she decided, and she wanted help find them homes and also teach the shelter volunteers and workers how to make fantastic photos to help find the other animals homes, too.
So, Kaylee and company have taken no clients for a year. Instead, they’ve taken their ability to do good out into the world. Luckily, some sponsors helped.
The photos of the amazing Xube aren’t even out yet, neither is the video, but Xube has already had a meet and greet. Hopefully, the couple that meet him will be his forever family. That’s the goal.
It’s a brave one.
And it’s noble.
Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? We all deserve to have a home. And we all deserve to be brave and strong—heroes on the ground like all the shelter staff and volunteers and Kaylee and the Great Adventure team—and all the unsung heroes who run shelters like one of my local friends, Constance Millinor. These people? They make a difference.
That’s brave. That’s a great adventure.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Dog Breath’s YouTube channel is here.
You can visit The Dog Breath Foundation website to find out more about the initiative, and to support its mission.
Xube is available for adoption through the wonderful SPCA of Hancock County
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So sales-oriented-weird, I know!