The Work of Change Agents
Every dog is unique, and we don’t really know what we’re going to end up getting in Camp Doglando until the week before when we have our rigorous assessment process going on. It’s hard for us to select dogs in advance. Rescues obviously don’t want to hold on to them for camp, even though it’s a great reason to hold on to the dogs, and it can be challenging to wait until the last minute because you don’t really know what you’re going to get. You don’t even know if you’re going to end up with the right number of dogs.
Each dog is so unique in the sense that, as an individual, they all have their own unique story about how they ended up in the rescue. Sometimes the rescue knows their background, sometimes they don’t. So the fun part of Camp Doglando is really the arrival and selection of these dogs. For us, the people responsible for selecting the dogs, we’ve learned to ask certain questions that may not have been asked in the past, and I love learning more and more as each year goes by. We’ve become so intentional about this process, not just selecting dogs that would be good for our kids but treating this dog as a living being. This dog is more than how it ended up in the rescue and in camp. It’s not to be attached to the dog’s story; it’s to try to understand the dog’s history in terms of experience, sensations this dog has had, or has not had, and, as a result, ask ourselves why these two weeks would be so valuable for this particular dog. As we’ve learned to ask those questions and become aware of compatibility from that standpoint, we also ask ourselves that if these dogs were to never get adopted and we were their last two weeks, how would this be the most tremendous amount of joy that these dogs would have?
Teena Patel is the founder of the canine enrichment campus, Doglando, for restricted canine companions. The University of Doglando is a place where dogs can be dogs and live a fruitful and purposeful lifestyle. To learn more about Teena Patel and the University of Doglando, please contact us online or call us at (407) 574-3160.