Saving Denver

John Denver was a popular singer in the 70s. The singer plays a huge part in my life, growing up listening to his music. I remember being a small girl, singing under the dining room table at the top of my lungs to my favorite John Denver songs. I loved "Polka Dots & Moonbeams," "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" and "Pegasus." I remember listening to "A Boy From The Country," and the following stuck-out in my memory:

"He tried to tell us that the animals could speak
Who knows, perhaps they do
How do you know they don’t
Just because they’ve never spoken to you"

My love of animals was evident to my parents when I told my Mother, poor Mother, that I wanted to be a cat when I grew-up.

Now, many years later my love and devotion to animals continues. I have a business that serves all but ignored animals - lost pets. I volunteer for many rescue groups, and try to be an animal advocate.

One of the groups I volunteer for is a great dog rescue group, the German Shepherd Rescue of Orange County - www.gsroc.org. I came to this group because I found a German Shepherd on the side of the road in Los Angeles. I thought he was almost dead, probably hit by a car. The "easy" thing to do was to leave the dog, look the other way, and keep on going. But, my heart knows what John would do, help a creature in need. I took him to the local shelter, my thought was he was in too much pain to be saved. Two days later I found that the dog had a skin infection and inner ear infection that caused him not to be able to walk and his awful condition. I contacted many dog rescues, and all would not take a dog in such a bad condition. However, the German Shepherd Rescue of Orange County was willing to take in this dog that was going to be euthanized - no one wanted to touch this dog with his infected skin, let alone adopt him!

After a long process, and thousands of dollars to rehabilitate the dog and treat his skin infection, they adopted him out to a loving home in the snow topped mountains in Mammoth, California.

I named the dog Denver, in honor of the man who inspires me to help animals on a daily basis. To know, that the animals can speak and have wonderful things to teach us, if we will only listen.