60 Minutes With A Tenacious Senior Dog Advocate
November is Adopt-A-Senior-Pet Month. Today we are shining a spotlight on San Francisco based senior pet advocate Sherri Franklin.
The Dog Days of Summer Food Campaign spurred me to reach out to Sherri, the founder of Muttville, a non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of senior dogs. Sherri is a dog advocate. A tireless and unwavering senior pet advocate whose tenacious style I admired from our first meeting four months ago.
Later at Blog Paws West after I listened to Mike Arms keynote speech, I wasn't surprised to learn from Sherri that he was a personal hero of hers. When I look back at my 60 minutes with Sherri at Muttville, her persuasive words and clear focus reminded me of that keynote speech.
In July I came to see Sherri to drop off the needed cans of dog food for her senior sweethearts and hopefully get a chance to talk about Muttville and how I might help. However, when I arrived she was still deep in her phone conversation about placing one of her canine charges. After ten minutes waiting outside in the cold (it's San Francisco!) she took pity on me and let me into her front room while finishing her call. Maybe some people might be put off by this since she knew I was coming, but not me. Her "distraction" was my reward as I got to meet her elderly guests.
While Sherri continued her phone conversation, I met almost all of her elderly house guests. They were very welcoming to this stranger who forgot to bring dog treats. A few of the senior dogs shadowed Sherri out to the backyard while she enticed the caller on the other end to consider adopting one of her elderly dogs.
After the call was finished, we all moved to the kitchen where Sherri skillfully gave eight dogs their medicine. How she kept the dogs separated, hid the pills in cream cheese and then quickly got them consumed was practically surgical. I can barely get one dog to sit still for monthly medicine let alone eight at once.
Since 2007 Muttville has saved over 800 dogs. She directs her persuasive efforts towards senior dogs abandoned in their golden years. With the amount of love and companionship a senior pet has to offer, we are proud to highlight San Francisco's Muttville and Sherri Franklin's work during Adopt-A-Senior-Pet Month.
Be inspired: Listen to Sherri on Dogtime Media's Animal Radio
Muttville: Give. Consider donating to this older dog rescue and non-profit
Learn more about the work Muttville does and why we need to support it