Follow iwantapounddog on Twitter

By unanimous vote of the board of directors.

A huge congratulations to Marcie. She is one of the hardest working animal welfare people I know who has wholly dedicated the last two years of her life to saving and then reinvigorating the THS, not to mention the years of volunteer work she'd done before that.

Michael Downey, who was the president last year, leading the THS out of the mire it was in post-Trow, decided not to run again and nominated Marcie in his place. He remains on the board and he has been and will continue to be a valuable guide for Marcie in her new role.

I'm not going to say she deserves the position of president because that implies it's some kind of reward. It's no reward. Instead, it's going to be a long and difficult job with lots of really good days and lots of really bad days. She will have to bear the burden of animal life and death in that facility and I know she will bear it personally. She will have to walk gingerly through the animal welfare politics, lead the still recovering charity to financial well-being, guide the formation of a practical and efficient organizational structure built around animal care.

Her work is cut out for her so I'm not sure I'd say she deserves to be president of the Toronto Humane Society but the Toronto Humane Society absolutely deserves her to be its president.

I always knew she'd get there.



1 Comment to “Marcie Laking is the new president of the Toronto Humane Society”

  1. Congratulations, Marcie!

Leave a Reply



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A request

The reason for this blog is to help get specific dogs adopted from TAS but equally important is to try to normalize the idea of shelter dogs being just as good and just as desirable as any other dogs including those which are regularly merchandised by backyard breeders, puppy millers and those few remaining pet store owners who still feel a need to sell live animals. The single greatest stigma shelter animals still face is the belief that shelter animals are substandard animals. Anyone who has had enough experience with shelter animals knows this is untrue but the general public hasn't had the same experiences you've had. They see a nice dog photo in a glossy magazine and too many of them would never think of associating that dog with a dog from a shelter. After all, no one abandons perfectly good dogs, right? Unfortunately, as we all know, perfectly good dogs are abandoned all the time.

The public still too often associates shelter dogs with images of beat up, sick, dirty, severely traumatized animals and while we definitely sometimes see victims such as these, they are certainly not the majority and, regardless, even the most abused animals can very often be saved and made whole again.

Pound Dogs sometimes discusses the sad histories some of the dogs have suffered. For the most part, though, it tries to present the dogs not as victims but as great potential family members. The goal is to raise the profiles of animals in adoption centers so that a potential pet owner sees them as the best choice, not just as the charity choice.

So, here's the favour I'm asking. Whenever you see a dog picture on these pages you think is decent enough, I'd like you to consider sharing it on Facebook or any other social media sites you're using (I know many of you do this already and thank you for that). And when you share it, please mention that the dog in the photo is a shelter dog like so many other shelter dogs waiting for a home. If we can get even five percent of the pet buying public to see shelter dogs differently, to see how beautiful they are and how wonderful they are, and to consider shelter dogs as their first choice for a new family member, we can end the suffering of homeless pets in this country.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------