Tracy McQuarrie, founder of Dogtown SA and BarkingMad, is making sure animal welfare remains on everyone’s agenda.
You know how you feel when you have that first sip of tea after a long day of deadlines, phone calls, demands from your kids and endless, well, noise? That’s how your dog feels when she has a little mental enrichment – it’s a moment that allows her to regroup and releases the pressures going on around her.
That’s especially important for dogs living at a shelter, says Tracy McQuarrie. That’s easy to understand. Imagine what it’s like coming from a home where you’re invited to lie on the couch or in the comfort of your own bed, lavished with treats and great dollops of affection, only to find yourself at a shelter where you might be fed and exercised, but receive little other care. Many of them feel enormously stressed as a result.
That’s why Tracy is so passionate about ensuring that shelter dogs receive mental enrichment – a cause she took up after watching a series called Dogtown on National Geographic. Tracy was curious about the dogs’ life at Best Friends Sanctuary, the shelter portrayed in the series and so, when travelling to the United States (where the sanctuary is based), she decided to pop in.
What she saw changed her life. “I was working as a TV editor at the time, but I also volunteered at several shelters,” she explains. “I was so impressed by what I saw that I decided to attend a course on how to establish an animal sanctuary.” Tracy didn’t actually have any plans to start her own shelter. Her idea was simply to share her knowledge amongst the sanctuaries where she volunteered, and which were part of BarkingMad, the website she had created to match homeless dogs with potential homes.
Life has a way of making its own plans, though, and when one of these shelters needed to rehome its dogs during the December holidays, when the boarding kennels it usually used filled up, she stepped forward. “December is a quiet month in the TV industry, so I thought – why not? I borrowed a plot owned by a friend, put up some kennels and took in 10 dogs.” By January, she realised she had found where her heart lay. “I often joke that, since my last job in TV was for Miss South Africa, I went from beauty queens in beautiful gowns to picking up pooh – but I knew this was what I wanted.” Six short months later, she closed her business and opened Dogtown
Today, Dogtown looks after more than 100 dogs on its own property (it outgrew the plot rather quickly)– but Tracy’s influence extends well beyond her own shelter. There’s the Click-to-Feed programme she initiated through BarkingMad, and which has provided more than six million meals for dogs to date – a number which is set to increase following her negotiations to bring on more food distributors. There’s also her work to help shelter dogs that are struggling. “So many dogs are adoptable, but they’re really battling because of shelter stress. When other shelters realised that we offer behaviour-sheltered care, they called on us to help,” she explains.
To make sure that other shelters are able to do this work themselves, she has obtained the license to operate the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers in South Africa, providing a certified international qualification.
Still, there is a massive need for more qualified staff. There’s also an enormous need for jobs, especially among unemployed youth. Tracy saw the potential of helping these two needs meet in the middle – and so a learnership in dog care and behaviour was launched. Each of the current five interns will spend six months gaining certification and experience at Dogtown, completing the remaining half-year at another shelter where they will share their knowledge, improving the standard of care and, hopefully, finding permanent employment.
Tracy’s most recent project, called Not Without My Dog, has been introduced in reaction to the number of dogs, formerly cherished family members, that have been surrendered because of the rules of the complexes or retirement homes their owners have moved to, usually for financial or security reasons. Usually, these rules are not founded in science – “It’s heartbreaking for everyone involved, because there’s really no good reason people facing significant stress should be forced to give up their companions. But that’s exactly what’s happening.”
Keeping families together also means streamlining ‘lost and found’ processes – important, because many people who find lost pets hand them to small, independent shelters, without realising that most owners who lose a dog consider the SPCA their first port of call. She’s eager to raise awareness so that more dogs and families are reunited.
Tracy’s efforts have recently earned her a Woman of Stature Award in the Community category – the first advocate for animal welfare to win this accolade. “It’s a big moment for animal welfare,” she enthuses. “This is an issue that seldom attracts the attention of corporate sponsors – but this award has given me a platform to talk about it and make sure it gets the attention it deserves.”
Details: Dogtownsa.org, barkingmad.co.za
Get your dog thinking
Sure, a 5km run with your dog is great – but did you know that, while it keeps your pup fit and healthy, it doesn’t do much for mental enrichment? Here are some basic activities that will make their day:
• Rather than placing kibble in a bowl, put it in a snuffle mat so that your dog has to work hard to get it.
• Throw kibble around the garden so that they have to forage to find it.
• Fill toilet rolls with dog chunks and hide them around the garden.
• Fill the holes of muffin tin with a mix of kibble and meat, then place a tennis ball over each mini meal. Again, your dog will have to work out how to get their food.
• Easiest of all, give your dog time to sniff around when you take them on a walk.
