{"id":21114,"date":"2025-08-04T07:02:52","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T05:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getitmagazine.co.za\/joburg-north\/?p=21114"},"modified":"2025-07-23T10:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T08:09:11","slug":"home-to-heal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getitmagazine.co.za\/joburg-north\/blog\/2025\/08\/04\/home-to-heal\/","title":{"rendered":"Home to heal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tracy McQuarrie, founder of Dogtown SA and BarkingMad, is making sure animal welfare remains on everyone\u2019s agenda.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s how your dog feels when she has a little mental enrichment \u2013 it\u2019s a moment that allows her to regroup and releases the pressures going on around her.
\nThat\u2019s especially important for dogs living at a shelter, says Tracy McQuarrie. That\u2019s easy to understand. Imagine what it\u2019s like coming from a home where you\u2019re 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.
\nThat\u2019s 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\u2019 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.
\nWhat she saw changed her life. \u201cI was working as a TV editor at the time, but I also volunteered at several shelters,\u201d she explains. \u201cI was so impressed by what I saw that I decided to attend a course on how to establish an animal sanctuary.\u201d Tracy didn\u2019t 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.
\nLife 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. \u201cDecember is a quiet month in the TV industry, so I thought \u2013 why not? I borrowed a plot owned by a friend, put up some kennels and took in 10 dogs.\u201d By January, she realised she had found where her heart lay. \u201cI 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 \u2013 but I knew this was what I wanted.\u201d Six short months later, she closed her business and opened Dogtown
\nToday, Dogtown looks after more than 100 dogs on its own property (it outgrew the plot rather quickly)\u2013 but Tracy\u2019s influence extends well beyond her own shelter. There\u2019s the Click-to-Feed programme she initiated through BarkingMad, and which has provided more than six million meals for dogs to date \u2013 a number which is set to increase following her negotiations to bring on more food distributors. There\u2019s also her work to help shelter dogs that are struggling. \u201cSo many dogs are adoptable, but they\u2019re really battling because of shelter stress. When other shelters realised that we offer behaviour-sheltered care, they called on us to help,\u201d she explains.
\nTo 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.
\nStill, there is a massive need for more qualified staff. There\u2019s also an enormous need for jobs, especially among unemployed youth. Tracy saw the potential of helping these two needs meet in the middle \u2013 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.
\nTracy\u2019s 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 \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking for everyone involved, because there\u2019s really no good reason people facing significant stress should be forced to give up their companions. But that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening.\u201d
\nKeeping families together also means streamlining \u2018lost and found\u2019 processes \u2013 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\u2019s eager to raise awareness so that more dogs and families are reunited.
\nTracy\u2019s efforts have recently earned her a Woman of Stature Award in the Community category \u2013 the first advocate for animal welfare to win this accolade. \u201cIt\u2019s a big moment for animal welfare,\u201d she enthuses. \u201cThis is an issue that seldom attracts the attention of corporate sponsors \u2013 but this award has given me a platform to talk about it and make sure it gets the attention it deserves.\u201d
\nDetails: Dogtownsa.org, barkingmad.co.za<\/em><\/p>\n

Get your dog thinking
\nSure, a 5km run with your dog is great \u2013 but did you know that, while it keeps your pup fit and healthy, it doesn\u2019t do much for mental enrichment? Here are some basic activities that will make their day:
\n\u2022 Rather than placing kibble in a bowl, put it in a snuffle mat so that your dog has to work hard to get it.
\n\u2022 Throw kibble around the garden so that they have to forage to find it.
\n\u2022 Fill toilet rolls with dog chunks and hide them around the garden.
\n\u2022 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.
\n\u2022 Easiest of all, give your dog time to sniff around when you take them on a walk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tracy McQuarrie, founder of Dogtown SA and BarkingMad, is making sure animal welfare remains on everyone\u2019s 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\u2019s how your dog feels when she has a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":21115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-people","8":"category-personalities"},"yoast_head":"\nHome to heal - Get it Joburg North<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tracy McQuarrie, founder of Dogtown SA and BarkingMad, is making sure animal welfare remains on everyone\u2019s agenda.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/getitmagazine.co.za\/joburg-north\/blog\/2025\/08\/04\/home-to-heal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Home to heal - 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