Stephanie Harvey with her dog Diesel.

Stephanie Harvey has always been an animal lover, so in November 2022 she decided to volunteer her time at the Gaston County Animal Shelter in North Carolina. Three days a week, she spends two hours walking and playing with dogs. Many of them are strays who’ve had little human interaction and some stay in kennels up to 20 hours a day. The one-on-one time she can give each dog helps make them more adoptable. “By working with them on a semi-regular basis, they begin to trust me and other humans and it is so rewarding,” said Stephanie, a senior business systems analyst in the Palmetto GBA eCommerce Department.

“When I tell people that I volunteer at an animal shelter, they often ask, ‘How do you not take them all home?’ My reply is that I can’t save them all, but I can love on them until someone else does. It’s a feel-good thing.”

While she doesn’t take them all home, she has taken one—so far. A couple months ago, Stephanie learned that Captain Crunch (pictured at left), a mixed-breed dog, tested positive for heart worms and was scheduled to be euthanized. After spending two hours with him, she decided to adopt him. After completing heart worm treatment, Cap, as she now calls him, started obedience training provided through a joint effort by the Gaston Shelter and the K9 Responder Academy, with the goal of making dogs more adoptable.

Today, Cap is thriving and fits right in with the whole family, which includes her husband, four children, her dog Diesel and a cat. Cap, who proved to be a calm and attentive listener, responded very well to the obedience training, so they decided to continue his training to become a service dog for her husband.

After her positive experience, Stephanie said she and her husband plan to continue rescuing dogs and sending them through K9 Responder Academy to become service and therapy dogs. One could say she is barking up the right tree and unleashing a lot of love.