Many years ago, I adopted a rescue I thought might be a Cocker, but he grew into a Beardie-sized shaggy mutt. Upon losing him, I got an AKC breed book and started looking until I found “The Bearded Collie,” the dog of my dreams. I am on my 5th generation of Beardies, which included one Neardie, one puppy mill rehome, and 3 purebreds from ethical breeders.

I received my Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of Wyoming. Upon moving to Nevada, I was a branch manager at a Savings and Loan and later started working for City government as a Management Analyst, responsible for monitoring federal funds that were utilized for funding non-profit organizations as well as federally funded construction.

As social media took off, so did my interest in Beardie Rescue, and in about 2013, Paul Glatzer sent me an email informing me I was the rescue person for Nevada. I had previously been on the Board of BONE, as interested people were trying to revive that organization. It became clear to me that this non-profit had no guidelines or procedures. I wrote procedures that later became the basis of the current BCCA Rescue Guidelines. Unfortunately, we concluded that it was not possible to revive BONE and its assets were split between BeaCon and BCCA Rescue.

In 2016, BCCA Rescue was reorganized by the BCCA Board of Directors, and Kay Sakowski and I were named Co-administrators. We were charged with implementing structure, guidelines, and procedures. In 2017, we were honored to be recognized as Members of the Year.

I became especially interested in the health of our breed. Although I do not have a background in science, I was painfully aware of health issues as I encountered kidney dysplasia, a brain bleed, a stroke, likely hemangiosarcoma, and lymphoma in 4 of mine.

We have participated in Therapy, Nosework, and Fast Cat when my husband was alive.