Volunteer of the Month

by Syd Sullins

We have been very fortunate to have Nicky Francesca volunteering at The Ranch for the past few months while she was making an exploratory trip to Lakeside. When I first talked with Nicky about volunteering, she told me quite a bit about herself. She’s very active and loves to hike. I felt certain that our dogs would be enjoying a lot of long, happy walks while Nicky was volunteering. Boy was I surprised.

On her first visit to The Ranch, Nicky expressed concern about some of our more timid and unsocialized dogs. She immediately decided that was going to be her focus. I gave her a list of those who could really use her attention and she went to work. She was amazing!

One of her favorite dogs was our shy boy, Ivan. He had already been at The Ranch for six months and we weren’t making much progress. He’s less than a year old but he obviously had experienced some people induced trauma in his short life. It’s not unusual to walk through the runs and see Nicky gently stroking this sweet boy. Then she began taking him out on short walks with the main purpose to find a quiet spot to love on him. Now after several months, Ivan is much improved. He’s still shy, but when a volunteer walks into his run to give him attention, he will give a tentative tail wag and before long will be happily accepting tummy rubs.

Knowing that she would soon be returning to the US, at least temporarily, Nicky was extremely worried about leaving her special dogs. Luckily she found another volunteer who also wanted to concentrate on our shy dogs, she was much relieved.

Nicky may not initially appear to be a tender heart, but we have all noticed how her beautiful blue eyes tear up when she’s working with our dogs. Thanks for all you’ve done for The Ranch and hope to see you back in our town soon.