This is the situation, Sandra

by Marianne Glofcheski
(Gatineau, Québec )

I’ve started to write this several times to say what she meant to me and our rescue efforts. I just can’t seem to accept that she’s no longer at the end of the telephone line. I can’t seem to consider her in the past tense.

I won’t be able to call her up any more as was my wont when I needed to hear a level headed, reasonable, rational response to something I had run up against in rescue.

The call would usually start like this: ‘Sandra, this is the situation’.

I would then describe what was happening, what I was wrestling with, usually with a lot of emotion: anger and frustration with the stupidity, but sometimes joy, always something I could not see through clearly, something with legal implications or that needed club policy interpretation.

At times it was about a dog of which I was unable to interpret the status.

At times it was with one of the ‘attacks’ on breeders. People often don’t make a difference with those of us who are responsible in our efforts, watching the health and genetic appropriateness and caring for the mother and her pups throughout the very important first 8 to 12 weeks of their lives, from those that are backyard breeders or puppy mills.

For many, the term ‘breeders’ lumps dog people, responsible or not, together in the same pot!

Sandra always had a clear notion of our place in animal welfare. She would very patiently walk me through it all, each time. She would restate our situation. I would go back to my problem with a clear idea of what to do.

Sandra Young was a pillar of the GPCSO and its rescue efforts. I will miss her very much. Yet I know there is many a rescue Pyr who waited to accompany her across the Rainbow Bridge.


Stay well, Sandra.