On a spring like day in March, when the weather was warm and the sky was blue and the chance of rain was unlikely, the LMU-DCOM (Lincoln Memorial University- DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine) joined forces with the Claiborne County Animal Shelter to assemble a terrific benefit for the future of the animal shelter.
Charles Mitchell a DCOM medical student and the Doggy Dash Organizer helped raise more than $3200 dollars for the county animal shelter.
Sunday March 13th, the first annual Doggie Dash raised $800. This amount added to the previous $2400 that was donated from sponsors, t-shirt sales and registrants that is to be donated to the Claiborne Animal Shelter.
The race itself had over 150 runners that participated in the first ever 5K dash. Taking home first prize for the 5K was Maxwell Freytag a junior at Claiborne County High. The first place for the female category was awarded to Nicole Howe a resident of Knoxville.
The top prizes for male and female runners with a dog were: Michael Roessler, Chris Hoverer, Brittany Bemis and Caroline Chadwell.
The talent portion of the day, which included “best bark”, was awarded to Rebecca Hardman and her dog Porter.
The cutest pet contest was awarded to Chris Heberer and his pup Zip. The prize for “best trick” was given to Cassie Hudson and her 4 legged friend Ollie, and “best tail wag” went to Brandon Chappel and his dog CJ, while Adam McKenzie’s dog got the “best spirit” award,
Dr. Seaman a professor at the DCOM medical school believes, “ At root I hope it raises consciousness of the animal population in the county and those of us who care for our animals, and maybe come to realize there are a lot of animals that are in need.”
He goes on to explain that, “Animals are really living in awful situations in the county. Part of that is the link between animal welfare and child welfare in a given region. When animals are poorly cared for children tend to be not far behind. I’m not leveling acquisitions at that nature, just raising the consciousness; these furry guys are great friends,” he said while playing with his own furry friend Elvis. “ I just hate to see any living thing suffer, but I also worry about the welfare of the human population, if dogs and cats are allowed to range on there own. I mentioned to the county commissioners if we have fertile fields for animal born disease we could find ourselves in deep and serious trouble. That is not something we need to revisit, we know that historically that it can happen, so try to do the preventative measures and do diligence and make sure we are prepared as a community. Any living thing needs and deserves at lest some dignity and food and some care and love. I just hope this activity and activity like this raise consciousness in the county and strike a reasonable compromise for what is best for the county in terms of long-term legal health and public health and goodness for the animals that have to be served here.”
With the shelter being built by volunteers and constructed by volunteers with no cost to the county, and now that it stands as a structure the question is operating cost, and that would be true for any agency, “ The cost for annual basis will be far less then one bad legal cost for the county.” Seaman sad. “ The best defense is a good offence, to try and to prepare. This is a good start if we have this become an annual event.
Without an operating budget, the money raised on Sunday will benefit the cost of a spayed and neuter clinic in house. As of now an out of town clinic comes and helps, but the shelter hopes to one day have their own means to spayed and neuter pets.
“The outcome was wonderful, the number of dogs and the number of people were wonderful” Ann Shumate Chair of the Animal Shelter Board said. “They did the whole thing. The medical students put together the whole thing. One of these days we hope to get funding from our county, it is a community built animal shelter and one day they will see the need for it.”
People just don’t want to put the money toward it yet, but eventually they will with support like this and people showing how much animals mean to the people in the county, I am sure we will get support.”
The top male runner with his dog a golden retriever/border collie mix Michael Rossler said,” We lasted the entire time, and I love dogs, she (his dog) came from the humane society. It was a good cause and I enjoyed being here for this day.
Charles Mitchell a second year student at DCOM had visited several council meeting and wanted to get more going. “ Another student and I brainstormed one night and got whole bunch of other student organizations involved and rounded up the community to do a 5K as student that is our best fundraisers.” Mitchell said, “ it was student organized and volunteered but we put flyers out across the area and advertised on radio stations and billboards and most people that turned out were students and faculty, but we got a great turn out from the community as well.”
A major reason for this fundraiser was to raise awareness that the community is a community of animal lovers. That there is a large population that feel we need more support in humanly controlling that population.
As students, they are too busy to host more then one event but they hope to do more semi- annual events and that is to be determined.
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