I regularly communicate with a multitude of people who make a difference in the lives of animals. Many conversations leave me in awe of how much people do to help animals. Sometimes it is part of their profession and other times it is through dedicated volunteer hours.

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking to Jim St. Clair at Knox County Animal Shelter in Mt. Vernon, OH. It was our second conversation and it is very clear that this man really loves “his dogs”, as he lovingly refers to the dogs at his shelter.

Through a Dog’s Ear provides music that has been clinically demonstrated to calm the canine nervous system to shelters and rescue organizations at our cost. Our publisher, Sounds True, donated CD’s that go home with adopters and their new dogs.  Jim is a musician and knows the importance of playing music on a good sound system. So he reached out to his community and they donated the $1,000 needed to install good sound equipment for the dogs.

Since they started playing Through a Dog’s Ear music, barking that used to be non-stop all day has diminished to a rare bark here and there. During our phone conversation, I didn’t hear a single bark. Jim mentioned that he hadn’t heard a dog bark all day, while it used to be very difficult to carry on with phone conversations.

Then he told me about Trellis, named after the Ohio State Football Coach. Trellis had lived in the shelter for over a year. Nobody was interested in adopting him, because he was just a bundle of nervous energy. All that changed the day the music started playing on the new sound system. All of the sudden, he remained quiet and calm when potential adopters came by to say hello. His nervous system was soothed and he learned to control himself with visitors and shelter staff. Call it luck, coincidence, or synchronicity, but he recently was adopted into his forever home. Tears rolled down my cheeks when Jim told me that story. A dog is living happily ever after in his forever home because one man decided to raise funds for a sound system for “his dogs”.

What is something you or someone you know has done to make a difference in the life of an animal, a child, an elder, a homeless person? Thanks for clicking comment and sharing your experiences.

Delivering calm, four paws at a time…

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