Borrowing A Buddy Offers Something Special for Everyone

Hike a trail, play fetch, take a drive, or just cuddle on the couch. Adventure Buddies Day at the SPCA of Texas is a chance for you to hang out with a grateful dog and for them to spend time outside the shelter, playing, sniffing, strolling, and taking in the sights.

Adventure Buddies Day is this Saturday, September 19^th. It’s a fun, easy way for families of any size to help vulnerable dogs—no experience or long-term commitment required.

Although the SPCA of Texas offers the Borrow A Buddy (BAB) program all year long, Adventure Buddies Day—created by Best Friends Animal Society—is one day when shelters around the country invite their communities to share a day with an adoptable dog. Think of it as a dog day out or a chance to spoil a deserving dog for a day.

BAB is an opportunity for humans and canines alike to enjoy companionship, fun, and adventure with no adoption needed, unless, like many, you fall in love with your “buddy.” Oftentimes, SPCA of Texas buddies don’t come back to the shelter!

The SPCA of Texas is lucky to have several fabulous families that successfully borrow pups on a regular basis.

Blake Jimenez learned about Borrow A Buddy during volunteer orientation not long after relocating to Dallas from Long Island, New York.

“BAB really worked out for me because I like to take dogs out on the weekend,” Blake says. “I’ll pick them up on Friday after work, and I’ll bring them back on Sunday.”

Weekends allow Blake to be home with the pup and really observe how he or she interacts with his dog, Koda.

“I take a buddy home, and sometimes I fall in love with the foster I’m borrowing, so I end up fostering that same pup every weekend until he or she is adopted,” Blake smiles. “And if there is an SPCA of Texas adoption event that weekend, I take my buddy. I love talking to people about the dogs and letting them know about that pup’s personality and how he or she interacts with other people and other dogs.”

If a dog gets adopted after Blake has borrowed him or her for several weekends, he gives himself and Koda (a rescue pup) a two-week break before bringing another pup home.

“It’s a good reset for me and a good reset for my dog, as well,” Blake says. “So that we can just focus on each other.”

Koda is a large, senior Mixed breed pup who does great with the buddies. “I tend to bring the shyer dogs home. Like a lot of my Borrow A Buddies, they don’t know what it’s like to play outside or to take long walks on a leash,” Blake explains. “Koda lets them know that it’s okay to sniff the grass. Some of them are pretty timid so it takes several attempts for them to be comfortable walking around the neighborhood.

“Or when Koda hops into the car with no problem, they realize it’s okay for them to jump in and ride in the car,” Blake says. “It helps them decompress by following Koda’s lead around the house and outside.”

When Heather Brown learned about all the different ways she could volunteer to help shelter pets at the SPCA of Texas several years ago, she jumped right in.  She worked with both cats and dogs and soon joined the Young Professionals group (currently the Professionals Network).

The group hosted a Borrow A Buddy event to promote Strut Your Mutt, The Race to End Animal Cruelty, so Heather decided to give it a try. “I thought it would be really cool to spend one-on-one time with just one dog,” she smiles.

Heather took Rowan to the brewery event, a sweet pup who had been shot in the neck and left in a ditch. “Thank goodness a good Samaritan found him. He has a permanent little head tilt now. I had the best time with him and I got hooked on Borrow A Buddy,” Heather says.

In the beginning, Heather took dogs to Trinity Groves in Dallas for walks and socializing. She fondly remembers Grant, a German Shepherd mix who she borrowed weekly for six or seven months until he was adopted. “He was so loyal and smart,” Heather says. “He was alert and always knew exactly which car was mine.”

Following a lengthy stay in the shelter, Grant was adopted. Not long after, he again was found wandering as a stray and came back to the SPCA of Texas. Heather immediately took him out for BAB outings. One day, while scrolling through her social media, she saw a post about a shelter dog who repeatedly left the shelter and traveled across the way to the sliding glass door of a nursing home and wormed his way inside. Of course, he was returned to the shelter, but it kept happening until the nursing home decided the pup should become a permanent resident.

Heather loved this idea. After making necessary arrangements with a nursing facility, she takes a BAB pup to the home once a month for an hour visit. “Every third Saturday of the month, I take a large dog to meet the residents,” Heather says. “They love it and the dogs are showered with love and affection.

“Some of the residents don’t get many visitors and when the pup comes in they really light up!”

Depending on the weather, Heather takes each dog to the park or to a pet-friendly brewery/restaurant after visiting the nursing home.

“It has been my mission through everything that I do with SPCA of Texas to debunk myths about rescues,” she says. “That is my purpose—what drives me. I think there’s so much misinformation out there, They’re not broken, they just need a second chance.

“By going into the nursing home, I can show everybody that a rescue dog can be with this very vulnerable population of elderly folks who are in wheelchairs and have ability issues that these animals are amazing companions,” Heather says. “Companions who are safe, friendly, and lovable—especially big dogs or Pittie mixes.”

Heather also continues to volunteer at the shelter and takes BAB pups to SPCA of Texas mobile adoption events where she shares details about the dogs with potential adopters.

When Jill Burnett’s oldest daughter was in kindergarten (She’s now 13.), the two of them spent time in the local animal shelter in Hurst, Texas reading to cats. She happened upon a Facebook post about the SPCA of Texas Borrow A Buddy program and thought it would be a great fit for her and her kids. “I thought it was cool because we have always had dogs or cats in our home,” Jill says. “It felt like something that would help me teach my kids to do good in the world. And since we enjoy animals, it made sense to get them involved.”

Jill and her kids take their BAB pups to mobile adoption events, when possible, and if there’s a long weekend from school, they try to do a weekend BAB.

“Every time we do a BAB, we end up walking through the whole shelter just to say one final goodbye,” says Jill. “We all want to make sure our pup is okay when we leave him or her, because we’ve fallen in love with them.”

Jill has a hard time turning down a dog in need. “Usually, I can’t help but say ‘yes’ to any urgent dog,” Jill smiles. “There was one dog, Paris, that we had seen several times in her shelter pod. She was barking a lot, but when you’d stop and talk to her, it helped calm her down. She was so sweet that when I saw her on the urgent list—that she was really struggling—I knew we had to take her.”

The Burnetts ended up “borrowing” Paris for almost two weeks right around Thanksgiving last year. She was calm and relaxed in their home and was adopted pretty quickly after they brought her back.

Jill is proud of what she and her kids call a winning streak that they were having recently. “For several weeks in a row, we would take a dog out and then they would get adopted in just a day or two! I feel like it reaffirms that what we’re doing is good; good for the shelter pups and good for our family,” she says.

Once they return their BAB to the shelter, the Burnett family checks up on the dog to see if it has been adopted. “We always wonder how soon after we’ve had them do they get adopted, or if  the pup is still there. Are they struggling? Should we try to take them again?” Jill notes.

“There was one dog, Flow. We had taken her once and then she got adopted. It wasn’t long until the kids saw that she had been returned, so we ended up borrowing her again,” Jill says. “Flow’s whole personality had changed. She had been just a bubbly sweet baby, and when she was returned to the shelter, it broke her heart.”

Determined to help Flow get adopted, Jill and her kids ended up borrowing her two more weekends before she found her best match. It is important to note that Jill and her family also foster SPCA of Texas kittens on a regular basis.

The SPCA of Texas encourages families and individuals to consider Borrowing A Buddy to help our sweet dogs socialize and find loving homes. You can keep a pup for an afternoon, an hour, a weekend or more. Our pups love hiking, going on walks, playing in the yard, and cuddling while watching a movie! Whatever works with your schedule, works with them.

You can stop by the SPCA of Texas Jan Rees-Jones Animal Care Center (2400 Lone Star Dr, 75212) any day of the week between Noon and 6 p.m. Or email foster@spca.org to Borrow A Buddy!

Bring a whole lot of joy to your life just by sharing your time with a deserving shelter pet. Join Blake, Heather, and Jill and Borrow A deserving Buddy today!