Yay, it's Doggie Dash time again! This year I am dashing with Team Highway to Home, which is made up of volunteers who help out with the OHS Second Chance program.

Did you know that there is no time limit on how long an animal will stay at OHS before we find a forever home for him/her? Sadly, that is not true for many other shelters, so our Second Chance program saves the lives of dogs and cats that might otherwise be euthanized. With the help of transfer partners, we load the pets onto transport vehicles and bring them here to Portland. We volunteers unload them, check them in and get them ready for their new life with a loving family. It’s totally worth losing sleep.

The Second Chance volunteers are a close-knit group, so it seemed only natural that we would have our own team. There’s something about staying up all night pulling crates out of a truck and then coaxing dogs out of the crates that creates an unbreakable bond.

I personally got involved with Second Chance after adopting my pup Mogwai, a Second Chance terrier mix from Los Angeles. He was 11 years old and had serious heart disease, but he was also the most magical pup in the world. How could I not start working in the program that brought him to me?

Mogwai passed away in June 2016, and in August I adopted another Second Chance pup, an American pit bull/bulldog mix from Madera who I named Polly Jean Pibble. Last week, we welcomed a new Second Chance graduate into the family: Ramona the Brave, a kitten who came from Palm Springs. Polly Jean and Ramona share the home with Sir Milo, a red tabby who we adopted from OHS in 2012.

If you know me, you know how much I love animals, and how much I love the Oregon Humane Society. You also now how absolutely insufferable I can be when it comes to raising money to support the work of the Humane Society. Really, the only way to stop me is to just give in, and give money. Resistance is futile.