1.What inspired Rescue Pets Serving Vets, Inc?
My name is Casey Shonis.
I’m the founder of Rescue Pets Serving Vets, a nonprofit charitable 501c3 organization.

I never planned on doing this in my life, but it was just one of those things the felt right at the time when a Vietnam veteran lost his dog to cancer and lost his heart.

I have always had great respect for our military heroes and a deep love for all animals since a child.

After high school and college I went on to obtaining a doctorate in Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Illinois while my husband was getting a veterinarian degree. I almost thought of joining his field, but I could never control my emotions when a pet or a zoo (worked in a zoo for a brief time in college! Lol) animal would suffer and pass.

After Grad school I worked as a professor in the Biology Department of Bloomsburg University, while my husband started his own clinic and more clinics down the road. I always helped him on emergencies in the middle of the night for a decade plus… and then I decided it was time to be a mom, have a couple babies and eventually go back to being a professor. That never worked out other than having two beautiful sons when I was 38/40 yrs old.

While taking care of the tiny ones I also helped manage my husband’s clinics while the youngest would be in a baby car seat on the surgery or X-ray table. Eventually that became my full time job! Managing, teching and doing ultrasounds and echocardiograms for dogs and cats.

In 2017 I was doing an ultrasound on dog that came in with a mass my husband found on exam. After the ultrasound I had to tell my husband it was a cancerous mass and we both went in to tell the owner. This was one of the worst parts of this job I normally loved. The owner was the Vietnam veteran . He had PTSD. He would always come directly in to the exam rooms during vet visits to avoid the public.

He was holding his dog on the exam table while my husband had to tell him the horrible prognosis. A strong man that had been through hell during his service I’m sure, stood hugging his buddy while crying and telling us this dog was his “life”. I was pouring tears along with him while he stayed to put his dog to sleep so he would not suffer.

Afterward I couldn’t help but hug him and for some reason I asked if it would help if he could find another dog. He responded “I don’t know where to find one”.
That was the start of the rescue down the road oddly enough.
I told him not to worry I would find him another loving Buddy. He agreed and soon I was working with a person running a small rescue to find him some options. The first one I took to him he opened his door and his heart to a young yellow lab mix.

I was so thrilled to see him smiling and happy! I thought these veterans really deserve the attention and unconditional love of a dog, who needed the same thing back just as much.

2018 came and by then I had to start my own rescue to achieve helping more dogs and veterans. Luckily I got help on how to start a nonprofit rescue by a lawyer who was a dog lover and my husband’s client. And I got help from an accountant on the financial forms required , and by May 2018 we were a legit rescue.

I wanted to save as many dogs from being euthanized in high kill shelters as possible, so I adopted fully vetted dogs at low fees to non veterans and provided them to veterans w fees waived. I wanted to help veterans as much as possible by providing loving dogs and make it as easy as possible. The plan was if needed they could take dogs as mere companions, or emotional support dogs, or if needed, train the rescue dog to be a service dog for a veteran.

Things grew slowly at first and then we started connecting with the public to share our rescue’s existence and mission. By 2020 we were adopting out roughly 300 dogs a year.

In the fall of 2020 things took a turn for the worst with my physical health. I went from a crazy strong dog trainer/cleaner and paper pusher to someone that hard a hard time talking at times and breathing. We kept going even harder with the rescue and got more volunteers to help while I had to make several trips to the ER and physicians to try and figure out what was happening. It was ruining my dog days! Almost two years later I finally had a diagnosis of a form of fast progressing ALS, also commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

I knew it was coming, the diagnosis, even though doctors didn’t seem to provide the answer for so long. This form generally gives a person on average 2-3 years before passing. I was already at two year mark and at the time I got the diagnosis we had just reached 1000 dogs adopted.

For some odd reason I kept thinking of WHY I would lose my family, my friends and my ability to keep the rescue running and growing and helping veterans and dogs! It just all seemed unfair to turn out this way.

Then I thought maybe I can keep the rescue going as long as possible and make a goal for the rescue and myself! I thought I would be lucky to make 2 more years. We had just adopted 1,000 dogs right when I learned I had ALS. If I could live 2 more years I could maybe save 2,000 dogs total.

That became my reason for pushing, for not giving up, for working on my phone all day and many hours through the night when I couldn’t walk anymore or barely talk anymore.

We are past 1,600 now. I’m hoping to find support and more people to take over and keep our rescue and mission living on. Maybe God had a better plan by me going sooner then I planned. But whatever the future holds for our Rescue I can honestly say it would have never happened without the help of my husband, dog lovers that volunteered their time and effort, people sharing our dogs on media and people that invited us to come for adoption events at their businesses. I hope we carry on past my goal and we get even more people involved and even more help for our veterans, families and our dogs in need of saving and rehoming. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!