12 Downtown Doggie Center Offers A New Leash On Life By Nicole Brand Perhaps most can think of a champion in their neighborhood who was always doing everything to improve the lives of others. In the neighborhood near Northeast High in the early 2000s, that woman was Tonja Isaac. If kids needed an extra snack, they went to Tonja’s. For a while, she took two carloads of kids to school every morning just to help. That compassion continues to play out in other ways as Tonja brings light to those facing disadvantageous situations. These days, she runs a dog boarding and daycare business that doubles as a rescue and rehabilitation center. At Downtown Doggie Center, owners can leave their dogs for the day or they can traverse the globe and leave the pooch to play with friends all the while. They even offer military deployment and reserves boarding options. Whatever the need is, Tonja works to find the right plan. And though she is willing to work with a variety of doggie needs, if the pup isn’t a good fit for the team, she won’t sacrifice the pack to take them on. That said, Downtown Doggie Center also offers training packages, which is perhaps one of their most impressive contributions on the daycare side of business. Tonja and her staff recognize that while some behaviors are “Pitties are eager to please... If you want a sweetheart who will love your babies, that’s what they’ll give you.” - Tonja Isaac Downtown Doggie Center owner, Tonja Isaac, with a rescue named “Where” that she is working to adopt based in personality, a human’s best animal friend is generally responsive to integrating with other dogs and even with other humans. Her training abilities are integral to their other bottom line—rescuing and rehabilitating forgotten pups. In fact, one feeds the other. She often goes to shelters and brings back dogs to re-home. While she rescues all types of dogs, she recognizes there is an inordinate number of dogs labelled as pit bulls in shelters. She explains, “Pitties are eager to please. If you want a snarling beast on the end of a leash, that’s what they’ll give you. If you want a sweetheart who will love your babies, that’s what they’ll give you.” Pit bulls or any type of dog that hasn’t been properly socialized can display aggressive behavior. That’s why the Downtown Doggie Center works to socialize dogs that are having issues and does the same for rescued dogs with the addition of an adoption process. Happy dogs aren’t the extent of Tonja’s work at Downtown Doggie Center. Tonja often takes on work release staff from the Pinellas County prison system. She first checked into work release because two of the kids Tonja looked after entered the prison system and Tonja wondered what she could do to make their integration easier. At a time when she didn’t give people sentenced to prison much thought other than they deserve to be there, Tonja realized she never pontificated about those issues because she never had to. Having it surface in her own chosen family, she was forced to confront some of the plights of the prisoner. Right now, Tonja has two work release staff members and two previous work release staffers that have brought so much to the business she chose to keep
19595GB
To see the actual publication please follow the link above