Below is an interview with Rhonda Copeland (aka Vision Runner), a blind 45 year old from Montana. She plans to run 36 miles each week for 34 weeks. But, the mileage makes up a virtual run to Burbank California, where one of her favorite shows, The Ellen DeGeneres Show takes place. Rhonda is also running to raise at least $30,000 for the Guide Dogs for the Blind organization. Read our interview with her below:
K9 Cuisine: What is your story-how did you get into running to raise money for guide dogs for the blind?
Rhonda: I was diagnosed with RP over 12 years ago, and have been slowly losing my vision over the years. I have also been a runner for 17 years. Running is my passion, and that was something I didn’t want to give up. In Sept of 2008 I started a blog about being a blind runner. It’s about overcoming obstacles and envisioning a new reality.
The way I got into running to raise money for Guide Dogs for the Blind was I wanted something to challenge me in my running. I was healing from a severe case of sciatica this spring, and needed some motivation. So my partner and I came up with a virtual Run Over to Ellen’s. It’s a 1,222 mile fund-raising event that will take me 8 months to complete with the goal of raising $30,000 for the “Guide Dogs for the Blind” organization. I don’t need the use of a guide dog right now, as I get along okay with my white cane, but there are a lot of blind and low vision people who, without the use of a guide dog, have lost not only their sight, but their sense of freedom and ability to be independent as well. I know how important it is for me to be independent, and I wanted to be able to help others have that too.
K9 Cuisine: What is the secret to your success with your running-how have you gotten to where you are today?
Rhonda: I guess the secret to my running is that I enjoy it so much. I do things to keep my running fun and new, like this virtual Run Over to Ellen’s fund-raising project to raise $30,000 for Guide Dogs for the Blind. The challenge of running well beyond what I thought I could accomplish in a week, to the thought of actually getting on the Ellen TV show are all motivating to me!
I have always run for enjoyment, and I’m not a competitive runner, however I have competed in several race events over the years, including finishing a marathon, and a half dozen half-marathons, plus other races. I think all my running throughout the years has gotten me to where I am today, running more miles in a week than I ever thought I would want to, and not only that, but continuing to do it as my vision deteriorates more and more to the point where I have to run with my white cane.
K9 Cuisine: What makes you different?
Rhonda: I guess what makes me different from other runners out there is that I am running with a white cane weaving back and forth across the path in front of me. Running is supposed to be one of the easiest and simplest of sports, and for most people, it is. But for me, it has become quite a challenge every time I head out the door to go for my run. I can’t just head out to run wherever my feet take me, I have to plan ahead and run on controlled paths, and I mentally have to be on top of my game, no runner’s haze for me. I can’t afford to zone out while running. I have to concentrate very hard on what’s around me all the time.
K9 Cuisine: What is it about dogs that you love?
Rhonda: Well the best thing about dogs is that they love you absolutely unconditionally. We should take a lesson from them in that respect. And of course puppies are the cutest thing ever, and they just have to make you laugh.
K9 Cuisine: What is the neatest part about your work?
Rhonda: Well right now my work is to run! And I love to run. But more importantly, I feel that I can actually make a difference in the world. That is why we set up this fund-raising project for Guide Dogs for the Blind to be a grassroots sort of thing. If everyone gives just $1, they too can be a part of making a big difference in the world. It’s about a lot of people giving a little to make a big difference!
K9 Cuisine: Tells us more about the charity you’re running for.
Rhonda: Guide Dogs for the Blind is a great charity. All the services provided by “Guide Dogs for the Blind” to the blind and low-vision recipients are at no cost whether it’s the dog or the guide dog training or alumni services or retirement of the guide dog…There is no charge to the recipient. It costs quite a bit to raise and train a dog to become a guide dog, but the service that they provide is invaluable to the individual who receives one.
K9 Cuisine: What are your future plans related to helping dogs?
Rhonda: I don’t know at this point, I’m still in the middle of this project…Maybe I’ll do a Run Over to Oprah’s! LOL
K9 Cuisine: Tell us a little about you!
Rhonda: I was born and raised in Montana. I had 33 years of good eyesight, but over the past 12 ½ years I have been losing my vision to RP, a genetic eye disease. But that hasn’t kept me from doing what I love to do, and that’s run. I did have to give up driving, riding my bike, and various other activities that I enjoyed, but I was determined not to have to give up on my running.
I have a blog over at RunnerInsight where I am updating with new posts three times a week, mostly about being a blind runner. I try to keep it inspiring and motivational, because even though we may not all have a physical obstacle, we all have some kind of obstacle or barrier or issue that we need to face in life. My strong belief is that it’s not what happens to you that matters, but what you do with it that defines your success in life. I am also in the process of creating a video workshop on How to Make Running More Enjoyable. So watch for that, it should be available before the end of the year, if not sooner.
K9 Cuisine: How can people find out more about you and the organization?
Rhonda: Check us out at www.RunOverToEllens.com, that’s my fundraising project website. My blog is at www.RunnerInsight.com and the donations page is at www.FirstGiving.com/VisionRunner.
K9 Cuisine: What is your story-how did you get into the veterinarian business?
Hope: While my partner and I are not veterinarians, we got into the pet health and well-being business for three reasons:
First and foremost, we are both huge animal lovers and had always wanted to do something in the pet space, but wasn’t quite sure exactly what that might be.
We observed and tracked the tremendous growth in the pet category and realized this was very fertile business territory.
Most importantly, we identified an unmet need – the fact that pet owners did not have ONE trusted online resource they could go to for credible and timely information about the health and well-being of their pets. For us it was the perfect hat trick.
K9 Cuisine: What is the secret to your success-how have you gotten to where you are today?
Hope: I believe the secret to our success is four-fold:
We are passionate about what we do and quite tenacious – let’s just say “no” and “if” are not words in our vocabulary.
We did our due diligence rather than rushing to market with what we thought was a good idea. Rather we researched the market for almost a year ensuring that when we did go to market, our strategy was dead-on and that the timing was right.
Because we are not veterinarians, we surrounded ourselves with leaders in the veterinarian industry – Pfizer Animal Health, AAHA, the AKC, the CFA, top-tier vet schools, among others. There support and credentials lend an unparalleled level of credibility to everything we do in the marketplace.
We built a site rich in integrity – of design, content (all content is vet-approved one time per year and about 90% of our content is original and written exclusively for WebVet), and the fact we don’t diagnose, treat or editorialize and always direct pet owners back to their vets for care specific to their pets’ needs. We are a complement/supplement to the veterinarian community, not a replacement for it.
K9 Cuisine: What makes you different?
Hope: I think much of what I mentioned above makes us unique but also our backgrounds. While we don’t come from the vet world, we do come from an arena that is quite important when building a brand – brand marketing and media. I built my career in the advertising and brand marketing sector working for some of the largest global agencies including McCann Erickson, Leo Burnett, DDB and Y&R and also spent time on the corporate side working for Coca Cola and NBC. My partner’s expertise lies in the media/entertainment space having worked with iconic brands including HBO, ESPN and E! The value here is that while you can build something magnificent, if you don’t know how to seed and grow that brand over time, it ultimately has little value. And one last thing . . . we have a great brand name in WebVet. A brand name can be a very powerful marketing tool.
K9 Cuisine: What is it about animals that you love?
Hope: Pretty much everything! I grew up in the South and was surrounded with everything from dogs and cats to horses and goats – and I grew up in a big city (Atlanta). I come by my love honestly as my entire family LOVES animals – my mom still has her horses and dogs, my brothers have dogs, cats, rabbits and chickens (pets of course), my sister has dogs, birds and even a pet pig named “Piggy” and I, living in NYC, have a dog named Max and two birds Pi and Piou Piou.
But beyond growing up with tons of animals, what I love most about them is their intuitive nature, compassion and ability to not only love unconditionally, but to forgive. And nothing lowers my blood pressure more effectively than loving on my dog Max.
K9 Cuisine: What is the neatest part about your business?
Hope: Hands down: I get to do something I love every day of my life now! More clearly defined . . . I’ve been given incredible opportunities to explore the veterinary and animal worlds through relationships with teaching hospitals such as the Animal Medical Center in NYC, vet schools like Cornell and Penn and even non-companion-related organizations like the Bronx Zoo and the WCS. I feel incredibly blessed with these opportunities.
K9 Cuisine: Where do you see the vet industry going?
Hope: Not being a veterinarian, I’m not the best qualified person to answer that question, but I can tell you some of things I’ve learned that I’ve found fascinating.
Many believe it’s now harder to get into vet school than it is to get into medical school.
The majority of new vet students and, as a result, vets are women. Approximately 75% of new entrants into vet schools are women. My understanding is this is due in part to the fact that vets don’t get into this business to get rich, they get into because they love animals and also that, somewhat surprisingly, this is a career in which it’s quite acceptable to work part-time so it’s ideal for women who want to both work and raise a family.
As pets are considered and treated more and more like members of the family, we’re seeing more specialty practice areas emerge.
K9 Cuisine: How does your company fit into that-what are your future plans?
Hope's dog "Max"
Hope:I’m not sure it’s all directly related, but we recognize the veterinary community as a growing and VERY important part of our business. I can’t get into specific details at this point in time, but suffice it to say that while our primary focus in currently on the consumer side of the business, we will be rounding out our business model to become increasingly engaged on the B2B side of the business.
K9 Cuisine: How can people find out more about you and your company?
Hope: To learn more about what WebVet has to offer, you can visit the site at www.webvet.com. If you’d like to learn more about me or WebVet as a business, I can be contacted directly at hope@webvet.com or 212-879-3152.
We would like to post another story, more personal this time, on Pam Townsend. We posted about her work with the SPCA/Humane Society of Prince George’s County (www.pgspca.org).
This story is about her first doggie love, and how it lead to her love of dogs and her work with rescuing dogs. Enjoy!
“First I want to tell you about Boots, a medium-sized mixed-breed dog with a tri-color coat and four white “boots.” She was a great family pet although she had a need for exercise that our daily walks and backyard play just didn’t satisfy. She’d get loose at the first opportunity, squeezing past my brother’s friends when they came in the back door. She didn’t want to run away…she just wanted to run!
Word would soon go out among the neighborhood children: “Boots is loose! Boots is loose!” We’d all head out, giving her what she probably thought was a great game of chase, until she finally got tired enough for someone to catch her.
Despite her truancy, Boots was very much part of the family. If you tried to play a board game or read the newspaper spread out on the floor, she would lay down right on top of it. And she would get perturbed if any of us hugged each other without including her.
By the time Boots began suffering almost-daily seizures and my parents had to make the difficult decision to have her euthanized, I had graduated from college and moved out on my own to another state. Although she not been part of my daily life for several years, I was deeply saddened by her loss, which marked an end of an era in my life.
Next came Boris and Natasha, the first dogs of my adult life…and my first black dogs. They were the result of an unplanned pregnancy of a yellow Lab by a black Lab/golden retriever mix, and the owners were looking for good homes through friends and friends of friends. My husband picked Boris, and Natasha chose me. We’d only planned on getting one puppy, but faced with this dilemma, we took both. It turned out to be a good decision because they kept either company while we were at work.
Boris was an exuberant, outgoing, beautiful boy; a friend once described him as “happy go stupid” and suggested I should have named him Jethro (from the Beverly Hillbillies) because he was tall, dark, and not too bright. His great joy in life was playing fetch, which he would do until he dropped from exhaustion. He was the canine love of my life, and I was devastated when he died of bone cancer a week before his tenth birthday.
Natasha was quieter than Boris…something of a wallflower. She was also very sweet…except sometimes with him. If we gave them bones to chew, she’d decide that his must be better and would take it away from him. He’d gamely settle down with hers, only to have her again decide that his must be better. We used to say that she was a perfect example of the word bitch when used in a derogatory fashion. As much as I loved Boris, I ended being glad that he died first since Natasha blossomed and sort of came into her own after that…despite the arrival of two puppies, Tango and Samba.
While some people need to grieve for weeks or months following the death of a beloved pet, I felt this aching void that needed to be filled and began looking at rescue websites almost immediately. We ended up adopting Tango and Samba just weeks after Boris died. Once again, we were planning on getting one dog, preferably a young adult. But when my husband saw Tango and Samba, who were 4-month-old black fluffy puppies, he just cried because they reminded him of Boris as a pup. So…once we decided to get a puppy we opted to get two so they could play with each other and not bother Natasha as much as one pup would have. And it worked out quite well. Although Natasha wasn’t interested in playing with the puppies, she seemed very interested in watching their antics, which helped bring her out of her depression. And I always made special time to do things just with her until she died at the age of 13.
Samba is a lot like Natasha. She’s quiet and self-contained. She enjoys the company of people and other dogs but is perfectly happy to be by herself…especially if that means napping or just hanging out on our bed or sofa. She’s completely uninterested in fetch or playing with dog toys (unless it involves stealing one from her brother), preferring to sit outside in the yard and watch birds fly by overhead. Her favorite activity is taking walks.
Tango, Samba’s brother, is our “problem child.” He is suspicious and wary of unfamiliar people and anxious in unfamiliar environments. Since the age of 2 or 3 he also has been aggressive toward dogs he doesn’t know. We don’t know if these issues are the result of genetics, lack of early socialization (we know neither of them had any prior to our adopting them), or even brain damage as the result of being tossed about like a ball when he was only a couple of weeks old…or a combination of the above. If we had known he was going to be such a challenge, we wouldn’t have adopted him. But once we did, I fell in love with him and since then have worked to help him become the best dog he can be. This has involved reading books and attending lectures by such noted behaviorists as Patricia McConnell, Nicholas Doddman, and Suzanne Clothier.
Ceiligh, the most recent dog to join our family, is a pointer/JRT mix. She looks like a black-and-white Germans shorthaired pointer, just smaller (30 pounds). We call her our “accident.” We went to a Petsmart to get goldfish for our pond, and a small rescue organization was there with a litter of 8-week-old puppies. I told them I couldn’t take one because we already had two dogs, one of whom had “issues,” but that I’d hold one to help socialize it. I should have known better. Instead of goldfish, we ended up with a 5-pound puppy.
Ceiligh is the spoiled youngest child of the pack. She not only sleeps in our bed, but under the covers. (Tango and Samba choose not to sleep with us, although they often get on the bed for a cuddle.) Given Ceiligh’s genetic heritage, it’s not surprising that she’s active and fast. So, to channel her energy, we started taking agility classes. She’s actually very good at it…when her sensitive nose doesn’t lead her astray. I keep thinking that one of these days, when a career, SPCA/HS work, and efforts to have a social life don’t take up all of my time that we’ll actually give competition a try.
And lastly, there are our foster dogs…who share our lives for anywhere from a weekend to several months: Angel, Geordi, Kira, Darby, Owain, Darla, Cooper, Annie, Kaia, Jack, Taz, Leila, Cinder, Winston, Bosley, Ginger, Mandy, Arthur, Sebastian, Sydney, and (currently) Willow.”
Name: Tianna
Pets species and breed: German Shepherd Pharaoh Cattle Dog Mix
Pets age and weight: 40lbs 4 and 1/2 years old
Pets health status: Never any issues so far
Are they spayed or neutered? Yes
Brand of food: Honest Kitchen
Animal owned for: 3 and 1/2 ears
Question:
“My dog, Inuki, has always eaten many foods without any issues or allergies. We have been searching for the “perfect” healthy premium dog food. He has been on Flint River Ranch, Nutro, Innova, Dogswell, and raw diet (we stopped that) then home cooked with veggies, meat, grains, and multi vitamins, then the Honest Kitchen because it was too much to cook myself. I actually will go back to home cooking if I have the right recipes, but I had a very hard time understanding how much to feed and of what. I read dr strombecks Home Cooked Diets For Cats and Dogs. Now, for the last month my dog and 2 cats have been on the Honest Kitchen’’s Prowl and Force. My cats love their Prowl and do great on it, but my dog, while he likes the food, his pooping has increased big time. He used to have maybe one to 2 poops a day and they were small and firm, now he poops 3 to 4 times and the poop is large and soft, but not runny. I just really would like to find a food that he can stick with that will keep him very healthy for years and years to come.”
Answer:
“Tianna,
Thanks for writing in. Sounds like you have been dabbling in the (sometimes) frustrating world of dog nutrition for quite some time! I think the first thing you need to decide on is whether you want to cook for your dog or if you are looking for a commercially available diet.
If you are selecting a commercially available diet, select one that is “natural” or “organic”. By definition and AAFCO regulation, a “natural” pet food may have ingredients from ONLY plant, animal or mined sources. These foods cannot be highly processed or contain chemically synthetic ingredients, such as artificial flavors, preservatives or colorings.
Look for foods that do not contain inferior by-products or meals. Meat meals are made through a process of rendering. Any product that has been rendered is considered unfit for human consumption…so in my mind, that means unfit for our beloved pets as well. Look for RECOGNIZABLE ingredients on the label. You should be able to identify meats, grains, vegetables and not just chemical additives.
If you are choosing to home-cook, you absolutely need to work with a veterinary nutritionist to get recipes that are balanced for your dog and his daily requirements. There are many websites you can use, including www.petdiets.com and www.balanceit.com. I would recommend that you request a consultation specific to Inuki so he isn’t lacking anything.”
Starting this Valentine’s Day, you can show how much you love K9Cuisine and win a $250.00 gift card for your pooch’s favorite premium dog food!
The contest is from Feburary 14th, 2009-May 14th, 2009. 12am EST.
How to Enter:
Create a short video (3 minutes or less) with your pets showing how much you love K9Cuisine.
Upload the video to YouTube
Tell your friends!
How to Win:
The video with the best ratings wins. Simple! So, get your friends to help, but play fair.
The grand prize- a $250 gift card from K9Cuisine.com
There will also be $50 gift cards given for most creative, most hilarious, and judge’s favorite. These will be determined by our fabulous panel of judges.
Rules:
You don’t have to be a current customer to enter, but you do have to visually incorporate K9Cuisine’s name into the video. You can use the shipped box with the logo, print a blog post from the blog, or even create your own poster board. Get creative!
Must include at least 1 of your pets.
Must be less than 3 minutes long.
Must reside in the USA
Must be willing to let K9Cuisine.com show it off in the future!
How to Submit your Video:
Create an account (if you don’t already have one) on www.YouTube.com
