Paul Lester Photo

Nope. Not a slip up in grammar. I am doing well, but on this past Sunday, I was doing good. I was volunteering at Chapman’s Dachshund Rescue in York, SC about 30 minutes or so from my home.

How I got there. As you may know, I attend The Peaceful Dragon, where I practice Tai Chi. Well, my Sifu, Eric Sbarge and his wife Debra are, shall we say, big fans of Dachsunds. As a matter of fact, when I started the school, there were always 4 dogs running around: Two dachshunds, a beagle, and a maltese. Both of the dachshunds belonged to Sifu. They were both older dogs, somewhere near 15 at the time. One of them died, leaving them with Amy. Amy was wonderful to see. She would walk around PD like she owned it. Eventually, you’d always see her in Sifu’s lap during our Zen Super Boot Camp class. She’d walk into the room, walk right up to his chair and wait to be picked up.

Everyone liked to stop by and pet her. She died a few weeks ago, leaving them with but one dog, Chauncy, a cool beagle who uses his nose to great advantage to sniff out any bag left on the floor, looking for foodstuffs.

To say that Sifu and Debra like dachshunds, would be an understatement akin to saying that I like photography! Not surprisingly, they adopted a couple of more wiener dogs: Hershey and Emily. Now, they can be seen around the school, getting acclimated to the comings and goings of the students.

Now that I am finished with the backstory, here’s how I got into this. Sifu sent out an email indicating they he and some other students would be volunteering at Chapman’s Dachshunds Rescue and all were invited. So, I decided to attend and help out in any way that I could. As he and another teacher were handling carpentry duty, I asked what I could help with. Gina, the wife side of the dynamic duo that is doing the rescue said that I could just socialize with the dogs. Hmmmmm. That’s a big task – just walking around petting, picking up, and playing with the dogs. I thought that I could handle that and I did. For four hours I got to meet the dogs and learn a few of their names. She, of course, knew all of the dogs and their histories!

My favorite of the group was Frank. Frank is 9 month old long-haired dachshund. He was friendly and had lots of attitude. Any time that there was some barking, or as I call it ‘regulating’ to be done, Frank could be counted on to do it! He was always on the move, so this was the only good photo that I could of him that wasn’t blurred. If I didn’t like to travel so much and wasn’t such a one-dog person, this fella would have come home with me that day! I liked him that much!

It was a fantastic four hours and I look forward to doing it again. Perhaps I’ll take my photography gear and make some portraits for their website! I used to volunteer a lot as a youngster and then started again a couple of years ago while in Charleston. It’s a good way to do something good, to give back, and the folks that you meet are the real treat! I highly recommend it for anyone.