Ruff Love
Haley and Jordan Kaplan both love animals of all kinds. But for the two of them, dogs have always held a special place in their hearts — except it’s for two completely different reasons.
Haley’s story begins a few thousand miles away in Puerto Rico. Her father is from the island, and a few years back the family went to visit the area to take in the sights and learn about her father’s homeland. One thing she noticed right away was the dogs.
Dogs are everywhere in Puerto Rico, most of them strays, and so not every animal gets the proper treatment it needs. “When we were down there, we saw lots of dogs and a couple of cats. It was really sad because people care, but they just can’t help [the animals]. We finished breakfast one day and we brought [the animals] breakfast and we fed it to the dogs there.”
To solve the problem, she reached out to a group located in Puerto Rico to see what she could do. “I’m donating medicine to a fund for an organization called Island Dogs. It’s a program in Puerto Rico where neglected or abandoned animals, they help them survive. They get donated medicine, and we also give them some toys and food. I’m trying to help them so that dogs and cats and animals can stay alive.”
This isn’t an easy process. There’s the collection of funds, which can go directly to the charity, but then there’s also the gathering of medicine for the animals, which involves delivering the proper paperwork to veterinarians to expedite the system. There’s a lot of work involved, but Haley is definitely up to the task.
Her work with animals won’t end here, either. “I want to become a veterinarian. I said that when I was in the second grade, and I haven’t changed my mind yet.”
Armed and Dangerous
Haley’s sister Jordan also shares an affinity for animals. For her, it all started a few years back. “When I was in the third grade, my mom showed us an Oprah episode about puppy mills, and I decided that I wanted to do something about it.” The result was a lot of making flyers and trying to raise funds. “We raised $260 for Desert Labs, a Labrador rescue group,” Jordan says. That’s not too bad for someone in the third grade.
Today, her interest is in protecting the animals that routinely get in harm’s way: police dogs.
Between the ailing economy and budget cuts, some police dogs go out into the field without any protection at all. In the process of doing their job, these animals jump right into the line of fire, and can take a knife or a bullet to the body in the process. Without some kind of vest, they’re vulnerable to serious injury or death, all in the service of protecting a human.
Jordan has connected with Vest-A-Dog, an organization that raises money to get these dogs protected. “What I’m trying to do is raise money to buy bulletproof and knife-proof vests for police dogs. A vest can be expensive, and I’m trying to get one that will protect from both knives and bullets, and those run around $1,000.”
It’s a pretty simple idea, and one that she feels has a lot of merit. “They’re putting their lives on the line for us, so I think the least we can do is to make their jobs safer.”
Right now, she’s raised a good amount of money, but she’s not quite there yet. “I’m around halfway there, but I still have a long way to go until my bat mitzvah. If I don’t quite reach my goal, I’ll use some of the money I get from my bat mitzvah.”
