Credit: Submitted photo
Marine 2nd Lt. Alisa Sieber-Johnson, who founded www.dogsondeployment.com with her husband, Navy Lt. Shawn Johnson, is pictured with their dog, JD.
By:
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Inside NoVA
Published: December 23, 2011
Updated: December 24, 2011 - 9:15 AM
In the days and weeks leading up to a deployment, service members have a lot on their minds and a lot to do.
They?ve got to make sure their family is taken care of; their finances are in order, and in some cases pack and store household items.?
But what happens to the beloved pets of those service members who may not have nearby family or friends available or willing to take care of the ?furry kids? being left temporarily behind as a result of a deployment?
Enter www.dogsondeployment.com, a web site founded by Second Lt. Alisa Sieber-Johnson and her husband, Shawn, a lieutenant in the Navy. The site assists service members in finding a loving foster home for their pets for the duration of their deployment.
Sieber-Johnson, who recently graduated Echo Company at The Basic School at Quantico, began the web site this summer. The couple has a dog, JD, and found themselves in a quandary about what to do with him when Alisa came to Quantico to attend TBS while Shawn had to prepare to deploy from San Diego.
?There was no chance we?d take JD to a shelter, but we didn?t have many options,? explained Alisa. They ultimately found a distant relative here in Virginia who agreed to take care of JD while she was training.
But that got Alisa to thinking about the challenges of pet ownership and being in the military. She soon realized that many of her colleagues face the same type of situation she had.
?A friend of ours was being deployed and ended up just having to get rid of his dog,? she said. ?We didn?t want that to happen to anybody else, so we came up with this program.?
With no experience in web programming or design, Sieber-Johnson bought a domain and taught herself how to design a web site.
?I?m passionate about this,? she said. ?I just kept working on the web site and then tried to find people who needed the service.?
So far, over a dozen pets have been placed in temporary foster homes as a result of dogsondeployment.com. Sieber-Johson said there are no prerequisites to become a boarder. However, all boarder applications are reviewed before they are posted on the web site. She stressed that it?s the owner who makes the decision about which home is the best fit for their pet.
?It?s completely up to the owner,? she said of placement.
Owners have the option of putting a photo of their pet on the web site. For Sieber-Johnson, the effort to match those willing to take in a pet being impacted by a deployment is truly a labor of love.
?This let?s me combine my love for dogs and serving my country,? she said.
Shawn took on the task of getting non-profit status for the group and is currently working on obtaining tax-exempt status for the organization.
Sieber-Johnson said the command at TBS was fully supportive of her efforts to publicize and grow the program, which she hopes will expand on a larger scale nationally.
?I?d love to have it mentioned at every Welcome Aboard and pre-deployment brief,? she said.
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Source: http://www2.insidenova.com/news/2011/dec/23/1/pets-also-serve-ar-1564786/
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