Daily Inspiration: Meet Carol Turner

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carol Turner.

Hi Carol, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
As an Army wife, my husband, Mike and I lived in Leavenworth for 17 years, until the pandemic. Even though we are in KCKS now, for the last 20 years I’ve been volunteering and fostering dogs & puppies (and a few kittens) out of Leavenworth, Kansas, for the non-profit organization, LAWS (Leavenworth Animal Welfare Society).

About 7 years ago, I saw 5 different emaciated dogs end up at the shelter within one month. So, with the President of LAWS’ blessing, I launched a pilot program for free pet food for those in need. I’m proud to say, the LAWS free pet food pantry program is still once a month to this day.

Fast forward 20 years later and I am now the Vice President of LAWS, in addition to filling a few other roles for the non-profit (social media, foster coordinator, shelter volunteer). During this time, we’ve helped dogs & cats out of the Leavenworth animal control shelter, as it is rural and gets little to zero traffic for public adoptions. We pull animals that end up in the city shelter as a result of injury or illness. But, we also help any breed from anywhere, we are not limited to the city limits. Years ago, a senior dog was found out in the county that was originally adopted out from a south Kansas City adoption center. But, due to the dogs’ age, they refused to take the dog back. So, LAWS stepped up and took full responsibility for the dog. The dog went into one of our licensed foster homes until she passed away. Recently, there was a cat stuck in some fencing of 635 highway, and once it got into our care, we got it the vet care it needed.

LAWS is a rescue network without a brick & mortar building, we have a tiny network of foster homes. LAWS core mission has always been spaying & neutering to keep unwanted litters of pets from entering the shelter. Our program also helps those with community cats. I have helped many senior citizens with their community cats. These senior citizens are so kind & generous. One even got me a Christmas card once and insisted I pick a piece of jewelry from her vast collection of necklaces, bracelets & earrings. These older folks love their community cats, they just need a little help.

In February of 2010, we began offering free spay & neuter surgeries for those residing in the city of Leavenworth/Leavenworth county. To date, LAWS has paid for 25,312 dogs & cats to be spayed or neutered. To our knowledge, our free program was the first and only of its kind in the KC metro area back then. I think our Board was very forward thinking back then to offer this program. The number of animals using our spay neuter voucher is increasing, but so is the cost to LAWS. I’m deeply worried about the program being able to survive. Any non-profit can tell you that donations across the board are down and the need for help is sky rocketing. In 2024, some KC based rescue groups came together to offer free spay & neuter services to try & end this mass homeless pet population. Perhaps this will eventually make a dent in the pet over population crisis in area shelters.

Our biggest annual fundraiser of the year, LAWS Spay-Ghetti dinner, is coming up on April 12th at the Eagles Lodge in Leavenworth. This dinner with raffle prizes and auction items will help raise critical funds to keep our free spay & neuter program going. LAWS gets absolutely no funding from the City, State or any local groups or government agencies, despite the benefit our program has on the community.

It’s been a wild ride in the rescue arena. I’ve done everything from teaching a donation- based Yoga class to benefit LAWS & making jewelry at various events to try & raise funds. We’ve had some amazing pets come into our care & been on some epic transports to places like Colorado, California & South Dakota. We fostered a pit bull puppy in 2019 that came into the shelter with a shattered elbow and dislocated shoulder. He had surgery at Blue Pearl and recovered at our house for weeks. When he was ready for rescue, my sweet husband drove him 5 states away in a blizzard. We’ve sent dogs to rescues in Canada as well. I am extremely grateful to all of the local rescue partners that have helped us over the years. Just to name a few: GPSPCA, Lawrence Humane Society, Lucky 13, Inc.
It has been a privilege to have these incredible relationships with all of the rescue groups we’ve been working with for the last 20+ years. We help each other out and build each other up.

If you have your pulse on the rescue community right now, you know things are bad. I’ve never seen so many dumped animals or people wanting to surrender dogs, or shelters as consistently over-flowing as they are, in my 20 years of volunteering. Shelters that have not had to euthanize for space for so long, are now facing those awful decisions. So, it boggles my mind with so many free or cheap options to fix your pets, how we can be in such dire straits in shelters across the KC metro area. LAWS has helped 10 dogs out of the local city shelter in the last month, but it isn’t enough. They still need open kennels that I cannot empty fast enough to make room for the incoming dogs. Several people have asked me what is the reason for this pet overpopulation crisis. My answer is I think it’s the economy, lack of personal responsibility, landlords also seem to be an issue as well.

My passion is working with the bully breeds & the pitty mixes. Back in 2006, when Kansas City enacted their pit bull “amnesty” program, I found a young, white, American Pit Bull Terrier on 5 Highway & Wolcott Road. She had a chestnut-colored patch round her right eye. She was completely emaciated & crossing the road on a hot July, Friday night by the old speedway & Sonny’s pallet service. None of the workers claimed her nor planned to get her to the vet. It was almost rush hour and the traffic was picking up & I knew I needed to step up for this dog or her future wasn’t going to be so great. So, I put her in my truck and then my journey to rescuing pit bulls began! I took this dog straight to the vet before they closed for the weekend. I asked the staff what ideas they had for a name for this skin & bones white dog. The vet tech said, “Twiggy”, because she was super model skinny. So, that was her name from then on. I enlisted the help of my friend, who was with MABBR at the time for assistance. My bully breed savvy friend taught me everything I needed to know about pit bulls. Twiggy was amazing. I know people always say that about their dogs. But, she was indeed special. She was the Omega dog. She always rode shot gun in my truck, she helped me with all of those puppies that I fostered over the years. She loved puppies! As a professional pet sitter, I had one client that wanted to bring her silver lab puppy over to my house for the day while she worked. So, Twiggy helped me raise Blue and we taught him all the cool tricks a puppy should know. Then one day, we were in the back yard and the pool cover was on because it was Fall. We had 3 other dogs at the time. There was one branch in the middle of the pool cover that I could not quite reach. I told Twiggy to go get that branch for me. And you know what? She did! Twiggy brought that branch right by my side. I was blown away that she somehow understood me and did what I asked.

Fast forward to 2019, and sadly my Twiggles Wiggles passed away on Black Friday, while Mike & I were in New York. That was a horrible time. But, everyone that ever met Twiggy loved her. They got to see how loving she was and she made a lot of people realize how wonderful dogs like her are.

Twiggy is the reason I’ve rescued so many pitty mixes from the shelter. Just a couple of years ago there was a white female pit mix, scared to death in her kennel. I was told she was on death row due to her behavior. She was so scared she went to the corner of her kennel and tried to climb the wall. I just sat down in her kennel with her, avoided contact with her, talked sweetly to her, tossed high value treats and of course, had the Spotify dog calming play list on. There may or may not have been lavender oil involved. A couple of days later, once I got a leash on her, and we got out of the kennel, guess what? She was a regular dog, walked around the office, ran & played in the big yard, etc. Shelter staff could not believe the difference in this dog that was slated to be euthanized.

Those are just a couple of the many success stories I’ve had over the years. There’s so many more, I could write a book about all of the incredible dogs & cats I’ve had the pleasure of helping on the way to a better life. I know many of us in the rescue community put our lives at risk to save what we can. A few summers ago, a lady phoned us about a litter of puppies she wanted to surrender. I went into the home with another volunteer and scooped up all but one puppy that the lady decided to keep at the last moment. We were in her kitchen and I was having her sign the surrender form and I glanced over to see a 9 mm on the coffee pot. I literally walked backwards out of the home. Six months later, she phoned us back to surrender the puppy she decided to keep. By that time, the explosion of pets in shelters began and I was not able to help that last puppy.

Most recently, I’ve been helping a lot of senior dogs that have either been owner surrendered or wind up at the shelter due to an owner passing away. It’s unbelievably hard for a senior dog, that has been in a loving home it’s entire life, to end up in a loud & chaotic shelter environment. So, we’ve fostered a senior Norwegian Elkhound mix & multiple smaller dogs. The shelter had a hoarding case come in recently and one of the dogs was a tiny Chihuahua that was on deaths door-step due to complete lack of care at her home that was pack with several other dogs & cats. This poor dog was filthy, eyes half closed, malnourished, etc. The shelter staff asked if they should just put her down because she was just in horrible shape. I said no, let me give it a try. Within a week, that Chihuahua, named Buttercup, perked up with regular love, care & meals. Her eyes opened bright & clear. She made it! Not only that, after fostering her for almost a year, that little stinker pants hit the jack pot by getting adopted to a lovely young woman who takes her everywhere! Buttercup has more of a social life than I do. That’s what keeps me going.

In addition to taking care of animals, I also take care of people. I’ve been practicing Yoga & meditation for over 15 years and received my RYT 200 certification back in 2017. Twiggy was regularly on my mat with me. I credit my personal Yoga practice to help balance out my animal rescue work. When I am not working on getting dogs & cats out of the shelter – I am usually working on continuing education training. There’s not a lot of Yoga continuing education in Kansas, so I have regular on-line Sanghas in Colorado & Utah. My teachers there keep me up to date on the most recent research on fascia & sports science and how that translates to Yoga so I can improve my students’ practice. There’s a sweet little Yoga studio in Leavenworth that I am lucky enough to be a part of. The studio owner is a huge cat rescuer and is always very supportive of LAWS. Her house Facebook page is Krasnesky Manor for Wayward Cats, worth checking out if you like historic homes & cats.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest struggle has been finding people wanting to foster dogs & puppies. I’ve posted on the LAWS Facebook page recently for kittens, puppies & small dogs. No one wants to foster. We can’t empty kennels at the shelter unless people can foster. LAWS, like most groups, covers the cost of food, crate, & medical for a foster dog. All we ask is the people provide a safe and loving home environment.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a bit of a hybrid. I worked in licensing for a major greeting card company in the city, until they decided to downsize. So, I took the severance package, paid off my Prius & started a pet sitting business. In Leavenworth, Lansing & Fort Leavenworth, I had the privilege of caring for the pets for the active duty & retired military community. I met so many wonderful pets.

Then the pandemic hit. People were home and then eventually worked from home. So, that sadly put a huge dent in my daily dog waking clients. I’ve got one dog I still visit regularly. She was a puppy at the shelter and I actually adopted her out to her human through LAWS. To this day we are basically family. And I’ve got a core group of some really generous cat clients as well.

Now, I work part time for a boutique property management company that provides rental homes to the incoming military community to Fort Leavenworth for ILE & SAMS.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I think my Mom is who taught me to nurture animals. My brothers or sister were always bringing some stray animal home. Mom was always on board. There was the time our classmate’s house burned down in high school, and we took in his grey tabby cat. My mom did not bat an eye at saying yes to that cat coming to our house. Then there was a stray Tortie cat that ended up in our drive way in the Winter, she became our cat as well. Then I had a pet mouse, I can’t recall how that mouse ended up being my pet. But, my sister was instructed to keep the door shut to the room the mouse was in, so the cat couldn’t have access. Well, I came home from school one day and all that was left of my mouse was his tail. Poor Dracula, I loved that little mouse.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lawspets.com
• Instagram: dogwalkingyogi
• Facebook: Leavenworth Animal Welfare Society
• Youtube: @LVAnimalWelfare