Annie’s Place
There are animals in our community waiting for someone to notice them. We want to build a place that will.
They are already here.
Across Hawaiʻi Island, abandoned, homeless and abused animals live beside roads, in brush and across unforgiving lava terrain. Dogs are only the most visible. Cats, horses, birds and other animals need help too.
Some survive because individual residents stop to leave food or water. Those acts of kindness matter enormously, but they are not a permanent answer. In places built over lava, even something as basic as dependable drinking water can be difficult for an abandoned animal to find.
Not simply shelter. A path from rescue to home.
Annie’s Place is being envisioned primarily around a rescue, rehabilitation, training and adoption ethic. An animal entering our care should have the opportunity to become healthy, regain trust, learn how to live successfully with people and ultimately find the right permanent home.
We expect dogs to be a major part of the work, but the long-term vision is broader. Annie’s Place should grow responsibly as resources and appropriate facilities allow, rather than promise from the beginning that we can care for every kind of animal.
Sometimes two lives can help rebuild each other.
Veterans would not simply come to Annie’s Place to be handed an animal. Interested veterans could learn animal handling, care and positive training skills and then work alongside local residents helping prepare rescued animals for adoption.
Some may help dozens of animals move on to families throughout the community. And sometimes, when the match is right, the relationship formed while working together may become something permanent.
We would like to see many appropriate animals eventually go home with veterans as companion animals. The match should always respect the needs, temperament and welfare of both the animal and the person.
A veteran can become one of the people who makes Annie’s Place work—learning, training, caring, contributing and helping another living being find its way home.
This is Annie.
Annie is my dog. Over the years, she has been beside me through more changes and losses than I ever expected to experience.
She helped me through the death of her brother. She was there as my children grew up and began lives of their own. And she stayed beside me through the loss of my wife.
Through grief, stress, anxiety and simply those moments when life becomes difficult, Annie never needed an explanation.
She never judged. She never kept score. She simply stayed.
Her love has always been given without reservation or condition.
Annie is now nearing the end of her life. I can’t think of a more fitting way to honor what she has given me than to create a place where other animals are given the opportunity to provide—and receive—that same kind of love.
Rescue also means finding care.
Veterinary access is limited on the island, and Ocean View does not have a nearby veterinary clinic. For a rescue organization, that reality cannot be ignored. Annie’s Place will need strong veterinary relationships simply to care responsibly for the animals that come through it.
Our first responsibility is to establish the primary mission: rescue, rehabilitation, training and adoption. As that work becomes established, we can listen, learn and explore whether Annie’s Place can someday help improve access to animal care in the community as well.
Those are possibilities to consider only after the core mission is operating successfully.
Belonging can change more than one life.
Veterans Forward approaches belonging through people and homes. Annie’s Place approaches it through people and animals. Different projects, but the same community ethic: notice who is being left behind, bring people together, and do something useful about it.