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Craig Taggart from the NWT SPCA

For this True North Tale. I sat down with Craig Taggart, the shelter manager, and dog trainer at the end NWT SPCA. And to start off our chat Craig tells me how he came to work at the NWT SPCA

Initially, it was just going to be a quick job, just hang out with some dogs, and just a stepping stone to a different career path. But then working with the dogs seeing them progress and go into homes and seeing the change in them from when they came in, to where they end up, and seeing the after photos just drew me to want to continue working with them.

Even though Craig enjoyed dogs when he was growing up and his family had a small dog when he was younger. Craig’s original career plans were a bit different than getting to work with dogs every day,

my heart set on working in sports or working with a sports team of some kind. But then, like I said, when I started working here then I got drawn to these guys and nine Yeah, now I can’t imagine doing anything different

Since the pandemic began. The NWT SPCA has had to rely a lot more on the generosity of donations from Northerners, Craig tells us about a donation that really stood out to him.

One of the biggest ones was the donation that we got from the Eric S.Margolis Family Foundation. Because of COVID, we weren’t able to do any of our big fundraisers, our gala that we do in the spring, or our summer Carnival festival, down at City Hall. So those are our big, big fundraising events. So then this family foundation who’s always donated towards a kind of approached and said, you know, how much do those events usually generate? Then they donated that to us which helped, because obviously with COVID, and restrictions and everything, it made fundraising a lot

more challenging.

Craig talked to us about his favorite kinds of dogs to train and the most rewarding part of his work as a dog trainer.

My personal favorite is the dogs that are difficult for whatever reason whether they’re just a puppy that’s difficult that’s never had training or the adult dog that lived for however many years comes in and has no idea what a leash is or going for a walk is or any of those behaviors and then just working with them and then seeing that progress, you know, and then having people come back and go “Whoa, that’s the same dog. He’s so well behaved now”. Then seeing them go into a home thinking back to where that dog was when they first came. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. -Craig Taggart, Shelter Manager, and Dog Trainer at the NWT SPCA

Listen to the full TNT here !

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