Check Out Erwin Dardon’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Erwin Dardon.

Hi Erwin, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Like most folks do in rescue, I started out independently. I’ve always had empathy for animals because they’re sentient beings, they hunger, they thirst, they feel cold or heat, they get scared, they’re in pain, they’re happy, they’re joyful so being part of the animal kingdom, I’m not above nor below any of our animal companions we share this Earth so I’ve always had that empathy for animals and doing it independently rescuing a dog here a cat here trying to help community members understand that it’s not just something they can discard or ignore my passion was always with animals. Fast forward to 2018 when I adopted from this one rescue and developed with the former CEO (Teri Porter) where they saw how I was independently rescuing. I adopted from them so I showed them that I was a responsible pet parent and the rescue was operated by the former CEO and she was retiring and she was looking for someone that would actually make a difference not just take over a 501c3 and possibly you know try to turn it into some sort of money making scheme. And she saw the efforts that I was putting in and she offered it to transfer it over to me and Lori actually was a friend of the former CEOs who independently helped many rescues in the areas around the valley and just spent a lot of money helping animals and her name was Lori so the former CEO decided to start a non profit as an ode to Lori. And when I took over you know I promised her that even if I’m thinking of rebranding the name there’s always going to be somewhere mentioned that this was in honor of Lori who helped many animals and you know just like everyone else we’re looking into trying to help as many animals as we can. Reach out to government and City officials and help the community understand strays and pets alike and how to treat them. How to help them, how to guide them, to rescues and of course we also want to increase our efforts to track down animal abusers and push for tougher laws to be taken seriously against those animal abusers.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I would say like any venture when anybody you know launches their own company their own business yes you see the obstacles and you just try to find ways to get over them. So some of the challenges or struggles that I faced unfortunately have come from other people in rescue sometimes they just don’t have a clear vision. They have sort of a tunnel vision and that really ends up hurting the animals that were all trying to help you know some people are just set in their ways and we need to be open-minded. We need to be open-minded to come together and find a solution not just be you know in that mindset where you’re like “this is what I do, I’ve done it this way for the longest of time and there’s no other way”. Also there’s been the challenges of TNR clinics there’s a shortage, there’s so many animals out there that need to be spayed/ neutered but it’s difficult to get appointments anywhere. There’s not enough funding, there’s just so many challenges in the rescue world that you know I have colleagues and friends that we’re looking into getting into politics in local politics and start there and start making a change. Also other  challenges that we face are with animal control and you know some people just do it for a paycheck and they’re not really there to make a difference so there’s things like that and really I don’t want to put anyone on the spot but then again I do because that’s how we bring about change and I think overall the biggest challenges that we face in the rescue world is complacency. People are complacent with certain things and that is not a way that we’re going to turn around animal homelessness and animal suffering in the streets and animal abuse because it’s rampant, laws don’t take it seriously so there’s a lot of things that we need to tackle and I’m going to put my best foot forward in the best effort to try to tackle all these challenges.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I work with adults with disabilities mainly adults that may show signs or symptoms about autism but we specialize in helping them find jobs find internships develop employable skills help them hone in on the skills that they want to obtain so really we’re the type of transition specialist where we help these adults. We help them be organized and how to manage stress. I also am the job developer for the program that I work in so I help them. I match them with with the jobs that they’re looking into, help them find internships where they can learn new skills and their paid through our program really I’ve always loved helping people just like I love helping animals and I think that even on that I was able to specialize in this type of work. I’m also proud of and I feel like I’m known for being very helpful to come up with a strategy, come up with a plan and I think that transcends into you know animal rescue and it can transcend to any field that I step into in the long run you know I went to school for public administration and I feel like it just encompasses a lot of the community and that includes you know animal rescue. I think what I’m really most proud of is that I’m able to make a difference especially with animal rescue; you know we’re not just stopping at you know trap new to return or take it in kittens or dogs and adopting them out which is the most important factor but we’re reaching out to the community we’re reaching out to City officials we’re reaching out to the police department to the police unions we’re looking for ways to make an effective change and bring about collaboration networking and collaboration are the biggest things with me or for me.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
The way people can work with us is to simply be as transparent as possible. We are very transparent and that’s key to our rescue efforts; you know we need people to give us details, they need help with how can we collaborate and you know we provide that same level of detail especially with our foster animals. They don’t come from a great start so they’re probably not going to be 100% healthy at least with their immune system. And we try to get that as best as possible and get them to a healthy level to get them adopted out. But some adopters they want a perfect animal and it’s just not there you got to be the perfect pet parent and provide the perfect home for an animal that has suffered with collaboration you know just putting a plan together so we can maximize our efforts and help you more animals and reaching city and government officials so they can help us push for animal welfare, laws to be taken serious especially in the law enforcement community.

Pricing:

• Adoption fee: between $100 and $250 depending on rescue efforts

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.lorisangelsrescue.org/
• Instagram: Lorisangelsanimalrescue
• Facebook: @Lorisangelsanimalrescue
• Twitter: @angelslori