Diamond Dachshund Rescue of Texas

Recognition and Gratitude!

It is with sincere gratitude and appreciation that we introduce you to some of the wonderful volunteers who make up the support system for rescued dachshunds. We could not do what we do without each and every one of them! Come join us! Volunteering is rewarding, eye opening, enjoyable and heartwarming.
Christine McEntyre, Executive Director of Diamond Dachshund Rescue. Her dedication and tireless efforts have enabled hundreds of dachshunds to be rescued, helped to get healthy, rehabilitated and re-homed to permanent and loving families. Christine is a different sort of rescuer in that she pays special attention to what each individual dog wants and needs in a new home. The body language and personality of each dog is carefully noted to ensure that the placement of the dog will be a permanent and well-matched one. Christine relies heavily on a dedicated and compassionate group of volunteers to help with fostering, home visits, transports, shelter pulls, placements of the dachshunds in need, educational events and fundraising. Christine has been fostering and rescuing since 1998 and averages between 100-250 adoptions each year, with only a 1% return rate due to the extreme care taken in placements, keeping in touch with adopters, education and the foster program. We've found that if we let the dogs choose the family, rather than the other way around, everyone's happy with the adoption!
What would we do without Letty Gonzalez?! She's been beyond helpful and supportive! Letty does just about everything for DDRTX at some point or another! She heads our Reunion, works on the rummage sales, fundraisers, events, fosters the difficult furkids, transports, does shelter pulls, webmaster, and all around amazingly dedicated volunteer! We are wondering if we can sign her up to be cloned?!
James and Kat Jones are our representatives in the Corpus Christi area! They are owned by several dachshunds who have mom and dad wrapped around their tails. They help with shelter pulls, fostering, transports and fundraising.
Mylissa and Erika have been fabulous assets in the SA area. Mylissa fosters and transports as well as helps with fundraising. Erika has been great with support, transports, and helping at events. Both ladies are part of the San Antonio Low riders, a group of dachshund lovers who meet monthly for get togethers!
Joni Falcone is so darn fun and perky that she keeps us all laughing. She always brings smiles to our faces! She amazes us with her ability to take care of husband, children, dogs, and still volunteer to foster, transport, attend events, help with the reunion and so many other things. We are so glad she chose DDRTX to be the recipient of her time, efforts, and compassion!
Sandy Overmire is a rock, confidante, and friend. Sandy fosters, does shelter pulls, transports and home visits, and is a huge help to us! Sandy helps with the annual yard sale, the Adopter's Reunion, fundraising, and a myriad of other necessary things for rescue. She is always there to offer support in times of need. We could not do this without her. She has a love for the breed and a willingness to help in so many ways.
Ellen Lockwood and Cathy Valdez are a valuable and dedicated foster home, who also assist with so many other aspects of rescue. They help with meetings, the adopter's reunion, the annual yard sale, transports, shelter break outs and home visits. Ellen and Cathy have always been available whenever needed and are genuinely appreciated for their support and the care that they offer to the wee ones in their home. Ellen has been amazing with her support, her knowledge, her assistance and her strength. Both ladies have always there for rescue by lending moral support, offering their advice, and keeping everyone grounded. Ellen allows us to lean on her and gain strength from her. We are forever grateful and indebted to both of you ladies!
Glen and Kim Manganello are previous adopters who have been amazing. Glen is the talented designer of the DDRTX logo, and Kim helps out with the Annual Adopter's Reunion, yard sale, transports and shelter pulls. They have assisted with fostering and volunteer in many other ways with our fundraising efforts and spreading the word about rescue. Both have enormous hearts and adore their little dachshund fur kids, their kindness and assistance have been wonderful!
Barb Conley has been an invaluable asset to our group. Her late husband, Mike Conley, was an avid dachshund lover and advocate, though he has since passed, his legacy lives on. Before his passing, he made arrangements to help some of the more complex and special needs dogs that come in with health problems. They have been wonderful with their sincere caring and experience in rehabilitating dogs with severe health care needs. They have fostered for us, do a lot of transports, shelter pulls, home visits, and driving - Barb is also a quilter and doggie bed maker. Her creative talent and sewing experience are an amazing asset when fundraising. Her training as as a pediatric neurological nurse are absolutely invaluable when it comes to caring for special needs dogs. Barb and her family (daughters Kathy and Janice) truly love this breed and their genuine caring shows in their every action.
Cheryl Egmon is our absent foster mom right now, having moved to Bermuda for a two year stint with her job. Cheryl has been an absolutely wonderful friend. She has fostered, done shelter pulls, transports, home visits and has always made herself available to help. Cheryl's assistance and guidance in applying for our 501c3, and helping with our accounting and budgeting has helped us immeasurably. Cheryl has also helped with annual adopter's reunion, fundraising, and offering emotional support. Her heartfelt concern and genuine love for dachshunds is obviously apparent and so greatly appreciated.
Maya Drinkall has been a real joy with her assistance in transporting, fundraising, shelter pulls, help in placements, home visits, the annual adopter's reunion and the yard sales. Even though she's moved to Austin, she continues to assist with home visit coordination and transports to that area. Her sense of humor and willingness to jump in and work hard has endeared her to us all. Her love of the breed is shown in her willingness to help us out with whatever needs doing.
Jennie Burdett-Thomas has been a lifesaver - literally! She arranged for little Princess PJ to get to me for emergency vet care after picking her up in critical condition from the pound, now that's a special person! Jennie is working hard to help get our annual adopter's reunion set up and she helps with home visits, shelter pulls, fundraising, and transports. Jennie has also enabled us to have some great fliers printed up and maintains our database. A big thank you to Jennie who now lives in Fredricksburg!
Cayce Kovacs and her husband, John, have become an absolutely necessary and integral part of DDRTX. She came to us with a willingness to help and share her shelter and rescue experience. I am very grateful for her calm and down to earth knowledge, guidance and assistance. Cayce and John foster, do home visits, fundraising, shelter pulls, and any other thing with which we need help. Cayce and John have helped build our database and insulated our new kennel building Cayce is quick to offer her emotional support and is dedicated to the betterment of the lives of all dachshunds in need.
Leon and Nancy Alexander adopted a big fella from me a couple years back and been avid supporters ever since! They help with shelter pulls, transports, homevisits, fostering, fundraising events, yard sales, and so many other things! They are always there to keep us laughing while helping out the dogs in need. We sincerely thank to you both from the bottom of our hearts.
Barrett Brunner Houlihan has been an amazing supporter, friend and an absolute avid dachshund lover. Barrett helps out with anything she can, including transports, phone calls, reference checks, meetings, and fundraising. When it's our time to pass over the rainbow bridge, I would like to come back as a dachshund and live in her home! Her wonderful sense of humor and bubbly personality has helped us laugh many times when we have wanted to cry.
Susie Seidensticker is someone from whom we have learned a lot. Susie fosters some of our rescued wee ones, helps with transports and is a wealth of dachshund information. Susie breeds dachshunds for show, conformation, health, socialization andfor the betterment of the breed. She is amazingly responsible in her care, love and dedication to this breed. Her fostering assistance has been nothing short of life saving for the dogs! She's always been there for us to lean on and is always happy and ready to help. Susie is truly a Godsend for DDR. We are truly thankful for you guys and your willingness to offer our rescue dogs a place to stay.
Robert and Sarah Sanchez have been fabulous and helpful volunteers! Sarah helps with the annual adopter's reunion, the yard sale, fundraising, short term fostering, transporting, shelter pulls and a host of other things. She takes care of our yard sale signage and raffles at the reunion. She sells Tupperware and has been instrumental in fundraising efforts through her work as a sales representative. Robert and Sarah have adopted two dachshunds from DDR and their love for the breed is evident in their caring about the health and happiness of all rescue dogs.
Debi Silva - We love this lady! Her entire family has joined us in dachshund rescue! Debi fosters and falls in love with every little soul that comes into her warm, loving home. She socializes all her fosters around children and her other pets. She helps with fundraising, fostering, shelter pulls, events and our reunion. We are truly lucky to have her on our volunteer list! Her assistance, eagerness and willingness to work hard for the best interest and happiness of the rescued dogs makes her a joy to have around!
Joyce and Steven Gengler are two of the Angel Wheels of our group. They do pick ups, deliveries and transportation of many of our rescue dogs all over the state. For DDR, they have traveled from the Dallas area to the tip of Texas! From Houston to El Paso! They are always cheerful, happy to help and truly seem to enjoy each moment spent volunteering and handling so many of our special homeless fur kids. Joyce and Joyce relocated to Texas from California and we are thrilled to pieces that they have chosen DDRTX as the recipient of thier time, energy, and compassion! Their support, dedication and assistance has been, and will continue to be, invaluable to us all!
Katie Boggs is a very welcome addition to our happy little group! She fosters, transports, helps with fundraising events, the reunion, and is always eager to help in any way she can. Katie loves the road and traveling, so she often volunteers for far away homevisits so she can travel the backroads of Texas. Many thanks to Katie for all that she brings to our group!
Robert and Iris Landrum are our DFW and North Texas representatives. They have adopted, fostered, volunteered for transports, home visits, and shelter pulls. We always love to see them and their "herd" of happy little dachshunds at our reunion every year! We are thrilled to have them share their many years of dachshund experience with our group and as our northern territory volunteers.
Marilyn and Lou Paliani are bright, cheerful faces in our happy, wonderful, compassionate group of volunteers! We are thrilled that they have chosen us to be the recipients of their caring volunteer efforts. Marilyn and Lou are involved with other interests and events, but find the time to foster and help out in any way they can. We appreciate every minute of their time!
Teresa Correia is one of our volunteers in the San Antonio area and we just love her quiet, gentle personality and all she brings to the group! She adopted one of our little wire haired girls, she fosters for us, does transports, shelter pulls, and helps at events. She did an amazing job rehabilitating Rambo back to good health.
Linda Follis has been very helpful over the past couple years. Knowing that we can call on her and that she will make herself available for transports, shelter pulls, events, the reunion, and other things is a huge help. Every bit of volunteer assistance we can get is much needed and greatly appreciated!
Breely Busby is our wonderful representative in the DFW area. She has been a tremendous asset to the DDR group. She is reliable and fast when helping dogs in distress or facing certain death. She's fostered, boarded dogs, helped with vet care, helped with transports, homevisits, and shelter pulls. It is so nice to know that we have an experienced volunteer in the Fort Worth area where our help is very thin!
Diana Garza began volunteering after having adopted two difficult little dogs from us! Diana has helped with putting together flyers, sending out emails, organizing the reunion, and assisting us at events.
Jordan and Russel Hanselman have become invaluable members of our group and we hope we have many more years with them! This couple love their dachshunds and have been enthusiastically helping other dogs find their forever homes, receive veterinary care, transportation, shelter pulls and fostering. They help at events and assisting with many other things too, like the reunion, fundraising, home visits and lending a 'creative' hand when necessary. Russel's made several trips to the Kerrville area to help with donations and transporting dogs. We are truly thankful for all their help!
Trish Taylor and Ricky Rivera - What can we say about these two compassionate and incredible people? They've adopted four dogs from DDRTX, they help immensely with home visits in the Austin area, and they have always volunteered to help out in any way they can for several years now! They are the absolutely cutest couple ever and they spoil their dogs rotten, but will go to long lengths to ensure their pets quality of life and well being. We would like to clone them a few dozen times over!
Linda Sanchez has recently joined our group of volunteers as a transporter and foster home. She also assists with shelter pulls and events. We desperately need volunteer foster homes, so having Linda on our list has been a huge relief. We thank her sincerely for the time and compassion she extends to our rescue doxies.
Becky Ray is a volunteer from up around the Austin area and thank goodness too! We are greatful for her her help representing DDR in Austin! She's been great with transports and home visits. Becky is always available to lend a hand and a tank of gas to help a little rescued soul make a journey to meet his or her new family. She's helped immensely in the short time she's been with us and we sure hope to keep her forever and ever!
Elizabeth Stone joined us to foster and she's done a great job with the fur-kids in her care. Elizabeth is a volunteer who lives on a military base so that keeps her pretty darn busy. We thank her for lending us her home and her skills with these sweet little dogs
Debi Holly is another valuable Austin area volunteer who helps us out with temporary fostering, transporting, shelter pulls and homevisits. If we can get her down to San Antonio, we'll have her helping at our events and the reunion too! She adopted a special dog from us, so it warms our hearts to see her wanting to help other dogs find safe, happy, healthy homes.