It’s hard to believe that my time working with Team Animal and Harnett County Animal Services is coming to an end. After working with these two groups for almost a full semester I can honestly say I’ve experienced a world of emotions and situations that have pushed me to grow personally and professionally. At the beginning of this collaboration I was worried about how everything was going to work, but I was excited that I could apply my background in animal and poultry science to a project that could potentially impact a large amount of people and animals in Harnett County. Public Health was an entirely new concept and journey for me. I was entirely unsure about how rural public health concepts would relate to our practicum. In my mind the rabies situation was quite simple. Community members should just vaccinate their pets and be mindful of wildlife and that was that, the rabies problem was solved. After a short amount of time in Dr. Tillman’s rural health class and working with the community, the concepts discussed in class came to life and I could realistically see the barriers rurality placed upon people in terms of rabies vaccination and education.

From the beginning, our preceptor Steve Berube provided excellent guidance about the task ahead. Steve had the experience, even as a rodeo clown, and an open-minded attitude that eased my doubts about any issue put in front of us. Our first official task was to distribute surveys to community members at the festival to eventually gauge their perceptions about rabies and what they know about rabies vaccination, transmission, and presence in Harnett County. After my first festival in Lillington, potential barriers to rabies vaccination and education in the community became very clear. For many, barriers to vaccination included transportation to the shelter or festival, language differences, financial constraints, education level differences, and just a lack of formal rabies education. The lack of formal education seemed to be a large problem. While taking the surveys community members would ask us things like; “can cats really transmit rabies?”, “Is rabies really completely fatal?”, and “Does rabies actually exist in Harnett County?”. To team animal and educated members of the community, the answers to these questions seemed completely obvious, but many Harnett County residents were unaware what rabies is and that it is in such close proximity to them. As we attended more festivals these barriers to vaccination and rabies education continued. First hand experiences with some of the barriers to rabies vaccination and education made our work with the rabies surveys even more important. Although data analysis has not occurred with the surveys yet, I am very confident that their findings will give vital information about what the community already knows about rabies and what the HCAS and the public health community can do to better educate them about rabies.

Seeing community members struggle with the rabies surveys first hand inspired Team animal to work even harder to spread the word about rabies and help the Harnett County Animal Services in any way possible. Team animal hosted a World Rabies event on campus to make Campbell Students aware of rabies including the dangers and ways that they can prevent a rabies vaccination. With high hopes of inspiring students to get involved with rabies awareness and rabies protection promotion, we were a little bummed with the small turnout of students interested in learning about rabies. Although we did not educate as many students as we would have liked, we felt like we encouraged a few students to educate themselves about rabies and get their own pets rabies vaccinated. One of the most important lessons learned throughout my classes and after this on campus event was that the little things matter. Despite low turn out, we were able to instill important rabies vaccination ideas into a few individuals and hopefully they will pass that one to their peers. Rome wasn’t built in a day and rabies will not be stopped in a day either. Having the opportunity to at least talk to a few students made the event a success. Small steps gained now in rabies education will lead to big leaps later. I am extremely blessed and honored to be able to talk to students about something that I am so passionate about. 

Aside from formal education and surveying the community, Team Animal wanted to make an impact on the shelter and the animals that live there. With the raffle of a large outdoor Dog House by Gracious paws, donated by Vets for Pets in Dunn, NC, team animal was able to raise $68 dollars. This money was used to purchase and indoor/outdoor playpen for the Harnett County Animal Shelter. Throughout our interaction with the shelter, they had frequently expressed the need for better puppy and kitten containment equipment for adoption events. As a thank you to Steve and the rest of the HCAS staff, team animal decided to purchase one for them. We hope that this playpen will create a better and more safe adoption environment for the puppies and kittens of the HCAS in hopes that they will find forever homes. With a playpen, the HCAS can take them to more locations in which they will have access to a larger group of people who will potentially adopt them. More specifically for the animals, team animal held a large scale animal supplies drive on campus. Campbell students went above and beyond the call of duty and supplied over 250 separate donations for the Harnett County Animal Shelter! Donations included mostly dog food and tread along with cat food and treats. It was amazingly satisfying to present the shelter with these supplies that they need so much. They were so grateful and appreciated all of the hard work that we put in to save a few more animal lives in the shelter. Although it’s not advertised, the Harnett County Animal shelter houses a lot of cats and dogs, usually surpassing facility capacity, so they are always in dire need of food for them. As an animal lover I felt so much joy and happiness when we gave them those supplies and knowing that we were helping so many helpless animals even if the food wouldn’t last them that long. It was probably my most favorite experience with team animal throughout the semester and I hope to host another supplies drive for HCAS in the future because they surely deserve it!