\u201cThis means everything. I represent so much here. I represent the recovery community. The dog rescue community. \u2026 This is going to be able to take us to the next level.\u201d <\/p>\n
Knight\u2019s journey began in 2011, when at the age of 51, he had lost everything to meth addiction \u2013 his family, his job, his home, and nearly his life. HIV positive, and living out of his car, Knight entered rehab at the behest of his mother. <\/p>\n
After months of treatment, and at a delicate time in his recovery, Knight\u2019s life changed when a friend showed up at his door in tears. She had relapsed, and in her arms was her beloved dog, Jayde. Knight\u2019s friend said no one would take Jayde, and she asked Knight for a ride to a shelter so she could surrender her. <\/p>\n
\u201cI looked at Jayde, and we looked at each other,\u201d Knight said. \u201cIt was one of the most spiritual moments, like \u2018I think we might need each other here.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
Knight soon realized that other people were delaying or forgoing treatment because they could not find safe housing for their pets. He sought advice on best practices from a local animal rescue and educated himself on foster care protocol. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese shelters are running 150 percent over capacity. If you\u2019re over capacity, then you start euthanizing dogs,\u201d Knight said. \u201cWe cannot have the solution be euthanize dogs. We can\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n
1,200 dogs and counting<\/strong> <\/p>\n In 2015, Knight\u2019s organization, Dogs Matter, became a registered nonprofit, and he buttoned up his program \u2013 vetting applicants, conducting animal behavior assessments, and executing contracts that require participants to stick to their recovery plan and complete a 12-month post-release wraparound program. <\/p>\n Today, Knight lives with his three dogs, Jayde, Piper and Lady, and his organization has helped more than 1,200 dogs and their owners. As Knight approaches 14 years clean and sober, he hopes to make Dogs Matter a national model program, with the goal of giving other animals and their humans the same second chance at life that he got. <\/p>\n \u201cI share this award with Jayde. She\u2019s the reason why I did this. One act of kindness and then to have that dream and that goal to be able to help others and do one step at a time to get there. And\u20261,200 dogs later it\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s just beginning too.\u201d <\/p>\n A night celebrating selflessness<\/strong> <\/p>\n During his acceptance remarks, Fox shared the honor with others. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very proud on behalf of all the people with Parkinson\u2019s and their families who\u2019ve fought so hard for a cure and fought so hard for answers and new drugs in the pipeline, and through our foundation have found a way to realize that.\u201d <\/p>\n You can get involved<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThis means everything. I represent so much here. I represent the recovery community. The dog…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}