www.fortleetraveller.com
July 5, 2012 • TRAVELLER • 11
Hands-on Love for Strays
PHOTO BY KATHRYN C. WEIGEL
Breann Hollister, left, Robina Wahl, and her step-daughters Cadance, center, and Natalie, shower a stray dog with affection June 25 at the Fort Lee Stray Animal Facility.
Volunteers at the Fort Lee Stray Animal Facility provide the kind of loving attention that helps pets living there maintain their family-friendly disposition. The facility has an on-going need for volunteers, both from permanent party personnel and students and their Family members. Robina Wahl, the wife of 1st Lt. Ronold Wahl III with Headquarters and Headquarters Co., 530th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, found herself being recruited to help at the facility when she stopped by looking for a Family cat that had escaped from their quarters. “It’s been fun coming here,” she said. “I feel like I’m making the animals happy.” Her husband sometimes spends his lunch break lending a hand with the animals at the facility. Breann Hollister, whose husband Capt. Joe Hollister is a student in the Captains Career Course at Army Logistics University, worked at a humane society while they were stationed
at Fort Eustis before coming to Fort Lee. She hopes to continue working in the animal welfare field professionally when they move to a new duty station later this year. Hollister, who has two dogs at home, fosters dogs from the shelter and helps with administrative tasks from home in addition to working at the facility a couple of days a week. Hollister noted that fostering pets and volunteering at the shelter are ways to spend time with more animals without increasing the number of pets owned by a Family. These activities can also help a Family gauge whether children are ready to care for pets of their own. Volunteers can be foster parents to facility residents, help with feeding and exercising them or pitch in wherever their interests and talents lie, said Mike Johnson, post game warden. For information about becoming a volunteer, call Johnson at (804) 652-5979. – Staff Reports