Samantha Berger knew nothing about St. Hubert’s before she brought her toy poodle Abby to the Training and Behavior Center for puppy kindergarten in 2015. But once she arrived it was instant love. “You couldn’t get me to leave,” she remembers. Sam began cleaning the kennels and greeting visitors. She got involved with the ASPCA Behavior Center housed at the time on the Madison campus, where she helped traumatized dogs begin to learn to trust people. Walking shelter dogs and socializing cats followed. Her dad is allergic to cats so she didn’t grow up with them and was eager to learn as much as possible. “Everything I could do here, I went for.”
When Sam heard about St. Hubert’s free vaccine clinics she approached Community Care Manager Jennifer Gregory to say, “What about me?!” Since then Sam has been a regular at the clinics doing whatever is needed, from keeping an orderly flow of clients to drawing vaccines, to being on the lookout for loose dogs. And always with a smile on her face. “I do whatever Jenn tells me to do!” she says. (She’s pictured below with veterinarian Dr. Robert Harris at a recent clinic in Trenton.)
But Sam’s volunteer activities at St. Hubert’s don’t even end there. She is an assistant trainer in the Training and Behavior School, works with the newly formed Youth Task Force, has been part of the evaluation “crowd” at pet therapy examinations, and helps out at adoption events. When she is not volunteering, Sam works as a vet assistant at an animal behavior clinic and is taking pre-vet classes as well. St. Hubert’s is extremely fortunate to have her!
