Gabriela's Way

Dear Friends and Family,

As many of you know, my grandaughter Gabriela Rugaas Vlad passed away in September of this year at the age of 24. To honour my granddaughter’s name and life I want to do something that will help increase the use of harnesses.

Gabriela was always handing out educational brochures about the dangers of collars to all she saw using collars on their dogs. With a big smile she handed them brochures and let them read, and after years of doing this on all her walks around the city, the results started to show. More and more people started to use harnesses, pet stores had the brochures lying around for people to pick up for free. I admired her so much for this, it was such a sweet and lovely way of doing it, and I want to keep up the work she started.

With the help of others, I will be creating “Gabriela’s Way” so that her work will be continued and her legacy will live on.

“Gabriela’s Way”
Money will not be collected; I just want people to unite in the effort of spreading information about the use of harnesses. Some ways to do this:
1) you can print out the harness brochures and share them whenever possible
2) when you can donate a harness or harnesses to a dog owner or a shelter, do it
3) you can work with private dog owners and encourage them to buy and use a harness for their dog
4) you can take a stand about it at conferences or dog shows

Document what you have achieved in a few words or a picture, send it to me at turidrug@frisurf.no and you will be enrolled as a part of “Gabriela’s Way”. I will have a Newsletter sent out with names, locations, and what has been done. In turn, this will inspire people all over the world to follow suit.

This is the best thing I can do to honour my beloved granddaughter, who had such a big heart for animals, and found such a lovely way to help them.

"Within clients and friends we collect harnesses that don't fit any longer and distribute to charities and people who have limited resources" Winkie, London

"I was very inspired by Gabriela's way of sharing knowledge, and thought it had to be a wise way to do it, so I have given out brochures to strange people the same way as she did, and only met smiles and thanks" Turid, Gjøvik, Norway

"Ever since you told us in class what Gabriela did with the brochures I have been doing the same thing. I have donated harnesses to 2 shelters, and I just keep printing brochures and hand them out" Lizz, USA

"For Gabriela I will give harnesses to the rescue organization. I will also continue to recommend it everywhere possible" Patsy, Germany

I have contacted my friends and acquaintances to help distribute the brochure. It will be handed out to people at dog schools, puppyclasses, doggydance, at work, news, paper stores, waiting room at our local vet etc." Ingeborg, Belgium

"I will spread brochures at every vet in Vienna and the vetmed university. I will spend all the time it needs to do it !" Christina, Vienna

"We are doing up 3 flyers - called Gabriela's Way. We are going to have an on-going competition for people to nominate a rescue group of their choice. The rescue group with the most nominations will be donated a harness. For my puppy classes we are going to sell a harness for the puppies while they are still growing that can be returned for a new one at no extra cost. This allows us to re-use the harnesses for other puppies." Jenny, The Complete pet Company, Australia

"I saw this on Facebook and shared it on my local dog park's Facebook gtoup." Rosemary, Belfast

"In honour of Gabriela we would love to do something. We will soon have a new harness: green, we want this to be our special edition harness and sell them with a discount. For every 25 we sell we will give one harness to a shelter" Ellen, Team Calming Signs, Netherlands.

Kenzie
One of the last pictures taken of my beloved Kenzie, with the harness given to him by Calming Signs, Netherlands, He got the very first harness with his name on, in that colour, which was new, and with the message that for every 25 harnesses they sold in that colour, one should be given away to some dog who needed it. Till today they have given away 20-30 harnesses ! (do not have the exact number).
Thanks for keeping the legacy of Gabriela's Way alive !

Rusty
Rusty from Australia, with the harness given him as part of a deal - harnesses given away as part of Gabriela's Way, after a certain number of harness sold. Lucky Rusty, and thanks to those who keep Gabriela's legacy alive.

.....supporting the initiativ Gabriela's Way we are giving her name to the new green coloured harness, and want to donate 1 harness per 25 sold, to a shelter, rescue fond or asylum"
Nelis Verhoeven and Ellen Versteegen, Calming Signs, Netherlands.

Donation from letswalkaustralia@gmail.com to the dingoes at Kaarakin Dingoes in Australia. Els Vidts donated leashes of own design.
Here one of the dingoes get the harness fitted !

Turid Rugaas turidrug@frisurf.no http://en.turid-rugaas.no