Rupert
Today is Mother’s Day in the UK, and we wanted to share with you the inspirational story of two of our volunteers, mother and daughter Nikki and Shauna, who, in one week, will start their mammoth 100-mile #Run4TheDogs.
Nikki is a dog groomer from Leeds who rescued our lovely malamute Rupert from a brutal dog meat market last year. Her daughter Shauna is a makeup artist who designed our beautiful Christmas cards featuring our shelter dogs.Both of them help out at all our events. When we say help, we mean driving thousands of miles to take rescues to new homes, carrying heavy boxes to exhibition stands, filming TikTok videos, meeting and greeting new volunteers, and helping Julia, our founder, with all sorts of weird and wonderful admin and fundraising tasks.You would ask yourselves how they could fit in their full-time jobs and train for marathons, since 18 months ago neither of them had even run a mile. Also what motivates them?
Nikki Swannell
It was Nikki who started first. She was moved by the plight of the dogs and cats tortured for food and wanted to do more than just sign petitions. Nikki started to help NoToDogMeat with our adoptions. Nikki had seen the super vet Noel Fitzpatrick run the London Marathon for charity, and even though she had never run before, she too decided to enter. Sadly, Nikki could not get into the London run but was accepted into the Brighton Marathon. Fast forward a year, and now, not only did she get to meet Noel at Crufts this year with our rescues, but she is about to embark on not one but three marathons in three weeks: Brighton, Paris and Manchester.
And, this time, her daughter Shauna, who also only took up running a year ago, will join her on the first leg.
Shauna Rhodes with Rupert, Felicity and Angel
It is a massive feat of endurance not just physically but also a sacrifice of time, taking days off work, not seeing friends and travelling to other countries at their own expense, but this brave mother and daughter team feel it is worth it to #Run4TheDogs
Having Rupert beside them, who they know has been saved from the most terrible fate and is such a loving boy, spurs them on. They want to raise as much money as they can to help the 700+ dogs and cats NoToDogMeat currently has in the shelter and get them homes.Our promise to you is to keep on campaigning and rescuing until the cruelty ends.
We ask you all to hug your children and fur pups as much as possible this Mother’s Day, sponsor our duo (links below), and share their inspiring stories.
If you can make it to any of the marathons, please join us!
Dates below
Brighton UK April 6th
Paris France April 13th
Manchester UK April 28th
Our team will be there in our shirts, raising awareness and cheering the girls on and you will also get to meet some of our rescues.
Thank you for your support. #NoActionTooSmall
To purchase t-shirts and other merch, please visit
If you have not seen it, here are the duo on a recent interview with our rescues and at Crufts with Julia.
Julia de Cadenet with Noel Fitzpatrick and Felicity
Categories: Events, Fundraising, Uncategorized
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