Denise Valdez Saves the Animals

Valdez enjoys play time with her golden retriever, Joey, and labrador, Riley

	Volunteers are the heart and soul of The Animal Foundation
	The Greenspun Family Dog Adoption Bungalows are 22 solar-paneled bungalow units, each housing 12 individual kennels with indoor and outdoor areas

Channel 8’s Denise Valdez has adopted a pet in every city she has lived in since 1998: San Antonio, Dallas, LA, and Las Vegas, where she moved in 2006. The nomadic pets have settled in nicely at their home downtown with Valdez and her fiancé. “They each sort of represent a different chapter of my life,” she says of her cat Tommy, and dogs Riley, Chester, and the newest Joey, a golden retriever she adopted from The Animal Foundation five years ago. That fateful meeting is what led her to become the non-profit group’s newest board member.

Now, the Channel 8 anchor who has won two Emmy Awards—one for a series of education reports and the other for Best Anchor in the Pacific Southwest region—is putting her efforts into The Animal Foundation’s next undertaking: the capital campaign. The massive fundraising project began last month with a goal of raising $20 million to renovate its campus and add new facilities. The campus includes the Lied Animal Shelter, which houses a veterinary clinic and a lost and found area.

The campus got a huge boost in 2005, when the Greenspun Family Dog Adoption Bungalows (complete with solar panels) were finished, and the entire facility was revamped to meet LEED standards. The spacious bungalows ensure plenty of humane treatment for the more than 200 dogs the foundation cares for at any given time. However, the cats and many exotic animals such as rabbits, snakes, ferrets, and turtles have limited space. Valdez stresses the importance of expansion because the shelter has taken in more animals and hired more employees. “You see this beautiful green LEED-certified facility,” she says. “But then you walk through that empty parking lot and you see those tents for the cats. Part of our capital improvement project is to get buildings for those cats and to [create] a more inviting area for visitors.”

The Animal Foundation, which receives more than 50,000 animals a year, is the highest-volume intake shelter in the country. But the capital fundraising campaign is off to an impressive start thanks to one of the most generous men in town: Steve Wynn recently donated $5 million. Plans include turning the intake shelter into a full-fledged animal hospital, building a more comprehensive infrastructure, expanding administrative offices, planning more community adoption events, constructing a larger surgery center, and adding an education area so schools can take field trips to the facility.

“That’s a key component,” Valdez says. “When kids can learn responsibility and the value of the companionship of an animal, that spreads to the parents. You never know when you will find the next member of your family.”

Valdez has been an Animal Foundation volunteer since 2007, when she was asked to participate in its annual fundraiser, Best in Show. Last October, she took her devotion a step further. “I realized I could try and elevate my involvement a little bit more by joining the board,” she says. “I sold myself. They didn’t ask me, I asked them. I wrote a letter and they voted.”

Valdez’s job at Channel 8 allows her to do community outreach work, and she has been flooded with feedback since she began a weekly segment called “Pet Project” in Spring 2010. “I think I connect with a lot of the viewers out there,” she says. “They know I’m an animal lover.” The list of topics she has spotlighted includes adoption possibilities through such organizations as Foreclosed Upon Pets and Greyhound Pet Adoption of Las Vegas, the delivery of raw pet food by Three Dog Bakery, and an event called Lose A Pound With Your Hound. “I am so grateful the station allows me the opportunity to create awareness about animals across the valley,” she says. Sounds like Valdez and her previously nomadic pets have found a home.

“This has been the best TV station,” she says. “I loved San Antonio, too. That’s where I met my fiancé. But you can’t live like we live here in many other cities. So I feel connected to the heartbeat of the city, but yet I still feel like I have a quiet little place downtown. I am not going to move anywhere else.”

The Animal Foundation’s Best in Show pet-adoption fundraiser will take place April 22 at The Orleans. Those who cannot attend can become an Animal Foundation Ambassador