Nancy: Hi, Catherine. I think you've played a pretty important role in the city of Gillette for pet owners. Would you tell me what you have been able to make happen in Gillette?

Catherine: Sure. I moved to Gillette in 2009, and I felt a little lonely. I didn't have any friends up here yet, and I happened to be in Casper, Wyoming, and I went to the pet store.I fell in love with a Shiba Inu.

Nancy: Shiba Inu. Okay. Yeah.

Catherine: And so he's a little feisty guy. And I named him Oso, which is Spanish for bear, 'cause he looked like a little bear cub.Unfortunately, a year and a half later, when I brought him to one of the local parks in Gillette, he was running off leash, which normally he'd stay by me, but that day he heard something and took off. He ended up getting hit by a truck in the middle of Orlo Drive, and, you know, I was hoping he'd still be alive, but he was not.

I spent a lot of time grieving after that. A month before that, I had gotten another dog from the shelter to be Oso's friend, and his name is Baxter. So me and Baxter grieved together for a while.

After about six months of grieving, decided to start getting interest in town for maybe the idea of a fenced-in dog park, so dog owners could take their dogs somewhere safe, for breeds that are more free spirit and run a lot.

There was a lot of interest in it. We started with local meetings at Starbucks, and it got so big that we started moving our meetings to the local library.

Nancy: Like, how many people would come?

Catherine: Sometimes 30 people or more. And we'd enter the parade every summer as well. We'd have a float for the dogs.

Nancy: I love that.

Catherine: And then, we did just do a lot of fundraising through, like, garage sales. People would donate stuff, and we'd sell stuff. We'd have private donations. And it took us four years, and we raised $22,000.

Nancy: That's remarkable.

Catherine: Yeah. So we had been going to city council meetings over time, and showing them the research in all the surrounding cities that have dog parks fenced in, and how it'd just be a good, safe place for people to socialize with [00:02:00] their pets. Once they saw the funds that we had raised, they gave us land to look at.

And they gave us about 10 different options to look at. Me and the board of directors for the Gillette Dog Runners group we made a rating scale just to see what would work out the best. If there was a place for parking, if we were too close to any neighborhoods. If there was a close water connection.

And that's how we ended up choosing our location at Worlow Drive and Hannum Road. Okay. And at first, when that was the best option, it got the highest score, I was sad, because that is exactly where my dog got hit.

But the board, which were my friends, they said, "Maybe that's a great location for his memory," and it turned out to be a wonderful location. I'm happy with it. We did name the dog park after him.

We named it the Oh-So Fun Dog Park, little dash between the "Oh" and the "So". Cause he wanted to have oh, so much fun.

And I would say throughout the tragedy, it did bring me all my Wyoming friends I have. Formed close friendships that I would not have had otherwise, probably.And it's a nice place to take our pets now. And, yeah, that's it.

Nancy: Are you able to form some happy memories in that space as you continue going on with other pets that have come after Oso?

Catherine: Oh, yeah. So I've had a lot of dogs since. I had Baxter with him. And then a year later, when I was hanging up the flyers, a vet in town told me there was a couple breeding their Shiba Inus.

I went and took a look, and this one Shiba Inu kept following me and Baxter around. I ended up naming him Iyashiki, which is, he's a Japanese breed, and the Japanese name means, um, healing a broken heart.

Anything labeled in Japan with Iyashiki on it could mean healing, even if it's a face cream. It heals the skin. So I thought that's a perfect name, since he was gonna heal my broken heart from Oso passing away. And he was good for me and Baxter. And then I've had many other dogs since then. Baxter has since passed away. Iyashiki's passed away. It's been 15 years now.Well, yeah, Iyashi lived till 14 and a half years old.

And now I actually have two dogs, a husky and a German shepherd, malamute mix, and they both love running at the dog park. And have dog friends out there, so.

Nancy: That's a beautiful story.

Catherine: And now we're just- the last thing I'd like to do for our dog park is get Oso's statue up there.

We did have a local doctor who had the skill set to sculpt do sculptures, and he donated his talent to make a statue. And I got a concrete circle put out at the dog park to put him on. I just need help with someone like helping us get a concrete or brick column built up to set his statue on, and that would probably be the last finishing touch on my end to get that going. And it is a city-owned, maintained park, but that dog owners group had just kept it going for a while, raising funds to add improvements out there.

Nancy: I'm sorry for the terrible trauma and loss of a pet. That's awful. But that you turned it into something that's joyful for a whole town, and it's a resource and a safety, like a, a resource for safe, safe joy of pets, like you said, who are a little more adventurous. So I, I thank you for the work that you've done. That's pretty amazing.

Catherine: Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Note: The transcript above has been condensed from its original audio recording to improve the flow and readability of the story.