Spotlight on Mark Whalen

Mark Whalen lives in Clearwater with his wife Leslie.  He is a father of two grown boys.   A disabled Navy vet, Mark grew up in western New York in a farming community where he worked on his family’s farm and local farms during the summer. 

Currently, Mark lives on five acres and owns three dogs; Hershey, an 11 year-old Chocolate Lab who is the Alpha Female.  Kino, a 2 year-old blue-nosed Pit Bull who he describes as the big kid of the pack who is small in stature but has a big heart, and of course, Kudos, a Border Collie Saluki who is 1 year old.  Kudos was Mark’s first foster failure!  Rescued from Huntsville, Alabama by Stephanie Walker, Kudos spent his first few weeks under Mark’s foster care convincing him that he was a keeper!

Mark evaluates and socializes newly rescued Dog Liberator dogs.  He interviews and conducts meets with prospective adopters and has a sixth sense about “the right match.”  Mark’s fostered dogs are immediately exposed to his pack.  The dogs are then exposed to other neighborhood dogs, his cats, horses, and chickens.   He believes in exposing all of the fosters to as many new experiences and social activities as possible.  His neice and nephew are a very big part of his life, and visit regularly.  They are Mark’s official kid-testers when he gets our new dogs in to foster.

Mark is incredibly intuitive about people, and his ability to patiently observe the new dogs makes him the perfect foster.  Because of this, Mark has been asked to take on a new responsibility, to match our rescued dogs with new volunteer fosters!  Future dogs that come off of transport throughout the Southeast, will head directly to Clearwater, where they can spend a few days resting and having fun.  Then, the dogs will meet either their potential adopters, or their new foster family.

Increasing the number of excellent foster homes is paramount to saving more dogs.   Mark will graciously do what he does best – create the perfect match!

To date, Mark has fostered dozens of dogs, and all of them were successfully adopted.  Star, Flirt, Johnny Ray, McQueen, Indian, Sugar Ray, Madigan, Joey, Breeze, and Roxanne, just to name a few!

Mark’s new pack is getting ready to make their trip to South Florida, Easy Peasy  Penny, Jake, and Mojo. 

We want to thank Mark, not for just fostering dogs, but for increasing their chances for adoption, thus changing their lives guaranteeing they will never end up in a shelter or pound again.  There is a huge sense of victory and accomplishment after a successful adoption, and I can’t tell you how many times Mark has called me to share the excitement of that perfect match that was meant to be!

Thank you Mark Whalen!