Our amazing, unpaid, selfless staff
Gay Wakeland -- President, Co-Founder
Gay is a founding partner of DDOO. She does all of the designing and production of the items we sell in our booth. Gay has three deaf dogs and three hearing dogs. She has a long history of working in animal welfare, performing roles as a shelter board member and shelter volunteer. She has been a long time member of the Humane Society of the United States and was one of the founding members of the Columbia Agility Team. She has participated and won agility titles on several dogs and participated in many obedience classes with her dogs. Gay retired from being a software engineer in 2011 and now devotes all her time to DDOO.
Chelsea Tuning--Head Trainer, Co-Founder
Chelsea is one of the founders of Deaf Dogs of Oregon (along with Gay Wakeland). She is also our head trainer. She works with our foster homes and adoptive homes to help create a smooth transition for the pups. With the help of the amazing team of people who keep Deaf Dogs of Oregon running smoothly, Chelsea helps our foster dogs find the perfect home by dog matching them with people who want to adopt them.
She also runs a dog training business (www.finetuningdogtraining.com) and a handmade beauty and bath product business (www.happyfacebeauty.com) which fills up the rest of the time she isn't teaching deaf dogs.
She also runs a dog training business (www.finetuningdogtraining.com) and a handmade beauty and bath product business (www.happyfacebeauty.com) which fills up the rest of the time she isn't teaching deaf dogs.
Rachelle Basaraba -- Event Coordinator
Rachelle Basaraba adopted Stryder in August 2013 after seeing him on PetFinder. It was love at first sight! Rachelle is an active person and animal lover, so adding Stryder to her home was a perfect fit. Stryder loves to go on long runs with Rachelle and her significant other. He has ran up to 10 miles in a single run with them! Rachelle and Stryder also enjoy agility and dock diving. Stryder is the star of his neigborhood. He loves to show of his favorite eggplant rubber toy and play catch in his backyard. This is Rachelle's first time training an animal and she has discovered the importance and joy of formal training, that creates a strong bond and relationship with her canine companion.
Rachelle is our amazing Event Coordinator. She manages our event calendar, and schedules, organizes and coordinates booth set-up for all our various events and adoption days in the Portland/metro area. If you are interested in inviting DDOO to your event, please email Rachelle at [email protected]
Rachelle is our amazing Event Coordinator. She manages our event calendar, and schedules, organizes and coordinates booth set-up for all our various events and adoption days in the Portland/metro area. If you are interested in inviting DDOO to your event, please email Rachelle at [email protected]