Hansen enjoys getting to know the new dogs when they come to Northwest Dog Project. Alfalfa gets some one-on-one attention with Hansen as he get acclimated to his new environment at the rescue.
By: Ellen Dula
Ashley Hansen works at Northwest Dog Project and is the head of office at the Eugene Animal Hospital. Hansen’s day to day life is filled with animals, mostly dogs. Not only does this type of work helps the animals she encounters, it has also given her a sense of purpose. Her social media pages are filled with pictures of dogs, some her own and others that she comes across in her work. “People I barely knew in high school send me pictures of their dogs because they see my posts and know that I’m the ‘Dog Lady’, and I love getting those,” Hansen said. She even caught herself referring to people as “humans” during our interview, as if they were a strange and distant species. “Dogs are better anyway,” she joked.
Hansen worked at various shelters in her home state of California for several years, but at one point took a break from working with animals and worked in hospice care. “I realized that I really wanted to be back working with dogs, I just missed it so much,” she says of the mind-changing experience. When she moved to Oregon she saw the difference between California and Oregon dog shelters: Due to high population, nearly all California shelters are kill shelters, and in Oregon that is a much less frequent occurrence. For a while she had dreamed of being a veterinary technician because this would incorporate her love for animals with her career.
After getting involved with rescue work and working the Eugene Animal hospital, she realized that she enjoyed the emotional involvement and bonding aspect much more. The Eugene Animal Hospital allows her to be the friendly face at the front door, and she gets the joy of sending pets home happy and healthy. Her work at Northwest Dog Project gives her a similar sense of joy. Dogs are brought to the rescue with a distrust of humans. Hansen’s job is to, essentially, help them regain that trust. She walks, feeds and socializes each dog and helps them gain confidence and a newfound sense of happiness.
Hansen hopes to continue doing this type of work for the rest of her life. She believes the Northwest Dog Project will gain more notoriety in just the next few years and will be able to help even more dogs, and that is something she looks forward to being a part of. According to Hansen’s mother Kara, immersing herself in this type of work has made her “a very compassionate and empathetic person,” and considers rescue work to be Hansen’s “happy place.” She hopes that rescue and non-profit work will always be apart of her life, because it truly is what makes her the happiest.