Thank you for visiting my site!
First, I would like to introduce myself to you and explain why I created this website. My name is Catherine Stillwell and I live in Wheaton, Illinois. My family and I moved here back in 2013 from Northern California. My husband and I are originally from Trenton, NJ and our son was born in Tucson, AZ. I have been a pet advocate and pet owner for over five decades. I believe all pets deserve a loving, forever home.
On November 3, 2014, my family and I adopted a senior, shelter dog named Paulie when he was eight years old. The following day, I launched a social media site as a fun project to where I journaled his day to day activities with us. It grew to over 1,000 followers. The page was called, "Paulie's Journey." I then wrote a poem about Paulie's adoption journey titled the same. He and I started running fundraisers for the senior shelter dogs to help them get adopted faster. The donations were placed in a special stipend that specifically helped the seniors and special needs dogs. The donations went towards medicines, surgeries and training. Paulie helped around 34 dogs in finding their forever homes after our first fundraiser in 2016! We did this from 2016-2020. In July of 2021, he became very ill and earned his wings. I am now keeping his mission and legacy alive by helping the seniors.
In January of 2023 I started writing a children's book titled, "Paulie Finds His Forever Home." This was based off one of many blogs that I wrote after he passed. The blogs journaled the adventures we went on. This book takes the young reader on a senior dog’s fascinating journey to locate his forever home. To make this book into an educational tool for the guardian(s) of the young reader, I added a suggestion sheet on how to keep pets from becoming a stray. After doing much research, my book is unique because I couldn't find anything like this in other children's books.
I launched this site to educate others on the rewards of adopting a senior dog and other information to help new and existing senior dog owners with various topics on caring for a senior dog. There's also some information on dealing with a reactive dog. Paulie was our first dog ever and my family and I knew nothing about caring for a dog, let alone a senior. We found out a week after adopting him that he was very reactive and was not properly socialized during his puppy years. I hope to share what I know with you so you feel comfortable caring for a senior. Feel free to share this site with others. It will be updated from time to time so feel free to come back to see what's new. There will be another tab for blogs relating to experiences I dealt with and how they were addressed while owning Paulie.
Again, thank you for being here. I appreciate you!
Catherine Stillwell
When signing up, you will receive periodic updates about my children’s book, Paulie Finds His Forever Home and other events.