About NAPRP
The National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals is a membership association made up of people who are working for animal shelters, humane societies or rescue groups. We have no ties or obligation to any one large humane organization. Our goal is to serve our members to the best of our ability without any conflict of interest or show of favoritism
Mission
To provide the knowledge, tools, and connections rescue professionals need to save more pets.
Vision
To help rescuers work together to save more companion animal lives.
Brochure
Please use the link below to download a PDF version of our brochure.
Brochure for the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals (PDF Format 405K).
About the Founder
The founder of NAPRP Susan Daffron grew up in a house with many dogs and cats. Her father is fond of pointing out that when she was two and they brought home their first dog Bingo, she stood at the top of the stairs and said "no doggie."
Obviously things changed and she developed a long-standing love of dogs and cats. Growing up, she was tasked with taking various dogs to obedience classes and wanted to be a vet. A strong aversion to math made vet school an unrealistic dream, but she did start adopting pets almost as soon as she was able. A month after she and her husband bought their first condo, they built a kitty tree and she adopted two cats from the Friends of the County Animal Shelter in San Diego.
Two months after she and her husband moved themselves and the cats to Idaho, Susan started volunteering at the local animal shelter. Her first week there, she adopted a sickly black puppy named Leia and nursed her back to health. She adopted two more dogs over the period of time she volunteered. Later, she adopted another dog from a rescue group in California and a cat from another local shelter.
Susan volunteered at the local animal shelter and subsequently worked as an employee for four years. Over the time she was involved, she used her graphic design and writing background to dramatically increase the visibility of the shelter in the community. She created hundreds of promotional materials, including banners, brochures, Web sites, forms, flyers, press releases, a new quarterly membership newsletter, and helped organize many fundraising events, including a big pet "carnival" called the Bow Wow Pow Wow.
Appalled by the lack of education among pet owners in her rural area, Susan also began writing weekly public service columns for the local newspaper on pet care topics. Her "Pet Tails" columns were later archived online and sent out as an email newsletter. More recently, the information has been incorporated into two nationally distributed books called Happy Hound: Develop a Great Relationship with Your Adopted Dog or Puppy and Happy Tabby: Develop a Great Relationship with Your Adopted Cat or Kitten. Noted veterinarian Marty Becker called Happy Hound "practical and passionate!"
At the shelter, Susan saw first-hand what happens when animal lovers stop working together, stop following rules, and descend into harmful judgmental name-calling. One of the reasons she decided to form NAPRP is to help other groups avoid the mistakes she has seen as both a shelter employee and volunteer.
Susan also worked as a part-time veterinary technician at a low-cost spay neuter clinic. There she learned more about veterinary issues, researched grants, and helped with software and administration issues.
In addition to her pet books, Susan is the author of eight other books. Her latest book is Funds to the Rescue: 101 Fundrasing Ideas for Humane and Animal Rescue Groups. She was a featured speaker at the 2009 No More Homeless Pets Conference in Las Vegas, which was put on by Best Friends Animal Society. Susan presented a workshop called the "7 Habits of Highly Effective Fundraisers" which was based on the information in her book.
Susan is the president of Logical Expressions, Inc. a book and software publishing company based in Sandpoint, Idaho.
A recognized expert on Web, editorial, design, and publishing topics, in addition to her books Susan has written more than 70 articles that have appeared in national magazines, more than 200 print newspaper articles, an online software training course, a mainstream software book, book chapters, and countless online articles. She also is the co-creator of a writing and creativity software program called IdeaWeaver.
Along with her writing, Susan has been doing design and editorial work since 1989. She has created magazines, newsletters, books and other book-length documents such as users guides and manuals. She was awarded the Most Valuable Professional designation from Microsoft in 1996 for her expertise in working with long documents in Microsoft Word.
Since forming her company in 1994, Susan has consulted with businesses ranging from small service firms to large corporate entities. Some of her most well-known clients include Macmillan Computer Publishing, Bedford Communications, and Penton Media.