Must Love Dogs: Romance blossoms while volunteering at the Richmond SPCA

In 2006, Nancy Boylan was traveling a lot for work and found herself without enough time at home to adopt a dog of her own. So, instead, she began spending her Saturdays volunteering at the Richmond SPCA.

Around that time, she met Scott Johnson, whom she started dating. Nancy asked Scott to join her as a volunteer at weekend off-site adoption events, and the two soon fell in love.

A year after they became engaged, Nancy and Scott were volunteering together at our Tail Wag’N at Cooper Vineyard when they met a dog named Sundae. The couple adopted Sundae, and the pup completed their family. After taking Sundae home, Nancy and Scott quickly took advantage of the training classes offered at our humane center. Sundae’s first exposure to agility was at the Pets’ Fun Zone at our Dog Jog and 5K Run. Soon they were hooked on the sport and have been taking agility classes with Sundae ever since. Sundae has earned multiple titles in agility, tricks and RallyFree.

She continues to compete at the masters level in agility at 10 years old! In 2013, Scott and Nancy trained to become members of our shelter dog training and enrichment team, the “Green Team.” The couple still has a standing weekly day-date, spending Saturday mornings volunteering to work with dogs like Chickie, pictured above.

To learn more about volunteering with the Richmond SPCA, visit us online at www.richmondspca.org/volunteer.

Gray Miller is our manager of community development. After adopting her first dog, Olive, in 2009, Gray made it a priority to give back to the Richmond SPCA because of how much we had given to her by saving the life of her best friend. In her role, she works with wonderful people and generous local organizations who wish to partner with the Richmond SPCA to support its lifesaving work.

Gray and her family share their home with three dogs, Olive, Fang and Sam, and a cat, Eric.