GoodHeart | Caring for pups - Debbie Lightheart’s 10-year mission earns recognition
Published:Saturday | October 26, 2024 | 1:35 PMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
When 68-year-old Debbie Lightheart, winner of the True Pet Food’s Choice Award for Outstanding Contribution, migrated from Canada to Jamaica 30 years ago, the former security company operator never imagined she would take up veterinary services.
In the last 10 years, Lightheart has facilitated the spaying and neutering of more than 10,000 dogs in the parish of Westmoreland with donations from her friends, businesses, hoteliers, and strangers.
Once a week, often on a Monday or Friday, Lightheart visits communities in Negril for her Spay a Stray initiative, which is free for stray dogs or people who simply cannot pay to have their dogs spayed or neutered.
“I’m not a shelter, but I will go in the communities and fix animals there, and once they’re fixed, people in Jamaica will take care of the animals. They just can’t afford to take care of the animals who keep having babies or get injured, so I started doing that,” Lightheart, who operates the Negril Spay & Neuter Clinic in the parish of Westmoreland, told GoodHeart.
It is primarily for this reason that she was chosen for the True Pet Food’s Choice Award during the annual True Pet Expo on October 13, which was held this year at the Kingston Polo Club.
She said she was pretty shocked when she was announced as the winner of the award by True Pet Food.
“I was shocked because there are so many other groups out there, but I think what made us stand out is our work because we are volunteer-based. We do not pay anyone. It’s a force I drive to bring better pet care to Negril, which has never had a veterinarian,” Lightheart, who grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, told GoodHeart.
“That award was not just for me, although I spearhead this. If it wasn’t for my volunteers and the people who sent us money, this would not be possible, and I am blessed that they believed in me to [contribute] the money to do the best work for the animals in Negril and surrounding areas,” she said.
Journeying the long four-hour drive to Kingston from Westmoreland to collect the award was a first for her in some 22 years, her life having centred around the beautiful tropical paradise of Negril for more than two decades. Last weekend, she also returned to Kingston to help her colleagues at the Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (JSPCA) with spaying and neutering of 418 animals.
Lightheart shared that growing up without a mother and helping to raise five children from the age of 12 years fuelled her habit of caring for others and animals. “The animals are my stairway to Heaven, what I give back. And, no matter how tired I get, I cannot not help an animal. It’s a wonderful thing,” she said.
When she first came to Negril, she initially volunteered with a charity group there helping children. However, soon after, she realised her desire to help stray animals after the International Spay and Neuter Network came to the island, and she volunteered with them.
“They were asking for volunteers, and so I went and volunteered. Being a former security company owner and in the event and bodyguard field, I have a large mouth, and I am very commanding in a room, so when I met this group that came, I took over but in a way to be helpful, which came from the background of doing concerts... I didn’t know what I was doing, but I’m sort of one of those people who doesn’t give up and just continues through and makes it work,” Lightheart said.
“So, they came, and most of the people who actually came to the community centre knew me from just around Negril because I rode a big motorcycle. Well, after they found out I helped with dogs, they started coming to my gate and asked me to help them with their dogs after that weekend. [That role changed] to me driving around trying to help people [to] help their dogs. It was more than I knew and what I could do, so at some point, I reached out to Pamela [Neita-Lawson] at the JSPCA in Kingston and begged her to help me find a veterinarian, which was not possible, so she sent her JSPCA team to Negril which started out as once a month 10 years ago, and now they come to Negril every week and do veterinarian work with the community,” she said.
Another aspect of veterinary services she engages in is pet therapy, where she goes to schools with one of her dogs and educates children about dog care, the importance of freshwater, the quantities they should feed dogs and the dangers of feeding them chicken bones.
Lightheart knows that at some point in time, she will have to retire, so she created a succession plan by supporting a Westmoreland resident who wants to become a veterinarian, with the hope of her working in the parish of Negril at least once per week.
“There was a young lady, Hazelline ‘Winnie’ Brown, that came to volunteer with me in the community, and she volunteered for three years, and she was so amazing that we decided to send her to veterinarian school. She is presently in Dominica in her first year of a doctorate in veterinary care, and she’ll come out in three and a half years, and for the first time ever, Negril and surrounding areas will have her as a veterinarian,” she said.