We were lucky to catch up with David Crawford recently and have shared our conversation below.

David, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in and sometimes lead a number of meaningful projects during my career in animal advocacy, including the one that has most of my attention these days – Animal Help Now’s new messaging app for evacuating pets when disasters threaten and strike.

The idea for the app came from my experience in the 2021 Marshall Fire of Boulder County, Colorado. I was home that day and was able to evacuate my cats. I also helped save the life of Chief, a neighbor’s German shepherd, who was helpless in a crate in the home’s kitchen.

A thousand houses were destroyed that day, including mine and Chief’s. Animal Help Now, too, lost its headquarters in the blaze.

My experience that clearly demonstrated to me what disaster experts already knew – that neighbors who are home when disasters strike are the best (and possibly only) candidates to rescue neighborhood pets who are home alone.

The number of dogs and cats and other household animals who lost their lives in the Marshall Fire is conservatively estimated at 1,000. These were terrible deaths, and they left many of those who lost their beloved animal companions with enduring trauma.

Within a week, Animal Help Now began work on the Pet Help & Rescue app (PHaR), which neighbors can use to request one another to evacuate their animals during disasters.

With PHaR, you set up basic profiles for yourself and your pets and establish a few trusted contacts in your neighborhood. Then, if a disaster threatens or strikes and you aren’t home, you can quickly and easily ask your contacts to evacuate your pets. Your request includes information such as where your pets may hide, where their meds and go-bags are, how to access your home, etc. PHaR operates independently of all other phone/text communications, providing a dedicated communications channel for your most important responsibility in a crisis – saving your loved ones.

Our hope is that PHaR will be employed across the country and beyond, to safely evacuate animals who are home alone when disasters strike.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m sure I answer this question differently whenever I’m asked. I have a long history in animal advocacy and in social justice issues in general. A slaughterhouse stint between college semesters opened my eyes to both the treatment of animals – pigs, in this case – and the treatment of workers. Probably my Presbyterian upbringing was fundamental to my moral foundation, and my family’s general kindness to animals – including an older sister who went vegetarian at 14 – sensitized me to the plight of animals. I was financially privileged and a white male, so it was likely easier for me to sympathize with others, as my basic needs (and then some) were taken care of. I also was bullied, which strengthened my budding conviction to help others.

I studied computer science and mass communication, dabbled in software development and then in writing and editing, and then in my early thirties turned my focus to animal issues and nonprofit work.

It’s a tough world, even for a privileged (albeit empathetic) white male living in the United States. It’s certainly tougher for pretty much anyone else, except those whose values are likely very different from mine. Hopefully they’ll do a face palm at some point and turn things around.

My team and I are just trying to do our part to not leave this campsite in complete ruins.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Seeing firsthand my tendency to empathize with animals on factory farms, in research laboratories, on chains in backyards, etc. etc. – my best bud Dyne told me many moons ago that I couldn’t take on – no one could take on – their suffering. To maintain my well being and my effectiveness as an advocate, I had to resist my impulses to do so. For instance, when I see the broken body of a raccoon or snake by the side of the road, I have to simply say “I’m sorry” and move on; I can’t go to that place where I imagine their deaths. Especially, being exposed daily to incident reports of injured wildlife on a daily basis, this is a lesson I access constantly.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Oy. I just discovered the comic/writer Stewart Lee. Already indispensable to me. Heather Cox Richardson. First Dog on the Moon. John Oliver. My go-to essay is Rain and the Rhinoceros, by Thomas Merton. Starts with:

Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money. By ‘they’ I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.AnimalHelpNow.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/animalhelpnowapp/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnimalHelpNow
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/animalhelpnow
• Twitter: Not anymore!
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AnimalHelpNow

Image Credits

Animal Help Now