PSI Names 2015 Pet Adoption Advocate of the Year
Pet Sitters International recognizes Jill Swain, co-owner of Creature Comforts of Columbia, in Columbia, Missouri, for her efforts to promote and support local pet adoption. 
Jill Swain, co-owner of Creature Comforts of Columbia, in Columbia, Missouri, has been named Pet Sitters International’s 2015 Pet Adoption Advocate of the Year.
Pet Sitters International (PSI) is the world’s largest educational association for professional pet sitters.
Since 1999, PSI has promoted pet adoption through its annual Take Your Dog To Work Day® campaign. To further this mission, PSI created the Pet Adoption Advocate of the Year Award in 2012 to honor one PSI member each year that has gone above and beyond to promote local pet adoptions.
“This year, PSI received submissions from members across the United States and abroad who detailed their tireless efforts to promote adoptions and improve the lives of adoptable pets in their communities,” explained PSI President Patti Moran. “Their stories were inspiring and encouraging, while often heartbreaking, but hopeful—and PSI staffers were faced with an almost impossible task of selecting one member to receive the 2015 award and $500 donation to a local shelter or pet-rescue group.”
While all of the nominees were worthy of this recognition, the staff kept going back to one submission that beautifully detailed a pet sitter’s lifelong passion of helping pets in need. This PSI pet sitter was Jill Swain, co-owner of Creature Comforts of Columbia in Columbia, Missouri, who was nominated by her husband and co-owner of the pet-sitting business, Nathan Boone.
Jill joined PSI and opened her pet-sitting business, Creatures Comforts of Columbia, in 2013; but her dedication to promoting pet adoptions precedes her career as a professional pet sitter. Jill spent years both fostering and fundraising for local animal shelters and was also a founding member of an advocacy group dedicated to reducing the rate of euthanasia in shelter pets.
After years of fundraising, the group—No Kill Columbia—opened the Spay Neuter Project, which provides low-cost spay and neuter services to the entire mid-Missouri region. Jill is also deeply involved as a foster coordinator, foster mom, public educator and transporter with Dogs Deserve Better, a group dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating and re-homing chained and penned dogs.
In addition to operating a successful pet-sitting business, Jill continues to make time to attend weekly pet-adoption meting and fundraisers, moderates social-media pages for pet-rescue groups and takes care of shelter dogs awaiting foster homes.
Jill has selected Dogs Deserve Better-Missouri as the recipient of a $500 donation from Pet Sitters International in her honor.
To learn more about Jill Swain and Creature Comforts of Columbia, visit www.facebook.com/creaturecomfortscomo. To learn more about Dogs Deserve Better, visit www.dogsdeservebettermissouri.com. Visit www.petsit.com to learn more about Pet Sitters International and the annual Pet Adoption Advocate of the Year award.
