DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
Earlier this month, Stephen Knight was named CNN’s Hero of the Year. But in 2011, at the age of 51, he was homeless and living out of his car. “I had lost everything,” he said.
Knight entered the recovery program at Homeward Bound, an inpatient, state-funded facility, for 60 days. Then he went to Legacy Cares for its dual diagnosis program.
“I was so inspired by my experience, I went back to school,” he said, completing his internship at Homeward Bound and, after graduation in 2016, becoming an addiction counselor at Legacy Cares.
But the previous year, in 2015, a friend of Knight’s had relapsed into addiction. She was going into rehab but had no place to put her dog.
So she asked Knight to take her dog to the shelter. He agreed to take the dog, but he knew the animal would be put down if he took it to a shelter. So instead, he cared for the dog himself, returning it to his friend when she got out of rehab.
That’s when Knight asked himself: How often do people need a place for their dog to stay and be safe so they can go to rehab?
“I thought I might be able to help a few people a year,” he said. “Well, 1,200 dogs later… .”
He said he looked for a place to volunteer where he could take care of a dog for an owner struggling with addiction and taking the steps to recover. But he couldn’t find any organization doing what he had just done for his friend.
That’s when he created Dogs Matter.
And now, nine years later, he was named this year’s CNN Hero of the Year in recognition of his efforts, winning a $100,000 cash prize to continue his work. A program on Knights and his efforts, CNN Heroes, An All-Star Tribute, was co-hosted by Anderson Cooper and broadcast on Dec. 8.
Along with Knight, Michael J. Fox was honored with the CNN Heroes Legacy Award for his lifetime work to bring hope to people with Parkinson’s Disease. Guests on the show included Oprah Winfrey, Bradley Cooper and Zachary Quinto.
In addition, CNN has set up a GoFundMe page with a matching grant attached.
Dogs Matter will currently foster pets for anyone in Texas with an addiction who is going into rehab. Fosters provide a safe, loving home for the dog while the owner is in rehab, with most addiction-related programs last 30 to 90 days.
And Knight is always recruiting people to be foster parents for those dogs that need a temporary home. He said it’s more like pet sitting than a traditional foster situation.
Unlike fostering for a shelter, there are no appointments with potential permanent owners to keep. And Dogs Matter will even provide dog food if that cost is a factor in whether someone could provide care.
For Knight, though, most important is that foster gets to be part of the owner’s sobriety journey. And being there for the reunion between dog and owner makes it all worthwhile, he said.
“Become part of the story,” he urged, adding that knowing their dog is safe and cared for makes a difference in a person’s recovery.
New fosters aren’t just handed a dog. There is a screening process, and, Knight said, they try to match dog to person.
Since its founding, the organization has amassed a number of resources. There’s a manual on how to introduce a dog to his new, but temporary, home. And fosters with questions can meet virtually with a trainer.
But if anyone has ever loved a dog, they know the best way to make friends with the animal is to feed him, give him treats and love.
Some of the fosters are people in recovery themselves. In fact, Knight said, “I love it when people in the recovery community foster.” But anyone in Texas interested in fostering can fill out the form on the organization’s website.
How is the organization taking dogs from around the state? Well, most are coming from North Texas, but even that can be a challenge to someone who has hit rock bottom and lost everything except their dog and has no way to connect with Knight.
That’s where Kelly Clarkson comes in.
Knight was a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2021. As a surprise, she presented him with a van, which he and his volunteer team use to pick up dogs for fostering and reunite them later with their owners.
Since the CNN award, Knight said plans for expansion are underway.
“Right now we’re running it out of my house,” he said.
So a property with offices would be great. He’d like a shelter for dogs waiting for a foster.
Maybe counseling rooms. A place for 12-step meetings to be held where participants can bring their pets.
That’s just his local plans. He’d like to take Dogs Matter nationally.
And it all started with Knight caring for one dog. He said he’s had as many as eight dogs taking temporary residence in his house. That was a challenge, he said, but the alternative would have been taking those dogs to a shelter where they would probably have been killed.
And as long as he and his group of volunteers are concerned, that’s something that just shouldn’t ever happen.
To contact the organization, visit DogsMatter2.org.The GoFundMe can be found at GoFundMe.com/f/stephenknight-dogs-matter.