PBR Bull Riders Give Back to the Community on Rider Day of Service
By: Darci Miller
ARLINGTON, Texas – When Brittany Clark, the Volunteer Administrator at Arlington Animal Services, received an email about hosting a group of PBR bull riders for a day of service, she thought it was spam.
After a quick search to discover that it was, in fact, real, she was stunned.
“I was like, ‘Okay, somebody’s pulling my leg. This isn’t real,’” Clark said. “And I looked it up, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ You can ask the people here, my jaw was on the ground. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’ll never guess what just happened.’ I was so excited.”
A longtime PBR fan, Clark met her husband for the first time at a PBR event and attends at least one every year. While she was giddy to meet some of the cowboys competing at the 2020 WinStar World Casino and Resort Global Cup USA, presented by Monster Energy, she was equally as excited to have them volunteer their time at the shelter.
The riders were participating in the Rider Day of Service in which groups of cowboys attended four different volunteer opportunities around the Arlington area. In addition to Arlington Animal Services, groups visited the Humane Society of Dallas County, Cook Children’s Hospital and Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.
At around 10 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Matt Triplett (Team USA Eagles), Claudio Montanha Jr., Kaique Pacheco, Dener Barbosa (Team Brazil), Jared Parsonage, Dakota Buttar (Team Canada), Brady Fielder and Aaron Kleier (Team Australia) arrived at Arlington Animal Services to help socialize some of the animals.
Basically, they were there for playtime.
But the first order of business was financial, as Triplett presented Clark and the shelter with a $2,000 check. Each stop on the Rider Day of Service received a similar donation.
Clarks says the money will go to a K-9 monument honoring the service dogs in the local police and fire departments.
“We are really trying to get this done, because we feel like it’s so important to honor the service animals,” Clark said. “Especially through us. That is our life, is the animals. So to be able to honor the police K-9s and the fire department’s dogs as well, it’s such a huge deal.”
Following the check presentation, the cowboys got to select their dogs and were led out into the play area behind the shelter.
The dogs were about as happy to get to play as the riders were, and Triplett nearly left with a furry new member of his family.
However, a text to his wife quickly ended those hopes, and he grudgingly settled for half an hour of belly-rubs and fetch.
“That was a good one,” Triplett, laughing, said of his new friend. “I’m surprised it’s even here right now. It’s only 7 months old. But we got to play fetch and do all that, so it’s pretty sweet. It won’t be long until it gets a home, for sure.”
Triplett, a lifelong dog lover and current parent to two pups – with three more on the way – participated eagerly all morning, even jumping at the chance to get in a room to play with some cats.
However, Montanha, who was able to coax a dog through some agility obstacles, was the real cat guy, dangling feathered toys and charming even the skittish kittens.
For Clark, while the financial donation was incredibly impactful, it was just as meaningful to have riders donate their time.
“Even the smallest stuff, even people coming in and donating their time, is so important, because people’s time is very important,” Clark said. “We love any group coming in and spending time with us. But especially when it’s groups that can bring a bigger crowd to see, that might not normally come to the shelter, or they might not normally learn about how we operate.”
Last year, the shelter hosted a group from the Dallas Cowboys as part of the “Hometown Huddle” to celebrate the NFL’s 100th season. A retired Cowboys player, Rowdy and several cheerleaders were on hand to help out.
On a more regular basis, various colleges and high schools send groups to volunteer at the shelter, and Clark is grateful for it all.
“We love when people reach out to us, and they want to learn more about what we do,” she said. “That way we are able to educate people. That is the biggest thing with animal control, is we want to educate people on their pets, and on wildlife, and on all those things. We want the opportunity to be able to reach out to the public. It’s always such an incredible thing when we are given the opportunity to do that.”
While Triplett didn’t get to expand his growing brood of dogs, he and the rest of the riders were thrilled to not only spend the morning playing fetch, but to give back to an organization that looks after animal welfare.
“That’s huge, to be able to go to an organization that’s going to use it for animals that come here, and just all-in-all help support dogs that get left or basically abandoned,” Triplett said. “So money that can go to that, it’s a huge honor to be able to do something like that.”
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