Shade Out DM Foundation's Mission Statement

KC was a strong advocate and raised awareness about Degenerative Myelopathy on her own as she so bravely powered thru this journey, but she also candidly wore her shades as she loved the "Oh how Cute" reaction that she got when she would dress up in her wheels, go to swim or ride her Chariot (stroller) with her Shades on... so our wonderful friend who is taking this journey for a 3rd time herself suggested we             “#ShadeOutDM” 

Thousands of people followed KC the Corgi thru her journey for the last 3 years of her life. During that time, hundreds reached out to us sharing their similar experieces, asking questions for their own pups with similar symptoms, and requesting guidance and help. When KC crossed the bridge, we were encouraged to keep helping others as well as to continue KC's unexpected mission to raise awareness about DM - Degenerative Myelopathy.

KC became an angel on October 21st, 2017 (just a month shy of her 12th birthday). In her honor, people started posting pics of their pups with sunnies on & sending us messages titled "in KC's Memory". It was then that #ShadeOutDM was created. We set up a facebook group on November 10th, 2017 and had no idea that it would become the loving family that it is today.

We were invited to many corgi events (picnics, beach days, gatherings, etc.) across the USA and asked to raise awareness about DM in corgis because so many are affected. That evolved into more events... ALL breed events... Tarleton State University - Department of Communication Studies even chose ShadeOutDM to be the topic of their student's Service Day! This was what inspired the "RACE at your own pace to #ShadeOutDM" we often refer to as "THE RACE to ShadeOutDM" which is now an Annual Event.

Then as we continued having people reach out to us that were sadly given the DM "diagnosis" but we were certain it wasn't DM (pup was way too young, pup went "down" suddenly, etc.) we realized that there was yet another NEED that wasn't quite being met... that was to help the vets across the country get the most current info about the disease... We set out to attend our first Veterinary Conference! 

It was at that conference that we learned how much we were needed... Neurologists and doctors embraced us as "the support group that we can send our clients to when we have to give them the horrible news several times a day"... we learned that Veterinarians and Specialists have been feeling helpless as they are so tightly scheduled that they don't have the time to give their clients the guidance and assistance they would like to for the next several months to years as their clients take this journey with their pups and were relieved to have our "support group" as a direction to point their clients to.

On June 30th, 2021 Shade Out DM Foundation, Inc. was granted 501c3 Non-profit status.