Special Dedication

Learn about Our Founder

danielle rackstraw

Danielle Rackstraw

The Col. Potter volunteers are honored to have had Danielle lead the organization since its start and until 2018, and dedicate this website to her and the many years of service she has provided to rescuing cairns.

Danielle is the Founder of the Col. Potter organization. Over the many years since its existence, Danielle has been instrumental in all the day-to-day operations and strategic planning that has proven successful.

Now in Emeritus status, she can sit back and relax.

This web site represents almost two decades of service from numerous volunteers supporting all the internal processes and rescuing over 5,000 cairns.

From Danielle’s youth into adulthood she always wanted to be a Veterinarian so she could help care for all the animals that needed care. Many decades later, after two very successful business careers, Danielle saw the huge need for a National Cairn rescue, not being satisfied with the local Cairn rescue she was running. She developed the entire concept for a National on-line Cairn Terrier rescue, this being the first of its kind of any breed on the Internet. This is CPCRN, which she takes great pride in and has worked hands on daily since inception until 2018.

Danielle and her husband George bred and showed Cairn Terriers for 20 years very successfully, having an emphasis on breeding genetically healthy Cairns and medical testing. They retired from this so that their time could be better spent working within the structure of CP and rescue.

Danielle is very proud of the 4,500+ feisty little Cairns that this wonderful organization has rescued to place in loving homes and very appreciative of all the volunteers who have also worked their hearts out to help the breed we all love so much. Danielle resides in California, with two beloved Cairns, where she has lived most of her life.

Danielle is our foundation and our rock – without her, this organization would have never even been on the map. She is pictured here at one of our awesome Cairn gatherings with then foster dog JR, a special needs boy who was adopted to his forever home shortly after this photo was taken. JR was named after Danielle and George’s son who unexpectedly passed away in 2012. The smiles on both of their faces in this picture, is representative of what Col. Potter is all about.

Thank you Danielle from all the volunteers and each and every Cairn rescued and those soon to be rescued –

“You did not change the world but you changed the world for each Cairn”