This issue’s Animal Advocate is Michelle Reid. Michelle is an Animal Forensic Specialist and Cruelty Consultant and also the director of a Valiant Animal Rescue + Relief. She has assisted authorities with some of the largest animal cruelty cases in the state by gathering evidence of abuse and holding the offenders responsible for their heinous actions against creatures great and small. As a child, Michelle was the kid who would bring home all of the animals she found who were hurt and try to fix them. She said, “My mom still talks about the time I was 4 years old and we were at a big family gathering having a cookout and I reached down and picked up a baby copperhead with a hurt tail. Everyone was telling me to drop it and I refused to because it was hurt and I wanted to help it.” According to her long-suffering mother, this is only one of the many, many times that Michelle would almost give her a heart attack by fearlessly rescuing a wounded animal. Currently, Michelle has three dogs of her own - a mastiff named Diego, a German Shepherd mix named Brewster and a chihuahua named Doozer. (You can find Diego in the 2019 LCDM calendar, giving his lowcountry dog 32
Michelle Reid Animal Forensic Specialist
Written by Julie Murray
best Blue Steel pose!) All of her animals are rescues from various cruelty cases she was a part of at one time or another. Michelle told me that each one just kind of popped up at one point in her life, came home with her and never left. “I wasn’t looking for a personal dog as I stay pretty busy but these dogs were victims of various [human] cruelty and they all had quirks or something that made them more difficult to adopt out.” They were either so scared that no one could touch them or labeled as “aggressive”, but
