Clyde the Wonder Dog has a superpower that even the most powerful superheroes might envy. It springs from a true heart and the unfettered willingness to throw his entire body into life, no matter what that life in Happy Valley, Wyoming, might bring.
You’ll see Clyde’s powers working their best when he’s with the children he’s been charged with accompanying for as long as they can remember. It doesn’t matter if the activity is splashing alongside them in a brook or running out ahead of them on trails in the woods, Clyde is 110% all about it.
But Clyde’s influence isn't limited by geography. Not anymore.
That’s because Clyde is one of dozens of Happy Valley dog celebrities whose superpowers are front and center in an underground calendar network that's raising hundreds of dollars to help senior citizens afford vaccinations for their pets.
Clyde has so far helped senior citizens in 15 states and two countries and counting. It’s just all in a day’s work for these Happy Valley pets.
When Grandma Can’t Afford Her Pet
The whole underground campaign started because of a memory. It was something that happened to UPS driver Cary Lambert, who delivers packages to Happy Valley, when he was just 10 years old.
“My grandparents were at the vet,” Lambert recalled. “And they had three dogs vaccinated. When she got the bill, I remember her gasping and saying, ‘Honey, how can we afford this?’”
Ultimately, his grandparents worked out a deal with the veterinarian to make payments for the vaccinations.
Forty-five years later, Lambert had a moment of déjà vu while he was at a vet and overheard a woman who was clearly another member of the grandmother society gasping in shock at a vet bill and saying, “I’m on a fixed income. I cannot afford this in one payment.”
Lambert didn’t hesitate, not even for a second.
He butted in on that conversation and paid for the woman’s vet bill in its entirety.
In that moment, his new nonprofit took on a concrete shape in his mind. He was applying for nonprofit status so he could raise more money to keep helping other senior citizens with their vet bills.
Calendars Making A Comeback
Lambert lives in Colorado but is in Wyoming regularly to deliver Happy Valley packages.
At first, his fundraising efforts were focused in Colorado at a coffee shop that donated a buck for every biscuit and gravy he could sell.
Then along came the COVID-19 pandemic, and his fundraising business model suddenly needed a makeover.
“You couldn’t do anything for over 10 people,” Lambert recalled. “There were all these rules and everything."
The next year the limit was boosted a tiny little bit. To 15 people.
Which was just not going to cut it.
As Lambert talked over this situation with friends and random strangers, a lightning bolt of inspiration finally struck, in the form of one of his Happy Valley customers who had an idea.
“Hey Cary, you know the Facebook page, UPS and Their Dogs?” Lambert recalls the customer saying. “Why don’t you do something like that with a calendar. Something fun and exciting like that.”
At first, Lambert was hesitant. Weren’t calendars a little passé in this day and age of all things digital? Did anyone even use hard-copy calendars anymore?
As he was making his rounds, though, and talking the idea out with others, he learned from some of his customers that hard-copy calendars have actually been making something of a comeback.
People like being able to just quickly scribble something in a square on an actual calendar that’s hanging on their wall, instead of fiddling and fumbling with an application that’s hiding somewhere on an electronic device.
If that calendar could also bring a little extra meaning to their lives with some kind of a worthy cause, so much the better, Lambert was told. That turns the calendar into a great gift.
“I’ll take two of them,” one of Lambert’s customers told him.
October's Happy Valley celebrities include Yoda, who gives small tots dog-back rides. (Courtesy Photo) 
One day herding cattle, the next riding the trails is all in a day's work for the dogs of Happy Valley. (Courtesy Photo) 
French bulldog Doc Holliday poses with his cattle ranching family. Doc Holliday herds cattle far larger than him and is just one of Happy Valleys many celebrity dogs. (Courtesy Photo)
The French Bulldog Connection
For the first year, Lambert kept his calendar ambitions small. He figured if he could sell 75 calendars for a fund-raiser, that would be a win. The calendars cost him $6.75 each, so it wasn’t an insignificant investment, especially for an idea he wasn’t certain would work.
He put out an all-call for photos from his Happy Valley customers for interesting pets who do cool things at all times of the year, not knowing for sure what he would be getting to work with.
He needn’t have worried on either account. Not only did all of his calendars sell out the very first year, but he got a seemingly endless stream of pets who do cool things, from Clyde the wonder dog, who kisses small children through boxes and looks amazingly cute while doing it, to a small French bulldog named Doc Holliday whose superpower is herding cattle like a boss.
The first time Lambert saw the little foot-long, foot-high dog at work, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“I was like what is he doing,” Lambert recalls asking the dog’s owner. “And she said, ‘Cary, he’s a working dog. He loves to go out and herd the cattle and they actually obey him.’”
How Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary
Keep in mind, these are full-size cattle, weighing on average 1,400 pounds, while a full-grown French bulldog might weigh somewhere between 20 to 28 pounds.
Putting superstar dogs like that into his Happy Valley calendar is part of what Lambert believes has made his calendar project so much more successful than the biscuit and gravy fundraiser ever was.
There’s just something about the cuteness and heart of the dogs that draws the best out of the humans who are buying his calendar. Because of that, people give from the bottom of their heart, with donations as large as they can manage.
That’s helped Lambert meet his goal of doubling the number of calendars he prints for sale every year. He’s up to 1,200 calendars now, filled with hundreds of Happy Valley celebrity dogs proudly putting their super pooch powers to work in the world.
It just goes to show the ordinary can become extraordinary when good people put their minds to it, and good dogs just do whatever comes naturally.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
