Compassion Without Borders: How One Veterinarian’s Vision Changes Lives

Some of the dogs and people who have been supported by Compassion Without Borders. photo: CWB

The fog was just beginning to lift as we drove north across the Golden Gate Bridge. The towers rose out of the mist, half-shrouded, half-glowing in the morning light. Lorenz and I had made this drive countless times but that day felt different. 

It had been a year since we lost our beloved tan wire-haired terrier, Teva, at 16. Her absence lingered in our house like a soft echo: the empty space by the couch, the silence at mealtimes, the unfinished feeling of our walks. The world itself felt like it was holding its breath in those late months of 2019, as the pandemic loomed on the horizon. We didn’t say it out loud, but we both felt the same quiet pull. It might be time.

We were headed to Compassion Without Borders in Santa Rosa to meet a dog we’d seen online. Hope and hesitation rode with us over the bridge. When we arrived, a crowd of eager families had already gathered around the dog we thought might be ours. We were disappointed, but a volunteer introduced us to Qi’ra, named after a Star Wars character.

Qi’ra’s adoption picture. photo: Mancho Camblor

Qi’ra was an 8-month-old, 16-pound wiry little Terrier mix, waiting in a small private garden, alert yet unsure, her dark eyes fixed on us. She didn’t run forward. She waited. Then slowly she stepped toward us, sniffed our hands, and something quiet and undeniable passed between us. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t dramatic. It was simple and clear.  She had chosen us.

Qi’ra came home with us that same day, just weeks before the world shut down. Halfway down Highway 101, overwhelmed by the newness of it all, she promptly vomited on Lorenz’s lap. We looked at each other and laughed. The quiet in our house was about to end. She would become our COVID pup.  

Qi’ra quickly became Kira - it was softer, easier to pronounce, and to call across a beach or through the house. A DNA test later revealed she was 90 percent Rat Terrier, 10 percent Whippet, and 100 percent heart. She streaked across Ocean Beach like a living exclamation point, chased balls on the Sonoma Coast, and nestled between us on the couch during those long, uncertain months that followed. She was our medicine, our reason to walk among the trees, to step outside when the world felt closed in, to keep our hearts open.

A Bridge Between Worlds

Kira’s journey to us was made possible by Compassion Without Borders (CWOB), a remarkable organization that has been quietly transforming lives, human and animal, for more than two decades. The group was founded in 2001 by veterinarian Dr. Christi Camblor and her husband, Moncho, who saw something others often overlooked: the countless stray dogs struggling in Mexico and the families in Northern California who longed to adopt. Instead of turning away from that suffering, they built a bridge.

Their early work involved rescuing dogs from the streets of Mexico, giving them medical care, and bringing them north to find families. Over time, their mission expanded. They began hosting free veterinary outreach clinics for low-income communities in Mexico and California’s Central Valley, places where veterinary care is scarce or nonexistent. Their vision was simple but powerful: compassion should have no borders.

On any given day at their Santa Rosa center, you might hear a chorus of barks and the hum of volunteers: veterinarians leaning over exam tables, students gently fitting harnesses, drivers loading vans, and fosters greeting new arrivals. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s luminous. It’s love expressed through hands, vehicles, clinics, and hearts.

A Borderless Love

Sometimes when I drive back across the Golden Gate Bridge, I think of that morning on our way to CWOB - the fog, the hesitant hope, the small garden where Kira took her first step toward us. We thought we were adopting a dog. In truth, she found us and brought pure joy, unconditional love, and family.

CWOB’s work is both simple and profound. By providing spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations, and medical care in communities where these services are out of reach, their work helps keep pets in loving homes and reduces suffering at its roots. By building partnerships across borders, it brings people and animals together in ways that ripple outward. 

That’s the quiet power of Compassion Without Borders. Not grand gestures, but real moments - between people and animals, between uncertainty and trust, between loss and love. It’s in those moments that lives change. Sometimes quietly; sometimes forever.

If you’re inspired by Kira’s story, there are many ways to support CWOB: adopting, fostering, volunteering, or donating. Visit www.compassionwithoutborders.org to learn more. CWOB is based in Santa Rosa, California.