Tina Brown leaves a lasting legacy

Annabelle "Tina" Brown

Passion for our Basenji breed and BRAT runs deep. This was never more beautifully demonstrated than recently through Annabelle “Tina” Brown. Tina passed away December 30, 2016, but left a lasting legacy through a generous bequest to BRAT. We are humbled by her gesture and grateful that she will continue to make her presence known in the work we do for the breed that she loved.

Tina was a wonderful volunteer, especially in her home state of Texas, where she conducted shelter checks and home visits of prospective adopters. Her daughter, Jennifer Fermaint, also a BRAT volunteer and adopter, posted on her Facebook page June 22 more about her mom’s work with Basenjis, as well as providing information about BRAT.

Tina's daughter, Jennifer Fermaint, visited with BRAT treasurer, Debbi Johnson, recently.

Jennifer writes:

This month I will be highlighting the organizations benefiting from the generous bequests that will be Mom's legacy. She made sure that her favorite charities would be supported, even after she gained her wings to be with Jesus.

Basenji Rescue & Transport, Inc. - this is a beautiful, breed-specific organization that rescues, rehabilitates, and rehomes the intelligent African Basenji breed. They are a national organization of ALL volunteers that was incorporated in 1999. https://www.basenjirescue.org/Brat_Info/About.htm

Tina Brown became involved with Basenjis when, in 2002, a beautiful tri-colored boy appeared on her doorstep in McKinney. He was skinny, no collar, no microchip, but very obviously a purebred dog. She did everything she could possibly do to find his owners, including contacting BRAT, and there were no leads and no information about a missing Basenji boy. We think he knew exactly what he was doing when he chose the Brown doorstep, because he was treated like a king and found his forever home until he crossed the rainbow bridge in 2012. He was a piece of work, though, and Mom and I both found that we were able to train him, when many others have difficulties with this breed. It led to me starting to rescue with BRAT in 2009, because it seemed I had a special knack with these highly intelligent creatures. I had 3 failed fosters with BRAT, and I am sure there will be more!

We are grateful to Tina for her thoughtful and selfless gesture and will use her gift wisely to ensure that all Basenjis have the homes they deserve.