Marsha Panuce—founder of Donte’s Den, a distinctive sanctuary in multiple ways, including that it extends across 50 acres (in Myakka City, FL), and primarily houses dogs—recalls growing up loving dogs, including pilgrimages with her Dad every Father’s Day to the local shelter, to adopt a dog.
This passion for pooches traversed her formative years and her professional life, including a career as a concert pianist and a stint in the fashion biz, which involved living in Italy. Panuce remembers that even at points where it was impractical to live with a dog—like her Italian residence—she made sojourns to the local shelter for her canine fix.
But all those shelter visits over all those years was equipping Panuce with knowledge and insights (criteria, really) for what traits she would like her facility to have, and not have, once she opened her own sanctuary—a dream she says she began nurturing as far back as college…