Tiffany Skuraton, a former drug user who has been sober for ten years, calls her life a miracle and refers to her journey as “from Park Avenue to park bench.”
“A little over ten years ago, I was a homeless heroin addict down here in South Florida. I got down on my knees one day and just begged god for help because I was so exhausted, so shattered, and so hopeless that I felt like I would never amount to anything,” Skuraton said.
After her parents ultimately cut her off, she entered a sober house and program that was effective and dramatically changed her life.
I responded, “Well, I enjoy helping people and animals. If you find your passion and you do that for a living, you will never work a day in your life.”
Her goal was to assist as many addicts as she could, along with canines.
People first told me I was crazy to have that desire because I was a waitress, had a college degree, had no experience in business, had no money, knew no one who had any money, and knew no one in the industry.
She did, however, know that throughout her addiction and recovery, her dog Isabel had never left her side.
“I had her, and even when I wanted to give up, I couldn’t.”
She said that a dog has a very strong ability to help someone who needs it.
“You know there’s still love in the world when you are just feeling so broken, and everyone has cut you off, and you have that dog that comes up and loves on you and you know it’s going to be okay.”
What was the origin of Blue Waters Dog Rescue?
It all began, according to Skuraton, with the first pit bull puppy she picked up off the street and decided to keep. She gave him the name Blue.
She started her first sober living facility in 2015 and matches the clients going through the sobriety program with the dogs that they rescue, many of whom have known and unknown pasts and some of which have significant injuries that were discarded.
“I mostly rescue both people and animals, and we have sober living homes and rescue dogs in the sober living homes- and basically there, kind of nurture each other each other in a sense because they’re both so we need the unconditional love that each other can give,” she added.
Blue Waters now has 172 beds for guests in Miami-Dade and Broward; at the Pompano Beach facility, 14 rescued canines are matched with guests.
The canines live with their roommates until being rescued, rehabbed, and placed in long-term homes.
We have adopters from all over, and at this time, we’ve probably adopted 1,000 children, according to Skuraton.
She will always be appreciative of the help from the neighborhood veterinary clinic, another lifeline.
She said, “I couldn’t do this without Coral Ridge, I couldn’t do this without Dr. Gordon,” praising his team for helping damaged canines and letting her carry a balance.
Skuraton would opine that it was all worthwhile even if she only saved one life.
In the same way that clients who “actually were homeless came from nothing and now they’re great enterprises, families, and kids – people the world definitely counted out”
Like Peter Cunningham, a former client who is now a worker, who claimed to be “broken” when he arrived.
When I had nothing, “Tiff and Blue Waters (Rescue Foundation) took a risk on me. Over the next two years, things started to happen for me. I went to meetings, I completed the recommended program, and now life is much better for me,” Cunningham said.
Like Skuraton’s dogs, all of Cunningham’s canines accompany him to work every day.
Although Skuraton claims the recovery work is heartbreaking and not everyone succeeds, it is all about taking each day as it comes.
She declared, “I’m on a mission to transform the world. It’s a mission.
Bull terriers, pit bulls, and mixed breeds are special favorites of Blue Waters Dog Rescue, who Skuraton calls “misunderstood” dogs.
