Helping Others Heal, One Dog at a Time

A dog gave him purpose when he was addicted to drugs — now he’s helping others like him keep their furry best friends

Eric Spitznagel,

AARP

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Published May 16, 2025

Stephen Knight was 51 years old — and only eight months sober — when he got a knock at his front door in Dallas. It was a friend, also struggling with addiction, who’d recently relapsed, and she was holding her dog, a Maltese-dachshund mix named Jayde.

The friend had decided to return to rehab, but because her family had stopped talking to her, she needed Knight’s help. “She told me, ‘I need you to take me down to the shelter so I can surrender Jayde because I have nowhere to put her,” says Knight, who’s now 65. He looked into Jayde’s eyes and instantly felt a connection. So rather than help his friend find a new home for the dog, he offered to adopt Jayde instead. “It was kind of life-changing, in a way,” he says.

In fact, Knight’s life was about to change in ways he never expected. Within the year, the former schoolteacher would start fostering dogs for others with addiction on the road to recovery, eventually opening his own nonprofit called Dogs Matter, which he says has helped more than 1,700 dogs as well as their owners who had nowhere left to turn.

Knight had none of this in mind when he took Jayde in, back in 2011. He just wanted a reason to feel normal again.

Having something to wake up for

Knight’s childhood was difficult. He turned to drinking by age 12, and marijuana by 18. Fueled by self-hatred over his sexuality — he was gay and closeted, and those who’d learned his secret told him he was “going to hell” — he turned to crystal meth in his 30s. Over the next few decades it became a daily habit, which evolved from smoking to intravenous use, and it didn’t end even when he contracted HIV.

“I surrendered to just being an addict the rest of my life,” Knight says. “I was probably six months to a year away from being dead. I stopped taking my HIV medications because I didn’t care anymore. I just didn’t feel like I was worth it.”

Stephen Knight with his dogs Lady, Nova and Piper. Knight created Dogs Matter in order to foster dogs while their owners went to rehab.

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What finally gave Knight the strength to make a change was a letter he received from his mother. “She didn’t want to have to bury me, is what it said,” he says. “I read that and I was like, I can’t do that to my mother.”

He got himself to rehab that same year, and while he managed to kick the habit, Knight worried about relapsing. “When you get sober, you start over,” he says. Many of his closest friends and family had given up on him, and he felt “very much alone.”

Until Jayde entered the picture.

For Knight, it was entirely new terrain. He’d had dogs growing up, but his parents mostly took care of them. Suddenly, he was responsible for another living thing. “I had to wake up in the morning and walk her. I had to feed her,” he says. “I just couldn’t lay in bed and feel sorry for myself.”

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Together, Knight and Jayde created a life with structure, thanks to regular meals and walks. “She really gave me the ability to be grateful again,” Knight says. “I had something to wake up for now.”

Dogs give them a purpose

When Knight learned that his friend wasn’t the only person in recovery who couldn’t find a safe place for their dogs while they went to rehab, he was determined to do something. His original goal was to foster just a few dogs a year, keeping them only as long as their owners needed treatment. But within the first year, while Knight was studying to become a substance abuse counselor, he took in nine dogs, who shared space with him in a 900-square-foot house.

He realized he might be in over his head after losing part of a finger while trying to stop two of his dogs from fighting over a toy. It was his moment of reckoning, a stark reminder that he needed to either slow down or find ways to grow his new business beyond his backyard.

Dogs Matter became a registered nonprofit in 2015 and began vetting applicants and requiring participants to complete a recovery plan. There’s a full Dogs Matter application, says Knight, where they’re asked about their age, drugs use and housing situation. “They sign a surrender contract saying that we’ll take ownership of the dog temporarily, up to 30 to 90 days,” he says. “When they finish it, the dog will be returned.”

But the contract isn’t so ironclad that it doesn’t allow some leeway for setbacks. “If you get high, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to get the dog back,” Knight says. “It means that we own the dog until we feel you’re ready for the dog to come back to you.”

Along with a small staff of volunteers, Dogs Matter took in 20 dogs during its first year as a nonprofit, and that number has more than doubled every year since, says Knight. Proof that, true to its name, dogs really do matter, especially to those in recovery.

Knight estimates that people who use the service and have their dogs remain part of their lives, even if it’s just as a reward for getting sober, “have a 70 percent chance of making it [through treatment] the first year, and I think the national rate is more like 35 or 40 percent.” Part of the reason, he believes, is because dogs give them a purpose they didn’t have previously.

“When you’re struggling and you want to go out and drink or get high because this life’s too much, you look that dog in the eyes, and I guarantee you’ll change your mind,” Knight says.

A four-legged reward for a difficult journey

Jeffrey Woolverton, 58, learned this firsthand when he briefly gave up his best friend, a 3-month-old “dorgi” named Winston, in order to get treatment for alcoholism in 2023.

“[Winston] was a great motivator in recovery,” says Woolverton. “There were times in treatment where I would think about maybe quitting the program, and then I would think of Winston. That was enough to keep me motivated: just the peace of mind knowing that my little baby was in a safe place, and I didn’t have to worry about him while I took care of myself.”

Jeffrey Woolverton plays with his dog, Winston, while Stephen Knight watches on. Dogs Matter took care of Winston while Woolverton got treatment for alcoholism.

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Woolverton was able to take Winston home earlier this year. Their reunion was a celebration. “He knew who his daddy was,” Woolverton says. “Dogs Matter brought some new squeaky toys for him, and it just felt like my journey had completed.”

Woolverton says Dogs Matters is still there for Winston and him if they need anything. “There were times when I didn’t have the funds to provide Winston with the vet care he needed,” he says. “They stepped in and paid for that.”

That connection, between a person struggling to get healthy again and the dog giving them a reason to fight, inspires many of Knight’s volunteers, like Diane McGrath, 69, who’s been fostering for Dogs Matter for almost two years.

“It’s very powerful,” says McGrath. “You’re so glad that their owner is now sober, and they’ve been waiting to get their beloved dog back. They sometimes send reunion videos, which makes me cry.”

The operation has been so successful that last year, Dogs Matter joined forces with animal rescue service Dallas Pets Alive! to expand and offer assistance to people with other animals ... like cats. “Cats matter, too,” Knight admits, explaining he was reluctant to include felines at first because he’s allergic to cats. He also says they won’t turn any animals away, regardless of species. “If you had a guinea pig or something else, we would consider that now,” he says. They now take in over 500 animals every year, with 300-plus volunteers fostering and helping with the pets.

A relationship that endures

Knight is celebrating 14 years of sobriety this year, and he’s never felt better in his life. “I’m much healthier than I was in my 30s or 40s,” he says. He’s also hoping to expand Dogs Matter to other states, eventually offering services nationwide.

He shares his Dallas home with four dogs — including Jayde, who developed such a bond with Knight that she became a permanent member of his family. “She’s taught me how to stay present and what unconditional love is,” Knight says of Jayde, who’s now 17. “She literally saved my life. I stayed sober ever since, and that’s because she gave me that purpose.”

Stephen Knight and Jayde. “She really gave me the ability to be grateful again,” Knight says. “I had something to wake up for now.”

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Every morning, Knight says, he’s excited to wake up and help people in need. And he owes it all to a dog who showed up unannounced on his doorstep back when he needed her the most.

“She is the reason why I’m here today,” he says.

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