I've Changed my Name: Find out Why!

Animal activist changes name to
translation of "Peaceful Dog Warrior"

Tammy Sneath Grimes legally changes name to Tamira Ci Thayne



[Special thanks to Christine Jaksy, who took this beautiful, professional photograph of me (with many others) at Chain Off in Chicago. She's a model herself, and amazing to work with! Visit her site at http://www.dogdayart.com]

July 22, 2008, Altoona, PA—Tammy S. Grimes, an animal activist, artist, and founder of Dogs Deserve Better, has legally changed her name to Tamira Ci Thayne, which roughly translates in its Czech, Welsh, and Gaelic heritage to "Peaceful Dog Warrior".

Thayne, a Czech linguist in the U.S. Air Force, added the word for peace, 'mir', to her given name of Tammy to create Tamira. Her family ancestry hails from Wales, so she chose the Welsh word for 'dog', 'Ci', as a middle name and added the Gaelic word for 'warrior', 'Thayne', as a surname.

Thayne, convicted of theft in late 2007 for helping a chained dog who could no longer stand and refusing to return him to his abusers, realized during the course of her trials that abuse had been a recurring part of her life since childhood. Men who abuse women and children and people who abuse animals are no different from one another: they seek to control and dominate those they see as 'less than', and use all methods at their disposal to harm and diminish them, keeping them 'in their place'.

She states, "Unfortunately all too often, both in courtrooms and in homes across the world, the abusers conquer and their victims are left helpless and hopeless. As I sat in the courtroom at my sentencing and listened to the DA tell me I was 'worse than his worst hardened criminal'—for helping a dog?—I was transported back to the supper table of my family home, 12 years old, enduring the shame of verbal abuse from my father. The cycle had once again repeated itself, and even though I thought I was 'the good girl', I was being told by a man that I was nothing more than a piece of trash in an attempt to 'put me in my place'.

I vowed to drop my chains of abuse, seek my own independence from domination, and continue to fight for freedom for those still abused—animals, women, and children. Changing my name to symbolically become my own father, my own husband, is a step in that direction for me. I will never again bear the name of another, but carve my own path in this world. With this act I send out a prayer for freedom from abuse for every soul on this planet. You Deserve Better."

Dogs Deserve Better is a 501c3 nonprofit organization headquartered in Tipton, Pennsylvania, is the 2003 First Place Winner of the ASPCA Pet Protector Award, and currently has over 150 area reps in 38 states as well as in Canada. Thayne was a top-ten finalist for the 2006 Animal Planet Hero of the Year Award, and the March 2007 In Defense of Animals Guardian of the Month.