The local shelters (including ours) are bursting at the seams!

After a lot of hard work and having spent a great deal of time, we (including the many wonderful volunteers with Shelley Woodburn's Friends of Straydog, to whom we will forever be very grateful) have adopted out a total of six dogs so far in the year 2000. This past week we took in eight dogs--two nursing mommies and their six puppies. (See Pat's Daily Dog Log below.)

It's obvious that unspayed and unneutered dogs (and cats) can produce offspring faster than we (or anyone else) can find them homes.

Per an article by Arden Moore in the February 2000 issue of Dog Fancy Magazine, "An unspayed female dog, her mate and all of their puppies, if none are ever neutered or spayed, add up [multiply] to:

In an article by Nick Miller in the Winter 2000 issue of No-Kill News, Mr. Miller begins, "Did you know that every day veterinarian Dr. Gail Patrick and her staff at the El Paso (Texas) city/county pound put to death anywhere from forty to sixty healthy, perfectly normal dogs and cats? Every day they spend from an hour to an hour and a half just killing animals. This adds up to 20,000 dogs and cats killed every year, simply because they are not wanted. This is typical of dog pounds all over the country. Dr. Patrick says this is not why she became a vet and some days it is difficult to go to work because it is so depressing that so much of her time is devoted to death."

Though we will never give up our efforts to adopt out the dogs we rescue, our focus (and that of the entire human race) must be on spay and neuter (conception control) as the solution to the over-population problem rather than continuing to allow a gigantic surplus to be born only to be killed because there are no homes for them.

In addition to giving financial and moral support to our shelter (and other no-kill shelters) to ensure that at least SOME will find decent, secure homes, please do whatever you can to promote spay and neuter, which can and some day WILL end this problem.

As always, complete financial records are available upon request.

Dog food, veterinary expenses and kennel crew wages have been running over $1,800 per week, and we are quite often literally paying this week's expenses with this week's donations. We, Pat and Bill Arnold, receive no remuneration whatsoever for any work we do for our no-kill shelter, which includes managing it. (Bill pays all our bills and living expenses from his salary from his regular job in Dallas.)

We continue to thank those who continue to write us such encouraging letters and e-mail messages letting us know that you believe in what we are doing at Straydog (our Happy Home for Strays) as we continue to provide a decent life (as long as may be necessary) for each of our now 49 rescued dogs!

Please take a look at some of our newsletters (click on links below) and see the original article in The Dallas Morning News --on the Internet at "dallasnews.com/archives" (search for Pat Arnold on March 13, 1997).

We rely on donations to keep our shelter going. If you believe in us and in what we are doing, please help us with a contribution to Straydog Inc. at the following address:

Straydog Inc.
P.O. Box 1465, Gun Barrel City, TX 75147

STRAYDOG - THE ARNOLD FAMILY'S HAPPY HOME FOR STRAYS

We are a 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Non-Profit Corporation, which means your contributions are tax deductible.