Dear Friends and Supporters of Straydog,

This is not an April Fools joke, and please let us not consider ourselves fools for making the sacrifices we're all making to give the dogs we have rescued a decent home and a decent life, even while we realize and are extremely aware of the fact that thousands of other young and healthy homeless dogs (and cats) are being euthanized every month in our country simply because they are homeless.

We are committed to do whatever we must to provide homeless dogs a decent life here at Straydog (our Happy Home for Strays) while we continue trying to adopt them out into good individual homes and strive to educate all to spay and neuter their pets.

With adoptions and new rescues remaining about even for the past year, our shelter continues to have a population of about 50 dogs (present count is 55), which costs us more than $2,500 per week to maintain. (And please remember that we, Pat and Bill Arnold, receive absolutely no remuneration whatsoever from Straydog Inc. Our personal expenses are covered by Bill's salary from his regular job in Dallas. As always complete financial records are available on request.)

We and you and other no-kill shelters and other individuals must continue this mission of providing homeless dogs (and cats) a decent life until we humans get the population of companion animals (dogs and cats) under control through spay and neuter rather than euthanasia. Once population control is achieved through spay and neuter, no-kill shelters will cease to be bursting at the seams, and there will be a home for each and every dog (and cat) conceived and born.

Since the mailing of our last newsletter in September 2000, we have chosen to save postage money by relying on our website to get our weekly updates to you. We have been advised by some of you, however, that for whatever reason, you have not been able to keep up with Straydog news via the Internet (at www.straydog.org). Therefore, it has become mandatory at this point in time for us to get a printed newsletter to you as soon as possible. It is difficult to describe the panic we feel when funds run as low as they are now.

Again to save postage money this will be a short print newsletter, weighing no more than one ounce. We are including a few excerpts from past months and a list of all our weekly homepage headlines published on the Internet since our last printed and mailed newsletter.

If you continue to have no access to the Internet, please let us know which weekly issues (referenced by our list of headlines below) you would like us to print out from the Internet and mail to you. (Luckily all of our printing is donated to Straydog, so there are no printing expenses--only postage.)