Links:
*Saturday Adoption Day September 28 at Canine Commissary at Custer and 15th in Plano, Texas
*Dogs for Adoption - Shannon's page
*Pat's Daily Dog Log - LAST WEEK - September 15 - 21, 2002
*Photo Pages - LAST WEEK - September 15 - 21, 2002
*Pat's Daily Dog Log - WEEK BEFORE LAST - September 8 - 14, 2002
*Photo Pages - WEEK BEFORE LAST - September 8 - 14, 2002
*Pat's Daily Dog Log - 3 WEEKS AGO - September 1 - 7, 2002
*Photo Pages - 3 WEEKS AGO - September 1 - 7, 2002
*Pat's Daily Dog Log - 4 WEEKS AGO - August 25 - 31, 2002
*Photo Pages - 4 WEEKS AGO - August 25 - 31, 2002
(1) Helen play-tussles with Sweetie
(2) More photos of Helen playing with Sweetie
(3) Helen at her first mealtime
(4) First photos of Helen in the big play yard
(5) Dobie's bug bite + Helen & Sweetie in park again
(6) Little Max returns from re-stitch + Helen & Sweetie in the park again
(7) Helen & Sweetie in the park pool + leash up
*Pat's Daily Dog Log - 5 WEEKS AGO - August 18 - 24, 2002
*Photo Pages - 5 WEEKS AGO - August 18 - 24, 2002
(1) First Photos of Helen, the New Arrival deaf and blind, albino Great Dane pup
(2) More Photos of Helen, along with her new kennel companion, Sweetie.
(3) More Photos of Helen PLUS Photos of Randy preparing Helen's kennel before her arrival
(5) Photos of Little Max, the New Arrival Sheltie, who came to Straydog Saturday, August 24, 2002
A Note from Bill (8/18/02) ...
The Friday, August 16, 2002 Cover story of the "Life" section of USA Today entitled "Come. Sit. Stay." by Laura Bly (readable at www.USAtoday.com) is about Best Friends (the largest animal sanctuary in the United States), and several of the items in the article made me feel a whole lot better and a lot more sure about what Pat and I are trying to do and the way we're trying to do it. Here are a few quotes:
(1) "... the sanctuary's high-profile proselytizing for spay/neuter and adoption programs has helped slash the number of cats and dogs destroyed in U.S. shelters and pounds from an estimated 17 million in 1987 to less than 5 million last year [2001]."
(2) "Best Friends adoptions go through a stringent review that tends to put a damper on spur-of-the-moment alliances [as between volunteers and the animals they get to know and might want to adopt].
(3) "Best Friends now boasts about 1,500 furred and feathered residents (including 1,200 cats and dogs) and an annual budget of $14 million--sustained largely through donations from the non-profit's 250,000 members."
I include the third quote above because we are indeed grateful to our 1,600 loyal contributors, many of whom have been supporting us since the March 13, 1997 article about us was published in The Dallas Morning News. It is you all, our loyal contributors, who sustain us, donating $198,646 in 2001 to help us pay our total expenses of $200,017 for 2001, as we maintained a population of 65 dogs (plus or minus one or two), which population has remained (through August 2002) at between 63 and 67 dogs as we continue to take in one or two desperate dogs only after we adopt out one or two dogs.
A Note from Bill (8/11/02) ...
Pat and I have known from the start of our Straydog mission that no matter how many dogs we rescue and find decent homes for (or indefinitely provide decent homes for when nobody wants them), our total efforts will in the end amount to a fraction of a fraction of a percent in the reduction of total killings (by euthanasia), which is humanity's current solution to the overpopulation problem of dogs (and cats), unless our example (and that of other no-kill shelters) is publicized enough to wake people up.
We at Straydog are trying to show what has to be done to provide a decent home, a home that includes at least minimal necessities for a once-homeless dog (which is what we believe we provide at Straydog).
We are showing how expensive it is just to provide minimal care to homeless dogs. Pat and I are doing this for no pay. We keep our readers up to date as to what's happening at Straydog (as much as possible under our time constraints), and we keep stressing that the only way out of this overpopulation tragedy is SPAY and NEUTER.
That's what we're about. So, please support us. We will continue to row this lifeboat (Straydog) to shore, dropping off rescued dogs into the arms of good adopters, and we will continue to fill the space left vacant by each adopted dog with another desperate homeless case for as long as we can hold on. Our example (and the example of all other no-kill shelters) has to be publicized in order to wake people up and make them aware of the necessity to SPAY and NEUTER their pets.
I don't know how long it will take our human race to become truly humane and solve this horrible problem--50 years? A hundred years? I thought it could be done (and still believe it can be done) before the next mating season if we could just get everyone to listen up, but they don't seem to want to listen.
It seems to me that the only way to maybe make some headway is to publicize what no-kill shelters are doing--what we're all having to sacrifice at no-kill shelters to try to make people realize that they've got to SPAY and NEUTER their pets!
If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, you may click on the link immediately below to see the entire newsletter in paginated form with all the photos in color. (If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download the software for free from www.adobe.com.)
We encourage everyone to print out several copies of our newsletter (it looks especially nice on a color printer) and distribute copies to your animal-loving friends and acquaintances.
Please be aware that PDFs (Portable Data Files) can be gigantic (this PDF of our newsletter is 4.7 MB), and if you are accessing the Internet via a dial-up modem, it may take 20 - 30 minutes (or longer) to download the newsletter onto your computer. If you have a fast connection (e.g., DSL or cable modem), it should take only a minute or two to download the PDF file of our newsletter.
Click here for PDF version of our entire June 2002 Newsletter
