w w w . S t r a y d o g* . o r g U p d a t e
POSTED EVERY DAY AT NOON CENTRAL TIME U.S.A.
Straydog Inc., The Arnolds' Happy Home for Strays, a No-Kill Dog Shelter
P.O. Box 1465, Gun Barrel City, Texas 75147 * (903) 479-3497 * EMAIL: straydog@straydog.org

* When Straydog is in red, we're running out of funds to sustain our mission.

Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

MONDAY MARCH 22 2004

NOON UPDATE (probably our only update for today):

I've got to finish the newsletter and get it in the mail!

     As I've said many times before, we have a mailing list of 2400 contributors, fewer than 300 of whom include you who are reading this update. We're now running in the red, and I must try to stop everything else I have to do every day and get the newsletter finished, printed and in the mail ASAP! When Pat was alive and we got into this financial position (which happened every two or three months), she would send me and my computer to my father's house in Richardson (just north of Dallas), and I wasn't allowed back at Straydog until I had the printed materials for the mailing in the back of my car. But now that I've got Pat's job of managing our shelter, the only time I'm away from Straydog is Friday evening and half of Saturday, during which time I visit my father (see photos of Dad below), where I still do the daily update and work on photos for the website during the moments I'm not spending with Dad.

     Anyway, we're in big financial trouble right now. We may not be in as much financial trouble as Ann (see the Sunday update below) or in as much financial trouble as one of our $7-per-hour employees, who just came in to tell me they're going to repossess his automobile, which will leave him no way to get to work. Or maybe we're in worse financial trouble than these two individuals, because we've got to continue to feed 80 dogs every day along with paying all the other shelter expenses.

     So, the updates will be short until the newsletter is printed and in the mail.

 

Don't those photos below of Ann having to give up her beloved dogs just plain hurt when you look at them?

     Hopefully Ann will be back on her feet soon and will be able to reclaim her dogs.

     The constant fear of possibly not being able to take care of our dogs at Straydog has always weighed very heavily on me, but whenever I started to display my anxieties about this in front of Pat, she would sternly say, "Pull yourself together, Bill, and raise the necessary funds to keep Straydog going!" ... I will, Mom.