Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

SUNDAY APRIL 25 2004

Rain, rain, rain!

     It rained off and on all day yesterday, all night last night (with lots of thunder and lightning), and it's been pouring down rain off and on all morning. As always our normal routine continues as long as there's no lightning.

Just before the noon posting the rain stopped, and the sun came out

     It looks like we're going to have a nice Sunday afternoon.

Erin's Adoption Day Report ...

Both Jordan and Puppy Grace were adopted Saturday

   Jordan's adoption

     Jordan's family (the Schillers) came into Petsmart after getting a crate and a kiddie swimming pool for their lucky new dog. Pat Seward (one of our regular Adoption Day Volunteers) brought gifts of toys and other doggie supplies, and both Pat and Consuelo offered to pay for Jordan's obedience training, either through the Plano Petsmart store where we've gained much trust in their positive-reinforcement trainers, Wanda and Kristi, or through tutoring Jordan and the family privately if they would like. Thank you Pat and Consuelo, and thank you to the Schiller family for giving their heart and home to very sweet Jordan!

   Grace's adoption

     Grace has a home too that we hope works out! The family wanted to try this out with the expectation it will work. They paid the fee, bought the food, borrowed a crate and took little Gracie home. One of the twin two-year-old girls is also named Gracie, so the family re-named Grace to Brittany. Brittany has a jungle gym to play in. She has a swimming pool that is gated off most of the time. She has a guardian mom who is home all day taking care of the two-year-olds, who are recently potty-trained, so our Grace will probably learn very quickly how to be potty-trained too!

     The young boys, ages seven and nine, fed the puppy, poured water in her water bowl, and wanted to walk their new puppy, so I left the happy family with good feelings that all would work out fine.

Rocky was glad to see his original rescuer, Joe, Pat's and my son

     Joe rescued Rocky and made a home for him when Rocky was a puppy back in 1992. Shortly after rescuing Rocky, Pat rescued Ginger, and Joe adopted Ginger from us (as we had no room for her) to be a companion to Rocky. Rocky and Ginger lived with Joe in Dallas until 1995 when Joe moved into an apartment on the SMU campus (where Joe works) that wouldn't allow dogs. Pat agreed to foster care Rocky and Ginger until Joe could find a place that would accept dogs, which unfortunately hasn't happened yet. That's why when I bought my small RV and moved off of Straydog property last summer after Pat died, I took Rocky and Ginger in. They are like my grandchildren.

Previous Daily Updates

Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS OF PREVIOUS UPDATES

(Click on any day below to see the update of that day)

LAST WEEK

SUNDAY April 18 2004:

* This afternoon Juana took the call about Rocky from Dr. Reeves: Rocky's not much better;

* Erin's Saturday Adoption Day Report ...

* Jordan was adopted and will go to his new home next Saturday [PHOTO];

* Macy's got a good shot at being adopted next Saturday [PHOTO];

* Sue Knudsen's Straydog Garage Sale was a success! [PHOTOS]

* Emailed updates on Sam & Baxter (Ann's dogs) and Abby & Willow (Billy Lawson's rescues [PHOTOS]

MONDAY April 19 2004:

* Rocky's doing better again after a blood transfusion from Dr. Reeves' Pit Bull! [PHOTO]

* Diabetic Julie continues to improve;

* An email from Jana (Blind Chubs and Sister Cassie's mom) [PHOTO];

* EVENING UPDATE: Rocky walks outside Dr. Reeves' clinic to use the bathroom, and his urine looks good, but things still don't look great for the old fella.

TUESDAY April 20 2004:

* Sally attacks lawn mower in the park [PHOTOS];

* Update on Rocky, who's doing a little better;

* Email from Blind Stevie and Little Pete Nicholson concerning Rocky;

* Thanks so much, Stevie and Pete;

* Emailed report from Sue Knudsen on Saturday's garage sale [PHOTOS];

* Emails from Billy Lawson and Claudia Sprowso updating us on Abby and Willow.

WEDNESDAY April 21 2004:

* Erin's report on Tuesday afternoon's vet visit to Dr. Reeves' clinic in Tyler:

* Rocky is doing better [PHOTOS];

* Nick, Rocky's blood donor [PHOTO with Mrs. Reeves];

* Katie (insect bites to face) [PHOTO];

* Toby, Rudy and Julie get 2nd hormone shots [PHOTOS];

* Beagle Pup (new guy Melissa's going to make a home for) [PHOTOS];

* Late evening update on Beagle Pup [PHOTO];

* Emailed report on Puppy William, adopted a month ago.

THURSDAY April 22 2004:

* Morning report on Rocky: Doing better but may not be ready to come home yet;

* Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed and who continues to contribute to Straydog;

* This solid base of regular contributors can't be all the people in the world who would feel toward Straydog the way you and I do. If we could just grow our list of regular contributors, it would increase our funding enough so that we wouldn't constantly be sliding into the panic zone;

* A few of the letters accompanying donations;

* We appreciate all the fund-raising ideas and projects many of you propose and undertake on our behalf--PLEASE KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

* Expanding (or growing) our list of contributors will be our salvation.

FRIDAY April 23 2004:

* Rocky's coming home this afternoon;

* Old Katie keeps hanging on--but how much longer?

* Dad and Katie are at similar points in their lives [PHOTOS].

SATURDAY April 24 2004:

* Rocky's back at Straydog in one of our hospital kennels [PHOTO];

* Caregiver Michael almost runs over a mangy pup in the middle of the road [PHOTOS of Scooby at Straydog];

* Jordan is scheduled to go to his forever home today.

* A complete Adoption Day report will come in the Sunday Noon Posting.

 

 

WEEK BEFORE LAST

SUNDAY April 11 2004:

* No adoptions yesterday; no word on the pending adoptions from last week [PHOTOS];

* All of the newsletters are ready to mail;

* We were very sorry to hear that the dog Chantal was trying to rescue was picked up by Dallas Animal Control and killed before Chantal could rescue the poor fella;

* Billy Lawson and Claudia Sprowso update us on Abby and Willow;

* The rescue and rehabilitation of Abby and Willow are truly going well so far.

MONDAY April 12 2004:

* Ginger kills a rabbit in the middle of the night;

* Over the years Pat and I grew to hate violence of any kind;

* Thelma & Louise and their mother, Jasmine, go to the park for the first time yesterday [PHOTOS & VIDEOS];

* First email from a reader who printed out and mailed out copies of our newsletter.

TUESDAY April 13 2004:

* Big Helen Fort became an Easter Bunny [PHOTO];

* The temperatures are to drop into the 30s tonight!

* All dogs are doing fine today.

WEDNESDAY April 14 2003:

* Remember Arthur? (Click on links below that go to Pat's original Dog Log entries about Arthur, whose name is now Sammy);

* Flash! at 12:30 p.m. - We found the records and documentation about how to change the contact information for Arthur's (Sammy's) microchip.

THURSDAY April 15 2004:

* Happy Birthday, Jed! [PHOTO]

* An email from Larry, who adopted Jed eight months ago;

* Rocky's about 13 also, and he's sick again [PHOTO].

FRIDAY April 16 2004:

* Rocky was very unsteady on his feet last evening and will go to the vet ASAP today

SATURDAY April 17 2004:

* Rocky's prognosis isn't good;

* EVENING UPDATE: Rocky's doing better.

 

PREVIOUS WEEKS (TABLE OF CONTENTS of Previous Updates)

     Thanks very much to those who have printed out even just one copy of the above three pieces of our newsletter and have passed the newsletter on to (or mailed it to) a potential Straydog supporter. If you can, please print out two or three copies (or five or 10 copies) and distribute them to potential supporters. If all 300 of our daily readers printed out and distributed just one copy, Straydog would be exposed to 300 new people. If all 300 of you printed out and distributed 10 copies, we would reach 3,000 new people!

First email from a reader who printed out and mailed out copies of our newsletter

     Thanks a lot to longtime supporters Deana and Jim Hanson, who followed my suggestion to make copies of and mail out to friends the PDF files of our newsletter--with color photos too!

     It probably won't happen anytime soon, but the technology is here to do away with mass printing and mass mailing altogether. It's already possible to read and print out entire books on the Internet.

     We encourage others to do what Deana and Jim have done:

Bill,

We printed newsletters, and Jim put them in the mail today. Good luck! Please let us hear from you if your shelter runs short on anything. We'll try and help.

Happy Easter,

Deana and Jim

     If you have a big enough list of people to pass out (or mail out) our newsletter to, you can simply call your local copy center (a Kinko's, for example) and tell them to go to this website (www.Straydog.org) and print out as many copies as you want of the three PDF files via the above three links. Then you can have the copy shop deliver the copies to you or you can go pick them up and do your own mailing of our three-piece newsletter. (And please never worry about the copyrights to our website materials. We want as many people as possible to make copies and distribute them!)

Expanding (or growing) our list of contributors will be our salvation

     If a mailing list of 2,500 people can sustain our operation as it has, just think what a mailing list of 3,000 or 3,500 contributors could do.

     Before the first article about Straydog was published in The Dallas Morning News (on March 13, 1997) we didn't know there was anyone else in the world who felt the way Pat and I felt about homeless dogs, and we had never asked anyone to help us. We believed that most people thought we were crazy. (And indeed many humans did and still do.) During 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 and the first quarter of 1997, we (with no donations from anyone) paid all the expenses of taking care of all our rescues--a total population of eight rescued dogs in 1992 which had increased to 24 dogs at the time of the publication of The Dallas Morning News article in 1997. Pat and I always felt tremendous appreciation for the financial and moral support we began receiving from our supporters after that first article appeared in the newspaper. Six hundred people contributed more than $40,000 to Straydog (or the original "Arnold Stray Dog Fund") in March 1997, and from that point we continued to grow and grow and grow.

Emailed report from Sue Knudsen on Saturday's garage sale:

Subject: Garage Sale Report
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 16:07:08 EDT
From: Sue Knudsen
To: straydog@straydog.org

Dear Bill,

On behalf of all the Garage Sale contributors and volunteers I'm thrilled to be able to send you the proceeds from yesterday's sale: $1,622.90!

The sale was a huge success, thanks to the incredible generosity of kind folks who drove many miles (from Waxahachie, Coppell, Ennis, Cedar Hill, and all parts of Dallas and Plano) to bring donations. Special thanks to Mary Anne Hifler and the folks at CB Richard Ellis for donating 10 computers for this sale.

My deep gratitude to an extraordinary team of sales folks who worked tirelessly to turn the donations into dollars: Britta, Cathy, Jan, Lucy, Claire, Pat, Melissa, Susan, Ginny & Mike, Steve and Mardi. You "Green Shirts" were amazing! And to my Bill, for his encouragement, support and hard, hard work...thank you!

Also, thanks to Kara Tolany-Stephens, who stopped by during the sale and offered to donate a wonderful office copier to Straydog, on behalf of her two canine kids, Buster and Lola. The equipment will be a wonderful tool to help you spread the news of Straydog! And we now have our next fundraiser under way--the raffle of a deluxe, custom-made dog bed with mattress, made and donated by Cindy Gipson, Ofelia and Kerry's daughter! Thank you, Cindy!

Still have two very fine pieces of antique furniture as well as silver plate flatware that were donated. We did not get the right buyers for these items yesterday but will continue to market them.

Hope that this news will encourage you, Bill, along with the Straydog caregivers, to keep up the wonderful but difficult work you are doing.

Sue Knudsen

     Thanks so much to all of our contributors! We couldn't keep this operation going without you. Pat always said you all would continue to support us, and you have. And we at Straydog continue to rescue, care for and adopt out homeless dogs exactly the way Pat would have wanted. Thank you so much for your continuing support! ... Bill Arnold