Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log
SUNDAY MAY 9 2004
NOON UPDATE
Erin's report on yesterday's Adoption Day ...
Macy was adopted into a wonderful home!
It was a busy day again at Petsmart. Brad Zink and his Dad came in for us to take Macy to their place for the home visit and potential adoption of Macy. We loaded Macy back into the van and went over to the Zinks' home and walked through their very nice fenced back yard with many newly planted flowers. I was wondering what Macy would do to their beautiful landscaping.
"I had an apple tree that I planted from a seedling," said the dad, who is semi-retired. "When it was a foot tall, I replanted it, and my girl, Gypsy," he said, pointing to an oil painting of a spaniel on their wall, "tore it up. Dog's dig, but Macy will never be out here without supervision anyway."
Brad and his Dad had two oil paintings on the wall of their two previous dogs, who had lived well into old age.
After approving the fenced yard, and seeing how much the fellows loved Macy already, we went over her current diet and heartworm prevention medication. We talked about some of the vets in the area, whom I know from living in Plano myself. We talked about the trainers, Kristi and Wanda, who work at Petsmart, and a very nice inside/outside boarding facility where a lady trains German Shepherds to be therapy dogs.
The Zinks gave us a an extra donation (in addition to the adoption donation) and the dad signed the adoption papers. Next we drove the couple of miles back to the store to get a crate and food and toys for Macy. "You will have to have a crate for Macy," Tina told the men. (Tina had rescued Macy from wondering on the road and had tried to keep her for two months at her parents' home until they finally said they couldn't keep Macy.) "She will absolutely destroy your house--curtains, blinds, everything--when you leave her. Even if you just go to the store for an hour, you'll need to crate her." So, Macy's new guardians picked out a very big, see-through kennel, and Macy picked out one of her favorite kinds of squeaky stuffy toys with arms and legs and a tail. They also bought her a gentle-lead, the kind Trainer Kristi had used working with the dogs at our shelter a few Sundays ago. When they had their cart filled with all dog food supplies they would need for a while, we said goodbye to lucky Macy and her happy new guardians.
Yea, Macy! And "Thank you!" to the Zinks for providing such a nice home and plenty of love for Macy!
Thelma and Louise are returned after a week at their new home
The Darks, a very nice couple with a 13-year-old daughter adopted both Thelma and Louise a week ago Friday. We were very hopeful and pleased because the couple had had Chows and Akitas before, and it seemed that the whole family was very interested in doing the right thing for the pups, including training them and being very involved in bonding with the puppies, etc.
But a very sad mom and dad returned the puppies today because they weren't able to spend the time that they now realized the puppies really needed. "We can't crate them for 10 or 11 hours a day while we're at work and then another eight hours at night. That's 19 hours in a crate!"
I don't know why we didn't ask about the crating time when we adopted out the pups. I guess I just imagined that the family would work it out somehow, coming home for lunch or something. I don't know why it slipped our minds to ask about that. That's usually one of our standard questions to potential adopters: "How much time every day will the dog(s) be alone?"
Trainer Kristi came over and talked to the couple and asked if they possibly wanted just one of the pups. She said that it was much, much harder to deal with two puppies (of any breed) than just one. Kristi suggested that in the future we adopt out one puppy at a time to a family. When the puppy is house-broken and the family has made the adjustment to having one puppy, then they could consider the second. But none of this would have solved the 19-hours-in-a-crate problem with Thelma and Louise.
The couple tearfully donated the puppies' large crate, and toys and collars. They told us to please keep the adoption donation and told us that they wished so much that the pups would find a good home.
We asked them to tell us what they learned about Thelma and Louise this week. The puppies are smart, they said. Louise had gotten into the father's lap for the first time last night too, so she was becoming less afraid. The puppies didn't want to go to the bathroom in their crate. There were almost no accidents during the week. The family had also gotten enough toys and balls that the pups didn't chew anything that they weren't supposed to. Louise, the more aloof puppy, had really taken to the 13-year-old too.
There was, of course, no digging in their yard during the week, as the couple never left Thelma and Louise outside during the day unsupervised, so that may be the reason they didn't get any holes dug in their yard!
Lots of people admired the gorgeous puppies during the last hour we were at Petsmart Saturday, so hopefully we'll get another home for them soon.
We thank the Dark family for their kindness and for trying with the puppies, and we apologize that we hadn't foreseen the crating problem.
The tiny kitten with the bad eye has found a foster home!
Sheri, one of our regular volunteers (who over a year ago adopted a dog from Straydog), said she would foster the little kitten who's being cared for right now by Dr. Reeves. We'll report more on this later.
Jackie moves in with Russell, and Jasmine and her returned pups move into Jackie's kennel
This leaves open the small puppy kennel where Thelma and Louise had been living with their mother, but I'm sure that very shortly the kennel will be occupied as there's a list 20 miles long of rescued dogs and pups waiting for a call from us. Macy's kennel is also vacant now, but I'm sure it won't be vacant for long.
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
* Special Sunday Edition of our "Saturday Adoption Day";
* Dr. Reeves called about two p.m. with an update on Rocky [PHOTO];
* Rocky's going into surgery this afternoon;
* SPECIAL 6:20 P.M. UPDATE: Rocky survived the surgery!
* No adoptions at our Special Sunday Edition of "Saturday Adoption Day";
* Email regarding Rocky's visit to Dr. Maris at Shelley Drive Animal Clinic;
* Another email regarding Rocky from our wonderful volunteer, Dr. Murray;
* Another email regarding Rocky;
* An email from Candy and Tommy Tootles regarding the Kroger Share Cards;
* An email from Renate updating us on Sam and Baxter, Ann Story's dogs;
* Email from last week from Adoption Day volunteer, Pat Seward, regarding Jordan;
* Email from Larry Powel (of The Dallas Morning News) to Pat Seward.
* Report from Dr. Reeves is that Rocky is holding his own so far;
*Gretchen and others to see Dr. Reeves this afternoon;
* Puppy Scooby and Big Copper visited Dr. Morton (our local vet) this morning [PHOTOS];
* Jasmine and Puppy Holly are back home after yesterday's spay surgery [PHOTOS].
* Update on Rocky-Boy (as Dr. Reeves calls him): Rocky's very sore and on IVs;
* Dr. Reeves also asked about Old Sassy Katie (who missed her acupuncture treatment Tuesday);
* "Hopefully this is Rocky's day to turn around," said Dr. Reeves;
* Last evening's call from Dr. Reeves' wife gives us a very positive message;
* Erin talked with Dr. Reeves about Rocky late this morning;
* Email from Jana, Blind Chubs' mom, regarding Chubs' new accomplishment.
* Rocky's not doing so well: He'll eat only when hand-fed by Mrs. Reeves;
* Two four-year-old Chihuahuas are rescued and adopted into a good home;
* Abby and Willow update: An email from Claudia forwarded by Billy Lawson.
* Rocky was sure glad to see Joe yesterday afternoon [PHOTOS];
* An email from a reader concerned with the possibility that Rocky might be suffering;
* A tiny kitten with a very sick eye (that must be removed) needs a home;
* A 73-year-old woman with 20 dogs calls;
* Today's Adoption Day Roster.
WEEK BEFORE LAST
* Rain, rain, rain! (Sun came out at noon);
* Both Jordan and Puppy Grace were adopted Saturday;
* Rocky was glad to see his original rescuer, Joe, Pat's and my son.
* Melissa takes Beagle Pup home--officially adopted! [PHOTO];
* Conception Control via spay and neuter is still our main goal;
* After three adoptions we do some mixing and matching to make kennel space [PHOTOS];
* Erin and I are taking Rocky, Katie and others to Dr. Reeves this afternoon [PHOTOS];
* More of little Scooby's hair is falling out around his eyes [PHOTO];
* Email referring to Melissa and the adoption of the Beagle pup.
* Rocky may need another blood transfusion if his platelets count is too low;
* Foxy, Laura and Jeannie are heartworm free!
* Rocky's still holding his own;
* Update on the results of Rocky's surgery will come when we hear from Dr. Reeves;
* Saturday Adoption Day is canceled due to continuing storms at Straydog;
* Rocky is so improved that Dr. Reeves has postponed surgery for a while;
* Three adoptions Friday evening: Thelma & Louise, and then Emily [PHOTOS TO COME];
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 until we finally (two years ago) put a limit on ourselves of 65 dogs, which population has since swelled to 80+ dogs.
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