From: EileensGifts@aol.com

Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:39:48 EDT

Subject: Raffle is completed on www.EileensGifts.com

To: erinskittycats@yahoo.com, billarnold147@yahoo.com

Hi Erin and Bill:

I just wanted to give you a quick update on the little raffle I held for Straydog.  We raised $707.00 for the doggies!  I am really pleased. Although this is just a drop in the bucket for caring for all of the dogs, I hope it helps. The money is in the process of being transferred right now so that I can have a money order made out to Straydog and should be ready for me to mail out to you on Monday. I will also include a list of all names and addresses of the people who bought tickets and donated items as Erin requested for your newsletter mailing list. Thank you so much for all you do for the dogs and allowing me to help the doggies!

Eileen

Dear Friends,

We thank you all very, very much for continuing to support our no-kill shelter, Straydog Inc. - The Arnold Family's Happy Home for Strays.

Straydog has been at our current location (just a few miles outside of Gun Barrel City, Texas) for more than 11 years now, and Pat and I (and now I alone) have always operated under the illusion that all we would need to do is adopt out a few more dogs than we rescue every month, bring our shelter population numbers down to a level we could more easily support financially, and we and all the dogs would then be able to live happily ever after. We must face reality:

The reality is that in this country more than 15,000 homeless and unwanted dogs (and cats) are put to death every day in the kill shelters, and we all need to be focusing on rescuing more of them, not FEWER of them--just to save money!

We at Straydog are constantly focusing on cutting expenses wherever we can in order to stretch our contributions to last longer, to sustain Straydog for longer periods between fund raising drives. Several successful business people who have examined our methods of operation and our financial records (which are always available to the public on request) have all determined that we are in fact running Straydog in a very efficient manner.

The reason we need more funding (via a broader donor base and more foundation grants) is that the problem of too many unplanned conceptions of puppies is not diminishing fast enough. Until we can convince the millions of pet owners who still "don't have a clue" to spay and neuter their pets, we who operate no-kill shelters must continue to rescue, provide temporary homes for, and seek forever homes for the tens of thousands of puppies (and kittens) who continue to be conceived and then are born into a world that has no home for them--no place for them.

FACT: The more funding we receive through contributions, the more unplanned-for puppies (as well as adult dogs) we can rescue, rehabilitate and make or find homes for.

Adoptions have always been and continue to be slow. The reason for this has never been a mystery to me: If our society puts to death 15,000 homeless dogs (and cats) per day, 15,000 new adoptive homes would have to open up every day to take in these 15,000 daily victims, and we at Straydog have always considered ourselves lucky if we could find even ONE new adoptive home every week!

Rescues have always been (and continue to be) increasing. The only way to "put on the brakes" and slow the cycle down (and thus save money) is to convince everyone to spay and neuter. No matter how aggressively we try to adopt out our ever-growing number of rescues, we'll never be able to keep up with the ever-growing over-population problem until we finally, some day, achieve control of conception through spay and neuter.

In the meantime there is only one acceptable answer: Raise more funds! Rescue more dogs before they are put to death! Continue to put more and more effort into adopting out the dogs we have rescued and rehabilitated while at the same time making every effort to gain control of conception through SPAY and NEUTER.

All of this is very expensive, and the more successful we are at it, the more we grow, and the more we grow, the more expensive our entire operation becomes.

Sincerely,

Bill Arnold, President and Co-founder
December 2005

     The Chinese New Year, which began on Sunday (1/29/06) ushered in the Year of the Dog.

     Up to 10 million dogs are slaughtered every year in China (= 27,397 per day), many killed slowly and cruelly to supposedly enhance the meat's flavour, according to animal rights groups.

I am speechless, utterly speechless. - Bill

Bill reports ...

     We welcome any and all suggestions of ways to spread the word of our website name. Magnetic signs, bumper stickers and even billboards have been suggested and would probably add some readers, some of whom might become contributors.

     I don't mean to sound pessimistic by saying that they only "might become contributors," but the fact is that of the 800,000 people (the readership of The Dallas Morning News in 1997) who might have seen the feature article published about Straydog in that newspaper on March 13, 1997, only six hundred contributed, and only 300 of those 600 continued to contribute. That's less than a tenth of one percent of the people who might have seen the article, which took up the entire cover page of the old TODAY section of The Dallas Morning News. (Six hundred divided by 800,000 = .075% or .00075) In other words there aren't that many of us out there (who believe in dog rescue and maintaining a sustainable population via spay/neuter), so those who would (or might) be sympathetic to our Straydog mission are going to be very difficult to find.

     I just now googled the "population of the United States" and found the following number: 299,095,148 people. Multiply that figure by .00075 and we get 224,321. If we could reach the balance of those 224,321 possible (or probable) contributors (we've already found 800 of them), and if each of them donated just fifty cents per month, we'd have more than enough funding to keep Straydog going and growing for quite some time. ... But how do we reach the balance of these 224,321 people? Perhaps we need an ad agency to volunteer their expertise on this matter. We welcome any and all suggestions. ... And again we thank the 800 of you who continue to support us regularly.