Pet Talk

by Cathy Davis
www.houltonanimalshelter.com
    It may be a little late notice, but if you’re like me, maybe you have something you can contribute. I have several boxes of stuff that didn’t fit from my old house to my new house, all ready for a spring yard sale. But who needs to wait for spring, because the Houlton Humane Society is going to have an indoor yard sale, regardless of the weather, at the Congregational Church on High Street on Saturday, December 12th.
    If you have any items that you could contribute, please drop them off to the animal shelter before the 12th or at the Church between 5 and 7 p.m. on the 11th of December. As much as we appreciate all donations, we will ask that you not donate items of clothing or any item that costs money to dispose of if we don’t sell it, like television sets.
    We will also be having a craft table, a bake table, and we will be offering lunch of stew and biscuits for a donation. So if you would like to donate a pair of hand made mittens or any craft item, if you would like to bring a dozen biscuits, or if you would just like to come shop and have a lunch, we would love to see you.
    This is our annual Homes for the Holidays event and we are very excited about the number of activities for your shopping and dining pleasure. In one corner Santa will be ready to greet you and your children, whether little Johnny or Mary or little Rover or Fluffy, Santa has a lap for everybody. Photos will be taken if you so desire and available for you to take home with you.
    The Critter Café Corner will include a hot lunch of stew, biscuits and punch until we run out of food.
    Another corner will display the crafts and home made baked goods and yet another corner will be our indoor yard sale. If you have ever attended a yard sale for the Shelter, you’ll already know that prices are not marked, you offer a donation based on what you feel the item is worth. So what a day for a bargain!
    And most important on this day will be the animals available for adoption. The entire purpose of this event is to help find homes for our shelter animals and to raise money to care for those who don’t have homes. Every year we successfully place three or four beautiful felines over the adopt-a-thon event. This year I want to place 10. I know that sounds like a tremendously aggressive goal, but if you’re been reading Pet Talk you know that my personal goal is to place 100 animals in new homes by Christmas.
    We have so many beautiful animals awaiting adoption, and this adopt-a-thon is a perfect opportunity to visit with a few of them. I’ve heard some people say that they don’t go to the shelter because they’ll “want to take them all home”, so here’s a chance to help the shelter without having to worry about seeing 200 cats, just a few, and maybe, just maybe, have one choose you for a new family.
    This season, consider giving a gift that will mean so much more than a trinket that sits on a shelf and collects dust. I’ve told my entire family, my life is full, my house is full, nothing would mean more to me than if each family member just made a small donation to the Shelter in lieu of a Christmas gift this year. Gift certificates are available to tuck in a stocking. There is no “size” requirement of the gift, it can be a dollar or a thousand dollars, it can be a bag of kibble or a gallon of bleach, each gift is greatly appreciated.
    Please join us on Saturday, Dec. 12, at the Congregational Church from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Maybe take an ornament off our giving tree – each ornament represents an item of need at the shelter, such as laundry detergent, paper towels, etc, and then drop off your gift at the shelter or at the Varney Agency.