To the editor:
It continues to be a hugely busy time for Halfway Home Pet Rescue and I think at least 100 times a day of how lucky we are to have all these good-hearted, very capable volunteers to help us out. We actually adopted 10 kittens/cats out last weekend and have had at least a dozen follow-up calls and visits since then. In addition, we have had three more adults adopted due to the publicity. Claudia has gone to a wonderful home and our beloved partially tamed ferals Amos and Trudy will go to a country home tomorrow. It is a large farm house with 1 1/2 acres of land and the next door neighbor has a large dairy farm. This is what we have waited for and we are so hopeful that they will think so as well. The people have agreed to keep them in all winter and will start letting them out in the spring as inside/outside farm cats. This is an environment that we feel Amos will adjust well to and, of course, Trudy is his loving shadow.
Please look them up on our website and say goodbye and send good wishes with them. Jean Nadeau, of course, is having a very difficult time saying goodbye, but that is to be expected. She has given loving care to them for over a year and a half. Of course, I am an old hand at this and have no feelings. But if someone finds my heart on a side street somewhere and it looks as though it has been run over about 800 times, don’t bother to return it.
Amos and Trudy have been special. We can’t deny it. But after a few tears, we will happily move on to help the next little stray. How I wish Everett were here to see this. He worried that we could never find the “right” home for them. Each in his own good time. We just need to give that necessary time.
We continue to need a volunteer at the store on Thursdays from 3-5 p.m. If you are able to help, please call Judy Robertson at 492-6061.
It would be nice if we could find a business that would sponsor that slot of time perhaps every other week for an employee to come as a project volunteer like many businesses do for United Way, Special Olympics, etc. It certainly is an easy task and maybe an employee could do it on their way home from work. Please bounce the idea to your employer as a “give back to the community” gesture.
Paradis’ Shop & Save in Caribou and The Tractor Supply Store in Presque continue to offer their shoppers a chance to buy a pet food product and put it in our especially marked shopping carts for Halfway Home Pet Rescue. These products help our shelter cats (we still have close to 40) and what extra we have goes to the Marie Joyce Allen Free Pet Food Pantry on Herschel St. in Caribou.
We go through a lot of food and recently I have been spending a large amount of time at the vet for our fall kittens/cats who are coming in very sick and with flea infested anemia issues. I have interviewed several recipients of the free pet food pantry and I am totally impressed with how great the need is.
Recently, the Portland shipment came in and I got the chance to talk to an older lady, obliviously disabled, who had walked over 1 1/2 miles each way to come for the food. I insisted on giving her a ride home, but during our conversation she kept blessing the Marie Joyce Allen Free Pet Food Pantry as she said her three cats are all she has to keep her company and that without our help this past year, she would have had to give them all up to a shelter. She questioned me to see if I understood why she couldn’t have chosen between the three of them so she would have to let them all go. When I arrived at her home, I felt no doubt about her need.
I am not shy about limiting people who I feel might be misusing the pet food pantry, but I honestly have not seen very many of them. We are helping the people who need our help the most. The poorest of the poor. Please consider dropping a few items of pet food (dog and cat) in the containers at Paradis’ Shop & Save in Caribou and The Tractor Supply Store in Presque Isle.
Halfway Home Pet Rescue is an all-volunteer, 501c3 non-profit shelter. When leaving a message on my answering machine, speak slowly and repeat the telephone number twice. We greatly appreciate your returnable bottles and cans at 88 Bennett Drive Redemption. Please e-mail me at Milton@mfx.net if you wish to be on our newsletter mailing. Check us out on petfinder.com our ID is ME110. Our website is www.halfwayhomepetrescue.org and our legal corporate name is Halfway Home Pet Rescue, Inc. Our mailing address is PO Box 488, Caribou, ME 04736.
Norma Milton
Madawaska Lake
