Pet Talk

    There will be a meeting at the animal shelter on Tuesday night, Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. This meeting is open to the public and we’ll be serving a light supper for those who may have to come straight from work without going home to eat.
    These meetings are always very interesting and informative. This meeting, we will be talking about upcoming fundraisers, specifically the St Patrick’s Day Box lunch, so if you would like to help with this event, email me at houltonanimalshelter@gmail.com and let me know, or call the shelter at 532-2862 and let Heather know if you can help the day before or the day of the event, if you can bake, deliver, solicit orders, or just how much time you might have. This makes it easier for us to plan.
    The St. Patrick’s Day Box Lunch fundraiser is one of our larger events, taking two days of hard work, involving dozens of people, and a lot of pre-planning to make sure we know how many orders we’ll have to fill so we know how much food to order. The most labor-intensive part of this is going from business to business and dropping off order forms and picking them up a week later. The last two years we’ve tried to streamline this process by pre-faxing order forms to businesses – this saves a lot of time – but when we get closer to the event, watch Pet Talk for more information because we want you to let us know if you’d like to participate and haven’t received an order form.
    Also, watch Facebook and our website for information on upcoming events and things that we might need. Our Facebook page is an excellent place to stop by daily, see the new animals that come in, catch up with who has gone on to a new home, find out what is next on the agenda for fundraisers.
    We’re really excited about a fundraiser on Jan. 22, when we’ll be having a Pampered Chef Party at the Shelter. For those of you who cook, you know that Pampered Chef has the finest quality items, baking stoneware (I just love my pizza stone), and if you already have everything in the catalog, Pampered Chef items make great gifts. If you can’t attend the party but would like to order from the catalog, either call the shelter and let Heather know and she’ll pass the word along, or email me and I’ll pass the information along to Linda Sewell who is coordinating the event.
    I want to thank Linda and her friends for organizing this fundraiser and all the work that goes into it. And as much as it’s “convenient” to order from a catalog, I would encourage you to actually come to the shelter on the Jan. 22 because there is usually lots of good food, good fun, and you get to “touch and feel” the product which is very helpful in making a purchasing decision.
    It’s been a wonderful couple of weeks with some of our very favorite older pets going into new homes. The older animals are a particular passion for us – it’s much harder to place a 9-year old cat than a kitten but a 9 year old cat has many years of quality healthy life ahead, much love to give, much companionship to share, and it warms our hearts every time someone sees that potential and takes one of these seniors home.
    While a puppy is cute and everybody wants a puppy, the adult dog offers much to a new family as well. Most are already housebroken, some have a bit of training, many don’t chew anywhere near as much as a puppy, and the adult dog, especially the senior adult dog, really does appreciate the new home and comes with a much better set of behaviors.
    It’s also been a week of miracles. Just when we didn’t know where the money would come from to cover the payroll, a generous donation was received. We need weekly miracles, the need never ends, there is always one more dog, one more cat, that is brought in near frozen, near starved, that needs medical care and attention, and whether we ask for financial assistance or not, the need is there. 
    You can help in so many ways – adoption, donation, participation in a fundraiser, dropping off your used ink cartridges or cell phones, bottles, or bringing the shelter a case of bleach or a bag of cat litter.
    Do you watch those ASPCA commercials?  I cry ever time I see them. Because those are our dogs and our cats, right here in our shelter, in our town. You don’t have to travel 600 miles to New York to help save a dog, you can save a dog right here in beautiful Houlton, Maine. You don’t have to send your donation to another state, you can use your hard earned money to support an Aroostook County rescue – whether it’s Houlton Humane or another County Shelter, there are animals right here in our back yard that need us.
    No money? No problem. Just come walk a dog in the afternoon, come volunteer two or three hours a week, help us with our next fundraiser, or become our friend on Facebook. “Like” our photo album, share it with your friends, talk your neighbor into adopting, be an advocate for the animals.
    Thank you and have an awesome week!