News Archives: HSPC February 2002 News: 2002-02-02
Please Note: Information in this archived article may no longer be accurate.
2 February 2002February is the warm hearts month and you could tell it with the activity at the HSPC! Our Valentine's month left us with some fantastic adoptions of our older residents. We have a new room at the shelter which the Board named the "Shiloh" room in honor of our long time friend Shiloh Owens. Shiloh came to us with a request that he be euthanized. His eyes were severely infected, he had tumors all over his body, and his general health was extremely poor.
This big English Setter, however, stole our hearts and was soon recuperating well enough to tell us what to do on a daily basis! He went home with HSPC Board President Lyn Owens and soon ran the Owen's household as he had run the HSPC! We lost Shiloh recently but he has forever reminded us to love and respect our elders! The Shiloh room is set up for our older residents who need a quieter, calmer place to sleep.
Since we started working the Shiloh room this month we have had the wonderful adoption of Zeppelin (a 10-year old) and Gammy (a 12-year old.) We think the public will continue to see the wisdom of "mature love" as our room helps profile these special dogs. Of course Gammy had an "insider" offer as volunteer Mary Stephens adopted her and took her home. Poor Gammy, an elderly, skinny Golden Retriever mix had walked up into a man's open garage and collapsed. He rushed her to us and we went immediately to the emergency vet clinic. She was not sick or injured, just malnourished and old. Gammy, short for Grandma, got vitamins, food and lots of TLC and is now living at Mary's home, playing ball! Good job -- and thanks to Warm Heart, Mary Stephens!
February brought adoption for many more furkids, 138 to be exact. These included a 7 year old lab, Molly; an 8 year old cat, Snowball; a 6 year old Doberman, Gunner; and many baby and teenage kittens and pups! Sadly, we took in as many as we adopted out. Some of our new friends include 2 four week old pups, left in a box on the front porch; three beautiful cats who's owner was moving and didn't want them any more; and a sad old white mix dog with hair mats and ribs that you can count from across the room. We responded just last night to a rescue call for a pup that was under a house, so frozen that after an hour of warm fluids he was still unresponsive.
Our work would not be possible without the warm hearts of our volunteers and donors! Thank goodness for our volunteers who help us every day. This month 16 new volunteers joined our ranks. Just in time for our Dog Wash and Dip crew to start marking their calendar for the first Dog Wash to be held on Saturday, May 11th at Trinity United Methodist from 9 am -- 2 pm.
Of course our volunteers will continue to visit the nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities with our Puppy Love program, taking puppies to those in long-term care facilities, to add a little sparkle to their day. We will still continue our companion dog training classes, for the public and our shelter dogs with a new class starting on March 9th taught by great volunteers from the Little Rock Dog Training Club.
Our volunteers will continue children's birthday parties and scout groups in our education area on Saturdays and Sundays, and will take information into the public schools under our Humane Education program. But, maybe most importantly our Warm Heart Volunteers will love, walk, kiss, pet, feed, talk to Adam, Baron, Calisto, Dillman, Ember, Flora, Gabe...................
| -Cindy Alberding, calberding@aol.com |