by Cathy Davis
Plans are now underway for our next grand event, the annual adopt-a-thon, walk-a-thon and giant community yard sale. We are going to have a planning meeting Wednesday, April 16 at 6 p.m. at the animal shelter and at that time we will be finalizing the details. The tentative date is May 10 and we would like to go back to hosting this at the Houlton Grange this year but we still need to firm that up with the Grange folks.
Start cleaning out your attics, garages, and basements and save any really nice yard sale items and we’ll let you know shortly where and when to bring them. Please don’t start bringing them to the Shelter right now, we currently don’t have the storage space and with mud season upon us, it’s difficult for us to get in and out of the shed. In another week or so we might have other instructions.
Remember for the yard sale that we can’t take clothes, we just don’t have any way to display or store them, but any other items would be appreciated. We would ask that you don’t bring any unused exercise equipment, we hate to be picky but those items don’t usually sell and then we have to dispose of them and we don’t want the disposal fees to cost us more than we make on the yard sale. And we really hate throwing away items that were donated to us, it just doesn’t feel right!
This annual walk-a-thon is a great opportunity for you to get some spring exercise with or without your pet. You don’t have to have a dog to come walk! But if you do have a dog, there will be prizes for oldest, youngest, biggest, smallest, etc., and there will be many door prizes for the walkers also. Lunch will be served after the walk.
The idea of a walk-a-thon is that you get people to pledge a donation, the more the better. You can have someone pledge $5 a mile, or a flat amount. There will be a prize for the person with the highest dollar amount of collected pledges – that means the most money turned in at the time of the walk. Pledge forms will be available shortly.
This is a fun and exciting time and more information will be available after our next meeting. We look forward to having you join us.
If you have wanted to donate to the Shelter and don’t know what we need, right now we are in need of a nice big bulletin board, some new covered cat litter boxes, and a vacuum cleaner. The vacuum should be for hard floors, not carpets. We also need a new computer and flat screen monitor. These are big ticket items but sometimes there are folks who have connections, maybe they run a rental center and have a used vacuum sitting out back, or maybe you work for an office that is replacing their computer system and there’s a decent used one just sitting out back, so I just thought I’d mention our needs.
On another note, we are trying to help a gentleman find a home for his dog – he has a 7-month-old boxer dobie mix, all neutered, great dog, but there is an allergy in the home. This dog would be free to a good pre-qualified home so if you are interested, please call the Shelter at 532-2862 and let them know and they will do a pre-adopt form with you and put you in touch with the owner.
We also have a lady with five cats of all ages, all fixed, and all free – she would like to place them in new homes as she is up to 10 cats now and finds it’s just too many. These are wonderful clean and friendly felines who would make great companions for your family.
Of course we also have 150 cats at the Shelter who are all beautiful healthy loving animals needing new homes. My special favorites are Gary and Steve, beautiful little fellas, and Lightning, a gorgeous gray tabby, just a year old and wonderfully friendly. Erica is a long haired black and white, absolutely gorgeous, and she’s been with us quite some time. I could go on but I’m out of space and wanted to mention just one more – we are now contracting with Island Falls and recently a neutered male gray tiger cat was brought in from Hardy Street, if you are missing your cat, please stop by the Shelter and see if this is your fella.
Thank you for your continued support!
