Halfway Home Pet Rescue looking toward winter

To the editor:
    Halfway Home Pet Rescue dba Madawaska Lake Homeless Cats will soon be facing another very tough winter as will all animal shelters. Pets are always on the bottom rung of the “HELP” priority ladder not because people don’t care, but because there are just so many human based charities that need to be first priority and the charity dollars run out before the purse gets to the animal shelter. We understand this. Cancer, Heart Disease, Child Abuse, etc., all of these are extremely needy programs. We accept it. But if we do not make pets our priority, we know many pets will die horrible deaths.     Please work with your animal shelter, whether it is Halfway Home, Precious Paws, Paws, Central Aroostook or the Houlton shelter. We all do our best to save the animals. Perhaps our ideas of how to do this might differ, but all our efforts work to some degree. Do whatever you can to help. There shouldn’t be any complains of competition. If we had 10 more shelters in Aroostook County, we would all still be working hard to save animals and that many more animals would be helped. Wouldn’t that be wonderful. Many small gestures of supplies or small financial gifts can make any shelter’s fundraiser a huge success. Neuter and spay — it’s the only way. Yes, but we must first help them to stay alive so we can do our spay/neuter program.
    We are currently organizing a community-wide bottle drive/tag sale/Adoption Fair on Saturday, Sept. 12 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the home of Judy Robertson on Pleasant St. in Caribou. Please drop off any tag sale items or bottles off at that location and/or call 896-5650 if you are able to work a 3-hour shift with the fundraiser. Returnable bottles can also be turned into 88 Bennett Drive Redemption Center and donated to Halfway Home Pet Rescue.
    Our free pet food pantry is swamped with people needing help to keep their pets instead of turning them into area shelters. We are not able to help one tenth of the requested needs. Far too many of these people are elderly and/or disabled people and their pet is their loyal companion/family member. We appreciate the compassionate efforts of those of you who are donating items to the food pantry by dropping items off at the shopping cart located at Caribou Paradis Shop & Save. Our next free pet food delivery distribution will be around Sept. 8.
    We are busy preparing for our fall arts and craft booth at the Caribou High School on Oct 17th and 18th. We need volunteer crafters, bakers and people who can help man the booth for a 3-hour shift.
    Halfway Home Pet Rescue is currently in need of used bath and hand towels, bleach, Purina Kitten Chow, and evaporated milk for kitten formula. We appreciate your kindness with returnable bottles at 88 Bennett Drive Redemption, our area collection boxes and your patronage of the Valley Woodworking tag sale. Caribou Shop & Save graciously provides a shopping cart for donated items for the free pet food kitchen as well as our own shelter supplies. These options are our only income for our supplies, spay/neuter program and medical needs.
    We do leukemia testing, several wormings, flea removal, all age appropriate shots, ear care and all adult cats are spay/neutered before adoption and all kittens are adopted with full paid spay/neuter vouchers for when they are old enough for surgery. This is between $100 to $130 medical cost per cat. Our adult cats, over 4 months of age, are adopted free of charge to good homes, and our kittens under the age of 4 months have an adoption fee of only $40. We work hard at raising the funds to provide the daily care and medical care — finding homes is our greatest priority. We are an all volunteer shelter.
    Whether our little shelter, or any other shelter, we recognize this is a time to prepare for the bigger and tougher tasks of winter survival for these precious pets. With your help, we can all make a difference.
    Please know I am hard of hearing so when leaving a message on my answering machine, please speak slowly and clearly and repeat the telephone number twice. 88 Bennett Drive Redemption continues to turn over your returnable bottle money. Our Yard Sale booth at Valley Woodworking also nets us some funding to go on the medical bills. Please e-mail me at Milton@mfx.net if you wish to be on our newsletter mailing. Our correct legal name is Halfway Home Pet Rescue dba Madawaska Lake Homeless Cats. Our address is 773 S Shore Rd., Stockholm, ME 04783.