AARF Newsletter 2012, Quarter 2

Q2 Newsletter

Introduction

This newsletter covers the second quarter of 2012. And, it’s a big one this time.

images or photographs with a thicker gray border around them may be clicked to see an enlargement or another web page related to the image. And we’ve added a horizontal menu for quick jumps to different sections of this newsletter.

Feedback about this newsletter is always appreciated; please use our contact us page.

We’ve had some exciting developments this quarter, which will help us with our programs in what are tough times. Read on.

Petals Boutique Promotions Help AARF

Petals Boutique, at the Frangipani Beach Resort in Meads Bay, helped AARF with special shirt promotions. They did so by selling their special “Isle Cool” shirt, (a very nice golf shirt with tasteful Anguilla embroidery). Not content to give AARF a small percentage of the proceeds, they donated half of the sales price to AARF! To make the deal even more enticing, Petals discounted the shirt from $42 to $30. So AARF got $15 for every shirt sold!

Many thanks go to Jan and Petals for this lovely show of support. She is a fabulous friend to AARF and our animals.

Petals Boutique is a very popular store on Anguilla because it has an array of jewelry, clothing, local art, gifts, designer goodies and more. For sure, our AARF volunteers consider it to be first rate.

Anguilla–beaches.com has two nice pages with photos and descriptions here and here; and here is a map to the store.

Jan, from Petals Boutique hands a donation check to Lisa

Jan Gives Check to Lisa

Isle Cool shirt

Annual General Meeting (AGM)

AARF held its 10th Annual Meeting of the Anguilla Animal Rescue Foundation on April 10th. We reviewed our 2011 accomplishments, elected this years Board and met with supporters. We provide the meeting minutes in PDF format.

The meeting minutes go into detail, so here are highlights:

AGM meeting

Treasurer Rebecca

reports

Penny at the meeting

Lisa and her AARF

cake

Mike Jarvis

Viceroy raffle winners are drawn at the AGM

Drawing raffle winners

Althea will deliver one

of the raffle awards

AGM meeting

Budget

Expenses for 2011 totaled $38,629 (mostly related to shelter). This was up from last year largely due to more incoming animals

Fundraising and Other Income

Donations (checks, cash, goods)
Yard Sales
Bingo
Raffles
PayPal
Sales (clothing, animal care/transport products)
Collection boxes
Membership Dues

Shelter

Spay/Neuter: 215 in 2011 (79 were need–based, an increase of 31 over last year). We have completed 1639 since 2003
Shelter Expenses: 2011 total: $36,800 including $13,400 in boarding fees
We expect our 2012 shelter expenses to be well over $45,000

Adoptions

217 adoptions: 141 puppies and dogs & 76 kittens and cats
37 puppies and one kitten went to forever homes in the US and Canada

Volunteers and Membership

Seven students from the ALHCS high school volunteered at the shelter as a result of the school’s new community service program
Dedicated AARF volunteers (residents, part time, visitors) all helped towards our goal of staffing shelter morning and afternoons
115 active memberships

Policies and Procedures

We incorporated an entity in the United States (Florida) called the Anguilla Animal Rescue Corporation (AARC). The reason for this was so that we could have a way to have a “donate” button (via PayPal) on the AARF web site. (PayPal wanted a U.S. bank account linked to its donate button). AARC later got 501(c)(3) tax exemption status; this allowed for tax deductible donations. More on that below.

Communications

Communications vehicles were and continue to be: web site, weekly emails, newsletters, list emails, FaceBook, thank you letters, education efforts

Education

Continued with Primary school visits
Articles published in the Anguillian newspaper: 22
Articles were published in various tourist materials
Created a brochure on cats. Designed to show that cats can be great family members, the brochure explains how to better understand cats as well as how to interpret their postures and behaviors. Thanks go out to Anguilla Community Foundation, who made this possible via a grant (their second to AARF). You can check out the PDFs here: understanding cats, and how to interpret cat postures and behaviors
Created a one–page Heartworm comic book as an education vehicle since heartworm is so prevalent. It will be issued on tri fold–paper with AARF information and logo on the reverse side. The final draft of the comic is here (in PDF format)

Awards

See below

Board members elected

Our board and committee members for this year:

President: Lisa Thomson
Vice President: Mark Baumwell
Treasurer: Rebecca Taillon
Secretary: Open
Member at Large: Gayle Enzel
Member at Large: Sally Baumwell
Trustee: Jackie Pascher
Trustee: Suzie Donahue

Committee Chairpersons (Chairpersons are also board members)

Adoptions: Sally Baumwell
Communications: Mark Baumwell
Education: Penny Hope–Ross
Fundraising: Gayle Enzel
Policies & Procedures: Rachael Atherton
Shelter: Suzie Donahue
Spay and Neuter: Suzie Donahue
Volunteers and Membership: Judy Huzzey

Other

Webmaster: Mark Baumwell

To contact individual members (or AARF in general), please use one of the links on our “Contact Us” web page.

Superstar Award

Suzie, Kathie, Bud

and Sally

Superstar Award

At the AGM meeting, we presented our Superstar Award to two exceptional, long–time supporters: Kathie and Bud Beck.

Kathie and Bud have given time during their visits to Anguilla to help out at yard sales, visit the shelter, sell numerous AARF T–shirts to their coworkers in Pennsylvania and provide major financial contributions to AARF’s Rubin Fund (also known as the Friends of West End Fund) which provides care for animals in the West End.

Kathie and Bud’s love for Anguilla and their continuing support of AARF and the animals in our care, in so many ways, over several years made them a wonderful choice for the Superstar Award 2011.

Congratulations Kathy and Bud — see you soon!.

Volunteer of the Year Award

Ursula finds out that

she is our VOY!

Ursula with Volunteer of the Year award

The Volunteer of the Year Award winner is Ursula Galindo, who tirelessly gave to AARF again and again. Said presenter Suzie:

Our Volunteer of the Year is a happy example of “the never–ending” goodbye.

We first thought Ursula was leaving last Spring and were oh so pleased when that didn’t happen. In December, when we were sure she was leaving, we had a goodbye ceremony and presented the Volunteer of the Year award at a volunteer appreciation event.

But then came the good news that she was staying longer. And she continued to be a stand–out volunteer — going to the shelter twice week in the afternoon to socialize, feed and clean plus donating and volunteering at our yard sales and other fundraising events. In short, she has always been extremely supportive.

Tonight is a special night because although she really is leaving this week so not only do we get another chance to thank her for all she has done for AARF over these past 3 years but we also get to wish her the very best and to say goodbye!

Thanks Ursula for all you have done for AARF — we wish you and Jorge much happiness.

Outstanding Service Award

We created a special award just for Roy and Mandy Bossons for everything they do to support us.

But they are reluctant to accept praise and thanks for all this, so we had to essentially ambush Mandy with the award, asking her into the Annual General Meeting on a pretext. It was a lovely moment, even if Mandy was embarrassed by it!

Called the Outstanding Service Award, besides expressing our extreme gratitude, it also includes lifetime AARF membership for Roy and Mandy.

President Lisa gave the award to Mandy with this:

Roy and Mandy of Roy’s have been supporters of AARF in so many ways over the past years. Not only do they provide space for our yard sales, Bingo events, board and AGM meetings, lately they’ve let us hold raffles at their enormously popular Friday evening Happy Hours (see below). They even donate coffee and water for our volunteers in the early mornings of our yard sales and give us every penny of their yard sale food/beverage sales.

The list of their support goes on and on. What they do is critical to AARF’s success, and they have been doing this for years and years.

In appreciation, we would like to present them with this award to recognize all that they do for AARF and how much we appreciate their continued support.

We are extremely pleased to formally recognize Roy and Mandy as honored AARF Members with a complimentary lifetime membership award.

Mandy surprised with

Outstanding Service

Award

Mandy with Award

Roy’s Raffles

Mandy and Roy Bossons, owners of Roy’s Bayside Restaurant, have been long time supporters of AARF — and continue to provide new ideas to help us financially. This one was fantastic.

In December, Mandy suggested that AARF have a low cost raffle at their very popular Friday night Happy Hours. When we say popular, we mean it. Many people come every Friday to have beverages, meet people and have the weekly dinner special (a choice of delicious meals for a fantastic price of $14!).

Besides the idea, Mandy also gathered prizes from different merchants for us to raffle off. AARF was helped greatly by donations from donors such as:

Albert’s Grocery
Anguilla Vision Center
Caribbean Cable Communications
Keene Enterprises
Les Grands Vins de France
Mangos
Shop for Less
Tropical Flower

These prizes included cash, beer (French beer and Heinecken), fine wine, show tickets, sunglasses, hat/shirts, champagne, phone "talk" cards, restaurant gift certificates, and more.

But that wasn’t all, because many AARF supporters decided to get into the fun too. They added their own donations, a few of which were: real maple syrup and kitchen linens (by Susan & Howard from Vermont), an original painting donated by Canadian artist Gillian Fishman, a bottle of Millennium Rum (yes, this Guyanese rum was made in the 2000, possibly to help one through the electronic apocalypse), a wonderful brandy fruit cake made by AARF President Lisa, a BBQ set donated by Ralph & Kitty Smith, and many more.

As you can see, these were creative prizes!

But there was even more: Andy and Peter decided to provide great music for everyone’s enjoyment with donations for their performances also going to AARF.

So we did it and had several raffles, with all of the proceeds going to support AARF’s spay/neuter program. And since December 10th, even with the raffle tickets running for a dollar each (or 6 for $5), the raffles brought in over $2000 by mid March. And they produced a lot of fun, along with tastier pancakes, better barbeques, etc.

We plan on having more raffles, on an occasional basis. We’ll post those events on the main page of our web site. Whether we have a raffle on a given week or not, we recommend the Happy Hours. Head over to Roy’s between 5.30 and 7 pm on Friday to eat drink and meet locals as the sun sets on the beach at Sandy Ground. Some day you may also get to toast the sunset with your own turn of the century rum. (Here are directions.)

Thank you to all who bought tickets, provided prizes and supported us.

Suzie, Peter Roberts,

Sparkie

Lucky Tourists with

Mandy and Suzie

Selling tickets on

the beach

David Hinton wins

cure for the Y2K

bug?

Sparkie,Lisa, Suzie

selling raffle tickets

Mike Jarvis wins

Donna Shedlarski

Jill McGee is an AARF

volunteer and a

raffle winner

Sally, Bob McGee &

Mary Ann Jarvis

Original painting

donated by

Gillian Fishman

Viceroy Raffle

AARF has been exploring new ways to raise money, and one way was to raffle off three really nice prizes donated to us by Viceroy, artist Jo–Anne Mason and the excellent Veya restaurant. The raffle drawing took place at the Annual General Meeting with the following winners:

First Prize: dinner, night and breakfast for 2 at Viceroy — Nancy Brower
Second Prize: original pet painting — George Sarkus
Third Prize: dinner for 2 at Veya — George Sarkus

Congratulations to the winners and many, many thank yous for the donations. Learn more about our donors:

Viceroy Anguilla
Jo–Anne Mason
Veya Restaurant

Cape Air Auction

When John and Susie Graff (who are long time AARF supporters) gave us eight (!) Cape Air tickets that could be used to fly between Anguilla and San Juan, we thought we could try a fundraising idea we had been considering: an auction. So we created an eBay account for AARF and put the tickets up for bid. We raised over $1200 and, since we have the eBay account, can run auctions in the future.

John and Susie Graff are long time AARF friends and supporters and we thank them for the tickets and all of their other donations and friendship!

By the way, many have flown on Cape Air from Anguilla to/from San Juan, and report that it is a very nice alternative to arriving in Anguilla as opposed to traveling to Sint Maarten, the ferry system and the Blowing Point port of entry.

Donations are now Tax Deductible

We are very happy to report that it is now possible to make (U.S.) tax deductible donations to AARF. Here’s how:

AARF created a subsidiary corporation in the United States, called the Anguilla Animal Rescue Corporation (AARC). This Florida–based corporation applied for and has been granted 501(c)(3) status, which is needed for deductibility. (Just to cover ourselves: please consult your tax expert, but we feel good about this.)

We added a PayPal donation button to our top–level pages, and donations made using that button go straight into the AARC bank account.

PayPal allows the use of a credit card (just enter the number) or existing PayPal funds, so it is very easy. If a credit card is used, the credit card statement will show a line item payment to AARF/AARC. Plus, of course, PayPal provides receipts. It is also very easy for you to set up a PayPal account if you don’t already have one.

For those without PayPal accounts, it’s also possible to mail checks to AARC in Florida; such donations would be also be deductible.

The address for AARC is:

Anguilla Animal Rescue Corporation — c/o Jackie Pascher
1 Aeropost Way
AXA 5393
Miami, FL 33206-3206
USA

Please see our How to Help AARF web page for more information.

Note that, just as it has been in the past, donations to AARF in Anguilla don’t qualify as being deductible under the U.S. tax codes.

McClaren Spay/Neuter Sponsorship

The McClarens are a very generous family from Boston who have been coming to AXA for years with family members during Christmas. Each year they come stop by AARF and give us a very nice donation. This year, they gave an extremely large donation earmarked towards spaying dogs in the Blowing Point area.

Since then, we have been doing exactly that: identifying dogs that have a need for spaying, and to this date several have been taken into Morlens for surgery using the donation (we track any donation that is specifically specified for any particular animals or actions).

Thanks to the McClaren family for making this happen. Special thanks to AARF volunteers Althea and Bob Turner who identified and transported many of these surgery patients to Morlens and safely home again. The Blowing Point area animals will benefit greatly!

Janice Herbert Brings Us Collars and Leashes

Janice

Janice Herbert from New York comes each year in May with a wonderful donation of collars and leashes for the puppies at the shelter.

Janice has been bringing this much needed donation for six (!) years now.

And we need every last one of them. We especially try to make them available to everyone who adopts from us, as well as having a variety of sizes for walk–in customers. Of the items we have and need at the shelter, these are among the most that are in demand.

Thank you very, very much Janice!

Children helping out

How sweet is the generosity of children! Two wonderful kids have given to AARF, and we thank them very, very much!

Alia saves her EC (Eastern Caribbean) coins while she vacations in Anguilla and then donates that to AARF.

Emily (hailing from the UK) also wanted to help the animals while she was here. She donated money and bought a t–shirt as well!

Alia

Emily

Valley Street Festival

At the AARF Booth, pencils were a big hit

In May, the Anguilla Tourist Board had another of its Valley Street Festivals. These are held on a Saturday right in the middle of The Valley (next to the People’s Market).

With plenty of booths and stalls featuring lots of homemade/home grown local goodies: food, produce, plants, arts and crafts and other items. A nearby music stage and sound system broadcast local bands, and there was even a drumming circle open to everyone.

AARF volunteers staffed a booth selling used books, pet supplies and lots of pencils donated by Kathie and Bud (which were a giant hit!) and were on hand to answer any questions and meet people.

Yard Sale

A child takes a time out in a box while mother shops

At the Yard Sale

We had another of our very successful yard sales on Saturday June 16th. With many AARF volunteers off island, we relied on a small but dedicated (and always dependable!) group to finish the sorting, pricing, testing, transporting, setting up, selling, repacking and finally taking the left over goods back. It’s tiring just reading that last sentence.

But the yard sales comprise a larger percentage of our fundraising, so it is rewarding to know that all that effort pays off and puts funds on the bottom line.

And this time, we had a very special donation from Video Dynasty: well over a hundred DVDs. Thank you, Emerson!

AARF at APANY event

New AARF bookmarks

The Anguilla Progressive Association of New York (APANY) held its 16th Annual Dinner Dance at Antuns, NY on June 2, 2012, and longtime AARF supporters Rick and Pam Vandervoort were there to champion AARF’s cause. Reported Pam:

APANY saluted Anguilla on its 45th anniversary of Anguilla Day and honored Anguillians both in the New York metropolitan Areas as well as those on the island for continued outstanding contributions.

Chief Minister Hubert Hughes was in attendance and commended all for keeping the Anguillian torch burning brightly.

The Anguilla Life magazine was at each place setting, and this was great for AARF: this issue’s main story was on AARF!

New bookmarks (our newest ones with our new logo, mission statement and contact information) were printed out and prepared by Rick and Pam. They were given out, and a few conversations were started with people. We found many people sharing that they brought their Anguillian dog to the USA with them who are still part of their family.

Thanks to Rick and Pam for working to get our message out. If you want to print out your own set of bookmarks, we have a PDF that has a few of them on one page.

Membership Drive

On Thursday, April 26th, AARF held a membership drive outside the Post Office from 9.00 a.m. until 3.00 p.m. The drive was organized by Volunteer & Membership Chair Judy Huzzey.

In addition to renewing existing memberships and soliciting new ones, a large quantity of AARF merchandise was offered for sale: t–shirts in various sizes, styles and colors; caps, and bottle bags.

We also had photographs of the current puppies and kittens available for adoption at the shelter. We are pleased to say that we raised $330.

A big “Thank You” goes out to all those getting memberships as well as the AARF volunteers who participated in this event: Sally, Suzie, Gayle, Althea, Joan, Judy and Mark.

Joan, Gayle and Suzie

at the Post Office

Judy and a supporter

Things for sale

Anguilla and AARF represented at Animal Expo 2012

Suzie at Animal Expo

Anguilla Animal Rescue Foundation’s Shelter Manager Suzie Donahue recently attended Animal Care Expo 2012 in Las Vegas and met with hundreds of experienced and dedicated animal welfare workers from all over the world.

As part of this annual event, put on in partnership with The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International conducted a special program to target those attendees visiting from around the world. Animal advocates from the developing countries often struggle with problems that differ from those found in industrialized nations, and HSI makes an effort to develop an educational experience that offers approaches and solutions to these issues.

Expo 2012 saw the largest international contingent to date, with 155 participants representing more than 40 countries including countries such as Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, South Africa, Chile, Sri Lanka, Egypt and China – just to name a few.

During the 4 day conference, Suzie attended numerous workshops learning new and valuable skills and shared ideas with other delegates and speakers that will enable AARF to assist even more homeless dogs and cats in the future.

Suzie stated: “Working together and sharing knowledge and experience was a wonderful way to represent AARF and Anguilla at this inspiring and motivating event”.

Suzie was granted a scholarship that paid for all her expenses to the conference by the Humane Society International and no AARF funds were used for this trip.

Thank you

Thank you very very much for your support; we couldn’t do it without you!

Dr. Phil and Kathy donate expertise and time; Do Several Spay and Neuter surgeries

Dr. Phil assisted by his wife Kathy from Illinois donated their time while on vacation here to do several AARF spay/neuter surgeries and managed to have fun dancing at Roy’s on Friday night!

Dr. Phil in surgery

Dr. Phil and Kathy

Can Dogs Heal People? Of course, and in many ways

Barry Moser and Emily Crowe stopped by the shelter with a very sizable donation that they raised for AARF. They are frequent visitors to Anguilla (from From Massachusetts) and recently assisted in publishing a book about service dogs, and how they heal people.

Emily, Suzie and Barry

Book Cover

The book is Another Language (Portraits of Assistance Dogs and Their People). It’s authored by Jeanne Braham with photographs by Robert Floyd. It shows, through profiles and pictures how sixteen people bonded with their dogs and how those dogs changed their lives.

You can get it directly from Bauhan Publishing and many other places (such as Amazon).

Bauhan Publishing summarizes Another Language:

Few of the 65 million dog owners in the United States would dispute the notion that a dog’s presence in their lives nurtures emotional and physical well-being. But for some people with disabilities, the presence of a highly trained assistance dog in their lives is utterly transformative. Another Language focuses on one year in the life of the NEADS/Dogs For Deaf and Disabled Americans program in north-central Massachusetts, one of the oldest and largest assistance dog training centers in the U.S.

Through profiles that celebrate the healing bonds between service dogs and their people, these oral histories backed by the power of photographs bring to life the stories of sixteen people who have worked with NEADS. Through these stories told in their own words, you’ll meet an Iraq war veteran, people who use wheelchairs or who have balance problems due to debilitating disease, trainers who raise service puppies and others who work with NEADS’ human clients, and more. Writer/interviewer Jeanne Braham, along with photographer Robert Floyd, portray these human/canine partnerships in a way that’s respectful, compassionate, and compelling.

With this donation, Barry and Emily take the gift giving one step further. Besides helping NEADS people, these dogs — through Barry and Emily — also help Anguilla dogs and cats! Thank you very much Barry and Emily.

Happy Tails

Two (or is it over a dozen?) great tales this month highlight what happens when you take a four–legged Anguillian home for yourself — or for adoption.

Four Puppy Rescue Reunion

In the last newsletter, we related the story of Rick and Tracie’s rescue of four shelter puppies, and we have a great update on their new lives. You’ll want to read that story before continuing.

Go ahead; we’ll wait.

Sally Baumwell reports on what happened afterwards:

Sally holds Malli

Nahla next to Nekoh, Sally with Malli and Coral wonders about it all

Mason and Pippen

Elizabeth and Mason

As we left the story back then, three of the puppies (Malli, Pippen, and Mason) were already in their new forever homes, thanks to the efforts of Tracie and Rick.

Malli quickly settled in at Tracie and Rick’s, which was always the plan for him. Their older dog Coral (also from Anguilla) wasn’t so sure about having an exuberant puppy around, but Malli won her over and they now get along great.

Then Nekoh (previously named Arrow & then Noah) was adopted into a wonderful forever home. So the four puppy rescue had been completed.

Mark and I decided to stop off in Washington, DC for a week on our way back to Lake Tahoe for the summer (of course our 14–1/2 year old cat Tuna was with us as well). As soon as Tracie heard we were headed their way, she and Rick started organizing a puppy reunion of all four puppies, hosting a party at their house. Our Tuna decided she’d rather stay in the hotel room than go to a puppy party. Gee, I wonder why?

Coral and Malli greeted all of us as we arrived. Blossom and Oliver, Tracie and Rick’s cats, wisely hid under the bed. [Given Tuna’s attitude towards the event, clearly cats think alike — Ed.]

Nekoh came with his mom and is a happy, great looking puppy!

Mason and his family made a 2–1/2 hour drive to join the party. That is dedication, but it meant a great deal to us to be able to see him with his new new family. The dedication was proven even more considering that Mason was carsick!

Pippen came with her family; they too drove some distance to get there.

What fun we all had! The puppies have all grown a lot in three months and were more interested in playing than in sitting on laps (on which they no longer really fit anyway).

Coral mostly sat with the people and kept an eye on all of the puppy craziness. Rick barbecued and everyone brought dishes for an outdoor potluck. We took a long walk in the woods with all of the puppies and they played in the yard for hours. It turned out to be Pippen’s mom’s birthday so we celebrated with a cake for Lisa.

By the time everyone left, the puppies were ready for naps. Fortunately for Mason’s family, he slept all the way home instead of being carsick!

What a wonderful treat it was for Mark and me to be able to meet all of the forever families who have so generously offered their hearts and their homes to these shelter puppies. And it was really special to be able to see all of the puppies again. They are all happy and so fortunate.

Thank you Tracie, Rick, Josh, Lisa, Jerry, Pam, Nahla, and all of your families for rescuing these puppies, giving them wonderful homes, and inviting us to share in the love as they grow up.

Here are many more photos of the event:

Malli takes a break from playing

At the Reunion

The chase is on

Play time in a park

setting

Rick and Mason

At the puppy reunion, fun meeting, eating and drinking took place

Water Break

Cooling off inside

Malli and Tracie

Reunion Fun!

Take Home a Puppy , Dog, Cat or Kitten, save a Life, Give Joy

Bringing home a warm, loving, souvenir of your trip to beautiful Anguilla could not be easier! This comes from Susan Heineman, who with Ray Heineman have taken lots of puppies back to the USA and found homes for them all. Read on and be amazed.

Sue will take it from here with her article:

For anyone tempted to adopt or foster an island puppy or kitten, I encourage you to go for it. There is an overabundance of animals on the island, all wishing for wonderful homes and the volunteers at AARF make it so very easy to make those wishes come true. All that is needed is for more people to step up and make the life saving decision to help!

Bringing home a puppy or kitten from AARF is a piece of cake! The hardest part is choosing which of the many adorable animals to save. Once that decision is made, the rest is easy. AARF supplies the documentation needed, will sell or loan you a carrier and charge you a very minimal adoption fee and off you go. At the airport, your walk through security is easy, carry the lucky animal in your arms while their carrier is scanned and while other passengers ooh and ahh at your adorable pet. Once on the plane you place the carrier under the seat in front of you and enjoy the flight doing whatever you normally do, sleep, read, watch a movie, without an interruption. I have never heard a sound from any of the pups we have brought home, they sleep soundly on the plane, lulled by the hum of the engines.

Calypso

Arrival in the States! You are now ready to enter the USA, no worries! First, grab your luggage and head for the immigration area, go thru as normal, then, as you go thru customs, choose the agricultural line which is usually very short and fast moving. There the agent will ask to see the paperwork that you received from AARF and to peek in the carrier to confirm that you have that precious puppy or kitten.

Seconds later you are done, complete, finished! That’s it! You are on your way home with a bundle of love to cherish for years or a bundle of love to foster for a short time since these island babies are very popular in the States.

Since December 2010, I have had the pleasure of fostering 9 Anguillian puppies from AARF. Eight of these wonderful puppies have been placed in permanent, loving homes, the 9th, Calypso, is enjoying life with us while awaiting her forever home. In a few short weeks, these puppies went from unwanted strays to cherished family members with a lifetime of love to look forward to. Adopters have told me many times that these puppies seem to know how lucky they are and are amazingly smart, loving pets.

Mango, nicknamed “The Adorable One” by her wonderful family is one of these lucky pups. Found as a starving stray, she now enjoys life to the fullest with her “brother” Miles on Long Island. Her mom sends me updates complete with pictures and videos. It is clear she is living a wonderful life, only the best of everything for this lucky island girl!

The Adorable One

Her mom, Kami, recently sent me this message

“The other night Mango was fast asleep on my bed and I was remembering when I first applied to adopt Mango and how anxious I was about her health after losing Roxy and you assured me that you had done everything you could. I look at her now and I am so grateful for everything you did bringing her back here. She is such a loving sensitive dog and such an asset to our family.”

Otis

A recent adoption was Otis, a poor starving, dehydrated and anemic puppy, living under a dumpster. Fortunately for him a resident came to his rescue and he was brought to the AARF shelter. His new mom has this to say:

“He is so sweet and cute all the time I can't stand it! I can just fill you in on how quickly he progressed. When we first got home he was shaking and scared. We got his crate and bed ready and right away he went inside. He stayed there and would periodically come out to sniff us and say hello. My husband put him on his lap and he seemed to be okay with that. He had to have all meals in his crate or he wouldn't eat.

The next day he came out more often and was a little less shy. By day three, he was a different dog. He came out and didn't go into his crate once except for nap time! He played fetch, learned to sit on command (he now sits for us to put on his leash and waits until we say "okay" to go out the door) and even learned "drop it" when playing fetch! He is really a smart, eager-to-please dog.

I cannot tell you the love I have for this animal. We all perk up and smile when we see him and everyone is so happy we found him.

Thanks again for taking such good care of him until he found his forever home.”

Lane

Lane was another lucky pup. He was one of a litter of 5 that was also found fighting to survive on their own. When brought to the shelter, only he and his sister were strong enough to survive. She was soon adopted leaving Lane alone and scared. Tracy and Mike from the US met and fell in love with him and wanted so much to adopt him but were unable to so instead they brought him to the states for us to foster. At first he was so timid that he was afraid to step outside of his crate. Within a week he began to come around, gaining more and more confidence each day. He was adopted into a wonderful family that was drawn to him at first sight. Their special bond began at once and he is doing fantastic in his new home, having a grand time with his new dog “brother” Blu and his new best friend, Rayden.

If, after reading this, you are still unsure about adopting or fostering but are willing to transport an island puppy or kitten to the states, please inquire at AARF as to the possibility of bringing an animal with you to a foster home. By volunteering to help out in this way, you would play an important part in the incredibly rewarding experience of giving a bright future to homeless animal, or in some cases, truly saving a precious life!

Thanks so much for considering this almost effortless, yet vital role!!

[Ed: Thanks again to Sue Heineman for writing this and to Sue and Ray Heineman for all those transport trips with the puppies and, best of all, all that work to find just the right homes for the pups.]

On a Lighter Note

We often get animal related emails that are funny, thought–provoking, happy, sad, silly. We like them all.

Really, who wouldn’t want to be sent that dog–on–a–skateboard video? (Sure, it’s ancient now, but lives on thanks to the Internet and YouTube. In fact, you can now watch it in full on, HD goodness.)

With that apologetic excuse tossed out, here are some photos that we got and liked. Dream up your own captions.