We are sure you all have been very busy getting over the holidays, and trying to stay warm throughout this horrible cold......and warm melting, we've been going thru.
Since our last post at the beginning of January, lots has happened.......but you wouldn't know that would you as nothing was posted!!
Some have emailed wondering where we are and what is going on, and we'd like to thank you for your support.
Now comes the honesty part :0) PDCR has gone thru many changes in the past two years. Lots of key members have moved on from the rescue, some have moved out of the city, others have had changes to their family.....lots of reasons. In the end though, were left with only five members, three of which were foster homes. Two people were now in charge of all the aspects of running the rescue, and there are many aspects, let me tell you!!
We did try to recruit some new people, attended the U of L volunteer fair, and had 34 students fill out applications to help us with little things such as dog walking, up to the bigger things such as website maintnance and marketing. I guess it was the hype of the fair, but despite our phone calls and emails, not a single student followed thru :( We were really bummed by that.
We have posted ads on kijiji looking for foster homes, drivers, people with marketing interest, but in order to find volunteers, we weren't able to keep up with the returning of about 12 phone calls a day from people looking for help, an average of 4 emails a day from past adopters looking for advise for their dog or to update us on how much they love their dog, emails also from people sending in applications.....then we have to meet with those potential people after usually a half hour phone interview. All this takes time. We also have to continue to support and maintain our foster homes, also takes time.
With only two people running PDCR, and only three foster homes, we aren't able to bring in as many dogs, but we continue trying to help them by finding other rescues in the area that have room to help.....and then arrange transport to get them to those rescues. We spend alot of time driving dogs that normally we would be able to help, to other rescues all over southern Alberta.
That doesn't sound like alot though does it? But all five of us have families and jobs, and the normal pressures that life brings, sickness, stress......the list goes on.
Enough wallowing!! You know what we have been able to do though?!! Last year, from January to December, the small group of us were able to intake, vet, foster, and adopt out 74 dogs!! That makes up for all the times when personally I felt like PDCR was a sinking ship, no helpers, no time, no one to update the blog or website....... We were also able to move an additional 59 dogs to other rescue groups! That means we were able to save 133 dogs!
When you average it out, it is quite surprising that between the five of us, we adopted out just over 6 dogs per month into new homes! As tired and frustrated as we get, that will put a smile on our faces, show us that we are making a difference, even though its small, and will make us continue.
So, we here at PDCR, are so thankful for everyone's support, and understanding after this little glimpse into the inner struggles that we face. With this being said, if you would like to help us out in any way, we are desperate for any help, and have many little things that we aren't able to keep up on....the blog!, and then there are bigger things like helping to put together a much needed adoption fair/fundraiser!! See, I didn't even get into the financial struggles we have!!
We trully love what we do and we'd probably do it all on our own if needed, but we are looking forward to many happy endings during 2011, and hopefully to some new people with exciting ideas to join us.
