2010. Already. What a fast passing year 2009 was and the last 2 weeks of holidays passed all too quickly too.

We’ve had a great year for adoptions, food and wellness and we hope to grow more especially thru referals.

We’ve finally also figured out how to keep track of adoptions, how many each month. Dec/09 was 11 and that’s pretty good considering i don’t adopt out ‘gift’ or ’surprise’ dogs during december.

So far, 3 this month and it’s only the 3rd!

Home For The Holidays Foster Program was terrific! We had 5 dogs fostered out and 2 were adopted (that was not the intent but it’s a good thing and the dogs were more or less picked by the fosters who were looking for a 2nd dog) and one more likely will be.  The other two, Andy and Chaz were adopted this weekend BECAUSE of the HFTH program. Their Bio’s were updated re what they were like in homes and candid, ‘family’ shots added  to their site as well.

When people came to meet the dogs the fosters graciously came too and talked about their experience with the dog, their likes and dislikes, the funny and naughty things they did. Made it more personal and gave life to the dog’s stories.

I’m really glad we participated in the progam and definitely will next year again – hopefully more of you will take part too.

We have some great rescue dogs who aren’t finding homes quickly for various reasons like they’re older (Rufus), ugly (Beautiful Belle), old and not in good physical shape (Molsyn) or old, ugly and not in good physical shape (Puggles).

Then there are the ones who are just a little weird or unpredicatble who need strong owners/fosters to work them and lead them (Sophie & Girly). Others a prefect dogs but here too long like Tru, Smitty and soon Lindy. They are attractive, sought after dogs ‘types’ but just haven’t been ‘found’ by the right people yet.

We could also use homes with kids of all ages for the younger dogs to interact with, be played with by kids.

Fostering is ideally no more than 3-6 weeks, we give you the food, take care of any medicals. We ask that you treat the dog as a member of your family, take them out for good walks in areas there are other dog lovers and tell everyone they are avaialble for adoption – expose them to people – give out our cards with the website link to people. Also, it seems like a good luck charm when dogs are fostered – for some reason i immediately get apps for them! So the last requirement is that you bring the dogs for appts to meet prospective adopters, talk to those people, let them know how fantastic the dog is and all the good, annoying, joyful AND BAD things about the dog. Remember, we want adoptions to stick so honesty is key.

We DO get people offering to foster certain dogs, the ‘cute’ ones especially. These dogs don’t need to be fostered. They’re rarelyt here long enuf to leave an impression. It’s the ‘hard to adopt’ ones who need you or someone you know to love them for a little while.

It’s also fun if you have a dog or two already for YOUR dogs to have a new playmate and trust me when i say each extra dog is extra cost but waay less hassle than one dog – with fostering we’re eliminating the cost too!

If you know someone who recently lost a dog or an older friend, relative, neighbour who might need a dog to keep them company, we have them.

Please send the link http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/ON258.html or this entire website link to anyone who might want to help

Thanks!

Su