What's All the Excitement?

Everyone found homes last Saturday. I was pretty worried going in because 20 seems to be the "magic" number. Any less than that and it's hard to get a crowd. We didn't have that problem last week. Adopters were lined up at 7:30 waiting for Petco to open.



Puppy #901-919



We Did Get One Return: Puppy #901-919 was adopted last Saturday by a young couple who were obviously very attached to her. They arrived early just for her and it looked like love at first sight. After getting home the adopter found that she was allergic to the puppy. She said she'd never had trouble with allergies before. The adopter was heart-broken and covered in hives. Our sweet girl was returned on Monday and went to stay with a foster home until tomorrow's adoption event. She is fun, energetic, and playful. She has been fostered with kids of many ages and other dogs. This pup is working hard on her house training and jumping. She will make a great family dog who will help to run energy out of your kids. She loves to give kisses and lay on your feet.  

While I'm writing this: It's 6:44 am, I'm listening to my son's favorite "Tractor Show," drinking/chewing one of those Fruit 2day things for breakfast and updating the website with pics that the fosters sent in overnight.

Volunteer Orientation: is scheduled for Tuesday. We'd love to have you volunteer with us. You call fill out an application and sign up at http://coloradopuppy.volunteerhub.com/.

On New Adoption Locations and Food Donations:

Last week I mentioned that we're hurting for food. It's why we have been limiting our intake. We can only bring in as many puppies as we can feed. We launched a new food donation program last weekend, "Donate a bag of dog food and get a CPR t shirt." It was a success on Saturday with 6 donations. Enough to get us through this week. We used to receive support from Petco, first from our partner store and then, when policies changed, from the distribution center. But policies have changed again and now we need to appeal to the PETCO foundation and go through their grant application process. I applied to PETCO last week and asked for about $2000 in food donations to get us through next year. Our application is still awaiting review from the PETCO Foundation. I'll let you know when we hear more. The website says that this can be an 8-12 week process. I hope that is not the case. In the past I've been reluctant to ask for donations from a store other than PETCO because it will mean that we need to move our adoptions to that store. While the PETCO at I-25 and Colo. Blvd is a prime location (easy to find and right in the center) and has plenty of space to host us, we need to go where the food is. End of story.

I don't think it will be too difficult to find another company willing to work with us. (Petsmart is the obvious one, but even Walmart or some smaller, local supply stores too.) We bring more than just local business with us because our adopters travel from all over the state to attend the adoption event. We've adopted 905 puppies so far this year. If we assume that every adopter spent $25 on the way out on a leash, collar and dog food (I know, some spent less and some spent a lot more but I'm going for an average) then our adopters would have spent about $22,625 on pet supplies at our host store since January. I think we could take those numbers anywhere and ask for space/time to host our event, a closet to store our supplies in and $2000 in puppy food annually in return. What do you think? I'm just learning the ins and outs of the corporate world and need some advice.

The Really Good New is: We received a donation of $300 from Deathwish's CPR fundraiser. Please drop by their Facebook Fan Page to drop them a word of thanks. http://www.facebook.com/#!/deathwishdenver 

Also, our volunteers earned $618.31 for CPR by working at The Taste of Colorado. A special thanks to those volunteers who braved the heat and sticky beverages for us. Thanks also to Corinne for organizing the fundraiser.  Money from the fundraisers will go to our health fund to help puppies like the one two weeks ago that needed surgery for a cherry eye and for more vaccines and parvo tests.

It's time to stop playing and get on with the day. Until next week...