|
In November we had 9 adoptions and took in 4 lurchers.
This makes our year-to-date totals 97 brought into AG, 13 hauled for other groups, and 111 adoptions.
|
|
Santa Claws is Coming to Town
Again this year, American Greyhound's Santa (the genuine article by the way) will be making an appearance at the Petco store in Highland, Indiana at 10235 Indianapolis Blvd, on December 8th, 15th and 16th, from 1 - 4 PM Central. You can come out and have your pet meet Santa, let the big guy know what their hopes and dreams are for Christmas morning, and for just $9.95, get a commemorative digital photo of them with Santa.
We hope you'll be able to stop by and Santa looks forward to seeing you.
|
 |
|
Freezin' for a Reason
The bravest American Greyhound volunteers are Freezin' for A Reason! This year is our 12th Polar Bear Plunge and we still need you to click here to sign up! Every dollar raised goes directly to help American Greyhound in its mission to find forever homes for greyhounds.
Our annual plunge will feature three divisions of plungers:
- Polar Bears: This is the traditional division in which a plunger head is entirely submersed in the icy cold water of Lake Michigan.
- Penguins: This division will showcase the plunging talents of our volunteers who want to participate but can't quite make themselves go all the way under.
- Warm Walruses: This division will feature our virtual plungers who would rather plunge into their warm woolly blankets.
Participants who raise at least $25 in donations from friends, family and co-workers get the privilege of receiving a commemorative Polar Bear Plunge long sleeve t-shirt and entrance into our fabulous After Splash Bash, plus the chance to win additional prizes.
Even if you're not quite ready to take the plunge, you can still support our brave polar plungers by clicking here to sponsor your favorite polar bear, penguin or walrus! The hounds are counting on you more than ever for your support!
|
|
Building Update
By this time, we had certainly hoped to have our building up and ready for use.
Unfortunately, we still have a little more work to do to get to the point of breaking ground.
Currently, the primary focus is on the design of the septic system. And to design the septic system, we needed the interior plumbing design to be complete. So, earlier this fall we made a down payment to cover the costs of designing not only the plumbing, but also the structural aspects of the building. Once complete, they will allow the engineer to design the septic system and submit it to the state for approval.
Late last spring, during topographical surveying of the property, we were required to enlist the services of a soils engineer to identify the boundary of our wetland. We were completely aware of the wetland when we purchased the property (it was pretty obvious to anyone who has visited the property and was only a small portion of the land and would not affect our use of the land). However, even though the US Fish and Wildlife Service identified the wetlands existed, we were required to have the boundary verified by a licensed soils engineer. And, while this may seem as excessive bureaucratic red tape, in the long run, dotting all of our I's and crossing all of our t's will save us a lot of trouble (no matter what the job, big or small, do it right, or not at all).
So, do I have your head spinning just yet regarding what we need to do to get the ground breaking going? Does it seem as though everything regarding the property and moving forward on the building is a great big negative? Well, there have been equal numbers of positives to this story.
First, while it is true that we haven't yet been able to break ground and start building, we have been able to make a substantial dent in the mortgage on the property. Our Treasurer, Annette Martin, has made a point of each month paying not only the minimum payment amount for the mortgage on the land, but the amount she has estimated the final mortgage will be (the mortgage covering the land and the building). This has allowed us to not only pay down the note on the land, but prepared us for making the monthly payments when the building is finished and the mortgage is substantially higher.
Earlier this summer we received tentative approval for draining the storm water off the property. For anyone familiar with Porter County's storm water issues, you know what a sensitive subject this is (although drainage isn't really an issue in the area of our property, it's just a sensitive issue because of issues that have arisen in other parts of the county). And, for good reason, as improperly designed drainage can wreak havoc on just about every other aspect of a building, be it your home, or a temporary home for hounds on their way to their families.
In the next week or so, you should see our annual calendar for 2019 arriving in your mailbox. Most of the photos in this year's edition of the calendar were shot on the property. And, next year our goal is that instead of weeds, trees and soy beans in the background of the photos, we'll have a beautiful new building as a backdrop for our wonderful hounds.
While we haven't accomplished our goal of erecting our building this year, we aren't down and we aren't giving up. And, we have every confidence that 2019 will be the year we see this through.
If you have any questions about the property, the planned building, and how this is going to make a world of difference in the sight hounds whose lives are touched by American Greyhound, please don't hesitate to contact me at
president@americangreyhound.org . I love nothing better than to talk about what we can do to make life better for the hounds whose lives we touch.
|
|
Greyhound Underground Railroad
|
|
| L-R: Jody, Phyllis, Diane |
Last month, one of our volunteers, Diane Hubka, (who has a great deal of experience hauling dogs, having made many cross-country trips to get dogs) was contacted about helping with a transport of lurchers from Ohio to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,. Seems one of the organizations we work with a good deal, The American Lurcher Project, needed some help filling a leg in the relay to transport these pups from Ohio to Canada, from Westville, IN to the Western Illinois town of Annawan, near the Quad Cities.
On Friday, November 16th, Diane along with Phyllis Adamitus, picked up the American Greyhound van in Valparaiso and proceeded to Westville, Indiana where they met Vicki Leonard, an American Lurcher project volunteer and American Greyhound adopter, along with 5 recently neutered boys who were the reason for the trip. They transferred the dogs to the van, bid Vicki adieu, and headed west to their meeting with the next leg of the journey. On the way, they stopped off in the south suburbs and picked up the 3rd volunteer, Jody Bauerle, who would be helping to keep these 5 young men in check during their cross state travels (lurchers tend to have a little more energy than retired racers, plus they were all relatively young dogs).
Upon arrival in Annawan, they met up with Chris Hill, who would continue the boys journey to Omaha, Nebraska, the next way station on their journey. They arrived in Edmonton late Saturday night after a grueling journey of over 2000 miles. I am told that several of them have already been adopted and have begun enjoying the good life.
Many thanks to Diane, Phyllis, and Jody for their selfless efforts to assure these boys got a home and to represent American Greyhound. While saving 5 boys may not change the world, doggone it you sure helped changed their world!
|
|
Forwarding Our Message
Hopefully, you enjoy the monthly message you receive from American Greyhound as well as those other messages that arrive in your email's inbox each month.
And, it's safe to assume that if you are enjoying them, there's a good likelihood that you'll be forwarding those messages along to your friends as well. And, we certainly hope you will do that.
But, we want to assure that you are forwarding them the correct way.
Normally, when we want to forward one of the many messages we receive in our inboxes daily, we simply hit the "forward" tab on our email and the message is sent on for our friends and relatives to enjoy.
However, that's not the way to forward one of our messages. American Greyhound uses Constant Contact as our mass emailing service and forwarding one of our messages in "normal" manner may cause you to suddenly, and for apparently no obvious reason, stop receiving our message. And, we certainly don't want that to happen.
The reason for this is that the messages you receive from us, even though there may be a couple thousand recipients of that message, is a unique email just to you.
So, for instance, when Joe Greyhoundadopter receives our newsletter and reads an article that he'd like to pass along, and uses the regular forwarding process to send the message to his friend, Jane Poodleadopter, Constant Contact sees that message as the one they'd sent to Joe. And when Jane decides she'd like to unsubscribe so she doesn't continue to receive messages about dogs without curly fur, and uses the "unsubscribe" function at the bottom of each email message, she's not unsubscribing herself (she was never subscribed in the first place), she is unsubscribing Joe.
So, Joe, instead of using your regular email to forward the message, click on the "Forward this email" link at the bottom of the message you'd like to forward, and you'll be able to forward messages without risk of missing subsequent messages.
|
|
