Home | Animals for Adoption | Victories | What you can do | A Diary of Hope | Current Campaigns | In Praise of Project Hope | Contact | Support | IDA's Action Center

Current diary entries    I    Past diary entries Doll's Diary Account by Doll Stanley, April 12, 2006 April 12th, 2006 Last week, most of our energy went into caring for the sanctuary, catching up with correspondence and paying bills. We had several vet appointments, including heartworm treatments for Tractor, Brittany, and Othello. I've developed a form for vet appointments so that it's clear what is to be done, and what has been done. We take so many animals in, and the clinics are usually buzzing when we are there, so this should help keep everyone on track. We have a cough running through our canine quarters, and Norma Jean, one of our adopted dogs, came back with a cough. Immunizations or not, it's a bad year for viruses. We had to cancel adoption day, but Skippy, a dog our friend Cindy was caring for, found a new home yesterday anyway. Larry and Gay Evaldi are getting closer to their moving date and are donating items to the Carthage, MS booth that Jason and Hope Anderson have set up to raise a bit of money for us. Things have been really tight lately. Katrina relief is still in full gear, and we’ve had to buy all of our feed, and financial assistance is down. I will say that sharing hard times is okay when you know that so much good is being done. We at PH salute the continued efforts of IDA's Jeff and Kristie in transporting animals from the coast. Also, Jeff and Kristen (new PH friends and hopefully -staff-to-be) and their associates made a trip through this weekend. They picked up Waveland animals, and passed through Starkville to aid Chele and Shelby Whitehead, PH volunteers, with some of the dogs they are caring for. I communicated with Randy Grim this morning regarding the possibility of his group, Stray Rescue of St. Louis, helping some of our dogs. We're working with long-time friend Sherri Norquist, Director of the Bolivar/Cleveland Animal Shelter, and Chele on seeing as many cats as possible in a fast-approaching program. Sherri will host the SPAN/ASPCA rig that's coming through to afford cats low cost to free spaying/neutering. The offer came so fast and we all have so much going on that we are hoping to make the best of this blessing, and are still working out the details. Our stable and shed took flight in a storm Friday evening. We are so thankful that three of us were at the sanctuary because Sonya and George were staying over. A mighty gust of wind sailed inside the two structures and literally lifted them in the air, gave them a tumbling lesson, and crashed them onto our road. The Sheriff's Dept. contacted our County Supervisor who used a backhoe to move the structures off the road. They were lost, but the horses who were inside the structure at takeoff were fortunately unharmed, and the road hazard was cleared without incident. I was summoned by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Dept. to aid with a loose mother pit bull who was zealously defending the boundaries of her staked territory from neighbors and responding Winona City officials, so Sonya and I responded. . A family member put the mother in our van while we moved her pups, then we took them all to Dr. Bailey for board until the guardian constructed a secure enclosure. It wasn't the most comfortable situation. The home where the dog resided belonged to the mother of the man I saw sentenced for the neglect (suspected fighting) of his dogs last month. To add to the mix, the younger brother didn't construct the enclosure at his mother's, but at the Duck Hill residence of his brother, who I had also arrested and convicted. On Saturday afternoon, a deputy accompanied me to inspect the enclosure, making it extra clear that I would be checking on the dog. While I wouldn't have chosen for the dog to be located there, it gave me the cause to check on her without notice.  We're having a rough time juggling our duties and requests. We need more help, more money, and more time. I'm working away at clearing files and supplies for an office makeover and reorganization. It's like wading through a fascinating but perilous swamp, or maybe a maze that doesn't seem to have an outlet. Thanks to George for his efforts. He is reworking a computer and has gained software that will enable us to keep complete and easily accessible files on all our rescues. As Gay and Larry are moving, I will no longer have his office to hide in for uninterrupted hours of work. George is trying to make the transition easier for me by merging my files, and will be teaching me the skills I need to improve my computer skills. There’s more, but I have other stuff to do.  Doll