Adopt-oberfest Roundup

October was both a challenging and uplifting month at rescue. There were a few heartbreaking moments when we all wondered why we keep doing this … but there were many more that reminded us exactly why we do this.

Fighting for Their Lives

The first week alone found both Chloe and Pippa literally fighting to survive and leaving us with huge life-and-death decisions to make.

Chloe went into near-renal failure and spent a week at the hospital. The decision was inevitably made to remove all of her rotten teeth. She wasn’t able to eat, and the teeth were causing one infection after another. She spent several more days in the hospital before finally going to her new foster home. She is still working on gaining weight, but is growing stronger and is “still very much a headstrong JRT,” according to her foster mom. She loves blankets out of the dryer, and her food slightly warmed.

Pippa’s WBC count soared to alarming rates and landed her in the hospital for several days, fighting off infections. She was already dealing with a heart full of worms that had grown to the size of a softball – again, thanks to former owners who neglected her. It took another two weeks for her to return to a stable enough condition to do what, unfortunately, had to be done: Serious heartworm treatment. It was a gamble with her advanced state, but she appears to be doing very well. She will go back this week for a follow-up and, if all checks out, she will be going to a wonderful foster home later next week.

In the midst of all of this, little Tyler had a bad reaction to his neuter and developed a terrible abscess, which landed him in the hospital for a couple of days as well. This baby needed a lot of attention, so one of our volunteers took him home after he healed to foster … and, as of Monday, announced that she has officially failed! 😉 Tyler has a forever home.

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Those were just the big ones. There were many other incidents we had not planned for … Then again, can you ever really plan for anything with a Jack, much less 30?!

Fun with Photos

We kicked off the Jack O’Lantern Photo Contest on our Facebook page earlier in the month. The contest ended last night with Ranger Joe taking first place (his mom donated the $25 Petsmart card back to rescue – thank you!) and Aladdin and Phoenix taking second. We didn’t raise any donations beyond the returned prize, but we did raise awareness and had a lot of fun.

Here are all of the wonderful entries for our non-Facebook friends to enjoy. Thanks to everyone for participating.

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We also had some fun dressing up our own rescues, thanks to costumes donated by volunteers and sponsors, including Amanda  Dannemiller. (Check out her own dressed-up Doxie in the photos above.)

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Special Events

Blessing of the Animals

We were honored to take part in the Blessing of the Animals for the second year in the row. Pippa and adopted Shooter (formerly known as Breeze, who has undergone surgery in recent weeks) joined several others at St. Martin-in-the-Fields to receive much-needed blessings.

Belk Charity Sale Ticket Promotion

Jack donned his Superman costume and adopted poster pups Pumpkin and Susie joined us at Belk at the Forum the last weekend of the month. We were on-site to sell advance tickets for the big Charity Sale this weekend. You can still buy tickets if you’re in the Atlanta area. Join us back at the Forum location from 6-10am this Saturday, Nov. 3, to pick them up before you shop. If you already have tickets in hand, you can use those at any Belk location in the country.

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Last but Never Least: Adopt-oberfest Rings True!

Nothing keeps us going more than succeeding at our biggest goal: Finding homes for our rescues. And what a success we have had this month! We had six adoptions this month! That’s monumental for a rescue our size. Jack, Patch, Ringo, Linus, Tyler and Tasha all found their forever homes. It doesn’t get much better than that.

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Emotional, Extraordinary … and Expensive

All in all, it was a very emotional and expensive month, filled with heart-breaking and heart-soaring moments. We want to thank everyone who stepped up to help us with donations, prayers and just kind words. Every bit of it touched us and kept us positive during some difficult times and decisions.

We are still very much in debt to our vet for all of this. If you would like to help and know it will go directly towards the bill, you can send a check or money order to the following address or call in with a credit card number. Just mention on the check or in the phone call that it should go towards our outstanding bill.

Lithonia Animal Hospital
2015 Rock Chapel Rd
Lithonia GA 30058
770-482-2966

With that said, we would like to express our incredible gratitude to Dr. Wright and his amazing staff for all of their help, insight, experience and TLC this past month. You have been amazing.

You can also make donations directly to us, if you would like.

Have a safe Happy Halloween! Here’s to a successful November.