Recap of April
Vol Days are always special, but our spring one this year was a match made in heaven for the Carelsons and Octavial. And while the pollen spread across Atlanta, so did education about the True Costs of Rescue across the country.
Vol Day … with a Special Surprise
Every Vol Day brings something good, whether it’s getting things done around the ranch as a team that we haven’t been able to do on regular weekends or adding to our ever-growing volunteer base. One of the greatest things, however, to come from one was our first adoption because of it; it wasn’t just any adoption (not that any of them are), either. It was an adoption we thought would never happen.
Octavia arrived at rescue in August of 2013 with her younger sister, Cricket. They were both only supposed to stay with us for a few days before being transported to another rescue up north. Cricket made the trip; Octavia did not.
She was a sweet senior girl with health issues, including a nasty cough, a cyst on her chest, compromised vision outdoors, and a mouth full of rotting teeth (all of which she would later have to have extracted). This combination had made her incredibly weak, and we couldn’t fathom putting her on a van without addressing them first. Once we did address them, of course, we still couldn’t send her off. Some blood results showed the possible beginnings of renal failure, so we agreed to keep her close to home.
That was, until, Spring Vol Day …
Jeff and Cathy Carelson drove up from Florida to help us out. They met Octavia, and it was love at first sight. They returned within a couple of weeks to take her home, and she has been living the (no, seriously, the) life ever since. She has had some ongoing health issues, which Jeff and Cathy have treated with lots of TLC and vet visits, but she is absolutely living the life and thriving for what she has been through. We cannot thank them enough … or get enough of seeing her so happy on Facebook.
A Rescue’s True Cost
Our adoption fee of $250 is pretty small, compared to the national average. With that said, we still continued to receive emails from people telling us how “exorbitant” our fees are and that they’re “better off” just “buying” a puppy. This is a complaint many rescues face, so we wanted to really break down where these so-called “profits” go in terms of rescuing a dog. We partnered with the fabulous Lili Chen of Doggie Drawings in April and created an infographic, which has spread like wildfire among rescues across the Internet and, hopefully, has educated a lot of people who did not understand the typical investment in saving a dog.
So, you still say we profit off of dogs? We think the numbers say it all …
