Inspiration X 10!

I got this story recently from the co-worker of one of our volunteers. " My son had his 10th birthday party Saturday night and instead of getting gifts he collected donations for our local animal shelter. He collected $120 and we delivered the money yesterday. He wrote a letter to put in with the money. This is the funny part....he wrote "this money is for the dogs, please don't spend it on needles"!

Now there's a kid that understands! This is what it's all about - creating caring, compassionate human beings that understand the value of companion animals! This photo is of Joe and his dog Buddy, adopted from the shelter Joe donated his birthday money to!

Top Dog Update

Last Thursday nearly 20 local animal rescuers and shelter staff members attended our 4th Top Dog Speaker Series event. Jenny Womack, a family law attorney at Palmer & Womack, and co-chair of the Dallas Association of Young Lawyer's Animal Welfare Committee donated her time to discuss Texas' Charity Raffle Laws (not your ordinary state laws!) and recommended language for adoption contracts, foster contracts, and volunteer agreements. Afterward everyone headed home to review and update their documents and agreed to share the "best of" with others through our Rescue Resources forum!

At CFL we are very proud to be helping dedicated, compassionate, professional organizations continue to carry on the wonderful work they do - day in and day out!

Next month, Jerry Martin from the City of Dallas Office of Emergency Management will be teaching rescuers the Incident Command System - a FEMA/DHS/NIMS management system used by first responders in disasters. This training will allow experienced animal handlers and group representatives to assist in future disasters in an effort to save pets as well as people!

The Videos Have Landed!

Today we received the videos for Parks & Recreation's after-school programs and the City of Dallas health clinics! There are a total of 38 videos! Funding was provided by the Erin Wylie Fund of The Dallas Foundation and private donations. Thank you to all of you who contributed! And thanks to the ASPCA for the significant discount they were able to arrange for us!

We'll be delivering the videos in the next few weeks and will update everyone then!

-Rebecca

Promises Kept

Today we ordered 30 humane education videos from the ASPCA! All 30 - some English/some Spanish, will be donated for use in the City of Dallas' Parks & Recreation Department's after school programs. It won't be long now before we can say that 44 after-school programs (36-37 elementary schools and 9 middle schools), serving approximately 3,000 kids, now have a chance to learn respect and responsibility toward companion animals! Our thanks to the Erin Wylie Fund of the Dallas Foundation, and a myriad of individual donors for making this possible!

Programs for Kids In The Works

This past weekend we trained four new teachers who will soon be able to go out and talk to elementary age kids about pet care and behavior, compassion, respect, and responsibility. There are two programs we're working on now - "Be Bite Free", which teaches children why dogs bite, to recognize the signals that a dog might bite, and how to properly approach a dog; and "Ten Acts Of Kindness" which teaches the ten things all pets deserve - shelter, water, food, exercise, grooming, training/socialization, safety, vet care, love, and respect. We hope to begin taking these programs out into the community very soon!