A HUGE Thank You to Ms. Elgin's Class!!!

Earlier this month, PAWS received a great email from Jennifer Elgin on behalf of her third grade class at Beth Chaverim Reform Congregation in Ashburn. PAWS was selected by the class to receive their charitable donation for the year called a tzedakah. We were incredibly honored and excited to be chosen by the class. They have been fundraising for us all year by selling cookbooks that they wrote as well as other donations such as parts of their allowances.

This past Sunday, I packed up Honey and Annabel and we headed over to meet the class and accept the donation. What a great visit we had! All the kids were great with the puppies and were very excited to have us there. They asked me really great questions about what we do and what the money will be going towards. The donation will help us care and feed for some of the dogs at our rescue. Spays, neuters, microchips, shots, food, beds, toys...the list of needs seems never ending some days and any amount helps. Thank you again for your generosity and thinking of us! We are truly touched and it's experiences like this that really excite me about the work we are doing.

Once I got Annabel and Honey back to their foster home, we brought all the dogs in the house outside for a bit. We had 10 puppies, 4 adults and one pregnant dog all running around the yard and wearing themselves out. It was quite the sight with everyone so happy and playing. The four adult dogs belonged to the foster parents. The other 11 either have found their forever homes and are waiting to go there or are still looking. After a very challenging week at the rescue, the events of the day were a great way to end that week and start a new one.

Before I go into the details of that, I'd like to say a quick thank you to the doctors and staff of Caring Hands in Ashburn. I saw them quite a bit this past week and they were great every time (as usual)!

So, where to start with this past week? Sunday morning (Mothers Day), I found myself in urgent care with a allergic rash from the Demodex shampoo for my foster dog. Tuesday night, we had a complication from a spay where an internal stitch was popped and the the dog started bleeding quite a bit. She is fine now, but it was a long night getting her situated and then back to the vet in the morning to get the problem fixed. At some point between Tuesday and the end of the week, we had a round of kennel cough and puppy mange sweep through the home of one of board members and foster parents. Thursday morning, I was driving one of our pups to get to his neuter. He's peeing in the backseat, my foster is throwing up in the front seat (she was on her way to the vet's), I have a rash up to my elbows and I'm thinking "how the heck did I get here?!" Of course, now that it's behind me and everyone in that scenario is ok, I find it quite humorous and am very thankful for the leather seats in my car that clean up nice and easy.

There is plenty of good news. Our adoption event at PetCo was a success - five dogs found their forever homes at the adoption event and three found homes outside the adoption event. Everyone has rebounded from their various ailments. We were able to finalize adoptions on ten of our dogs between 5/10 & 5/16. That's ten lives that are getting to start over and live a life where they can be dogs instead of being scared, hungry, or in a shelter. That's a pretty good week if you ask me.