Rolling Dog Farm

Introducing ... Blind Louie!

This handsome fellow arrived on Friday afternoon, brought to us by Gale Lang's TLC Pet Transport. We had originally been asked to take him back in early March when he was in Louisville, Kentucky. He had been dumped in a lady's yard, and though she liked him, her own dogs were aggressive towards him, and so she was going to take him to a local shelter. As the rescue group told us at the time, "shelters in KY offer little hope for a Beagle, let alone a blind senior." Unfortunately, we had to decline at the time because of space constraints -- we hadn't had any adoptions since last fall and were holding the line on numbers, one of the most painful but necessary things we have to do. As luck would have it, Morgan at Atlanta Beagle Rescue -- who has sent us numerous blind Beagles over the years -- was able to take him in the interim. She named him Louie, for ... yes, Louisville. It fits him!

So when space opened up here, thanks to our recent adoptions, we said, "Go ahead and send that boy up north!"

Morgan took him to an ophthalmologist in Atlanta, who determined Louie was blind from a combination of PRA (progressive retinal atrophy) and cataracts. Though completely blind, his eyes are comfortable and need no further medical attention. 

Louie is adorably sweet, personable, loves attention, and gets along great with everyone. (Did I mention handsome?) It's funny, when I get the camera out, it's almost as if he knows because he starts posing like in that shot above ... and in this next one:

But wait ... it seems there was another dog in Gale's van who also arrived on Friday.  Hmm. Well, I guess that one will have to wait until the next blog post!

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$1,000 Weekly Winner in the Shelter Challenge!

Somehow we entirely missed this, but we were the weekly winner for week 3 in the current round of the Shelter Challenge -- and got the $1,000 prize!  I picked up the mail at the post office yesterday and there was the check from the PetFinder Foundation (which is who actually makes the grants for the Shelter Challenge). Now that was a nice surprise! Then when I got home I looked at the local paper that was in our Post Office box, the Great Northwoods Journal, and there on the front page was a story headlined, "Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary wins $1,000 prize." Well, at least they knew! (The Animal Rescue Site sends out press releases to the local papers for shelters that win prizes.)

Anyway, a big "Thank You!" to everyone who's been so dedicated in voting for us every day in the contest! It really pays off for the animals here!

Our friends at the New Hampshire SPCA are no doubt happy we won the weekly prize again, because that means they'll be able to win the $1,000 state prize since we're no longer eligible for it. We are still in the running for the Grand Prize, though it looks like we are currently well behind the No. 1 and No. 2 groups.

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The current Shelter Challenge started on Monday, April 4th, and ends at midnight on Sunday, June 19th.  Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.

Because of your votes, we just won $1,000 as a weekly winner in this current Shelter Challenge. Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!

Spring/Summer Newsletter Online

I meant to mention this a week or so ago, but we have posted our spring/summer 2011 newsletter on the website as a PDF. It went out in the mail in mid-April to our donors, and as nonprofit bulk rate mailings go, it can take the Post Office up to three weeks to deliver them.  Some people get them within a few days, others take much longer.  It's never been clear to me why the Post Office has such variable delivery times. 

Now, invevitably when we send out a print newsletter, we get suggestions to just do "online" newsletters, "save a tree," etc.  That would be great, except we would lose most of our donations.  The fact is that while more and more people are giving online, i.e., making credit card donations online, the print newsletter remains far and away the key communication piece that motivates people to give.  We do send out a monthly email newsletter, but the actual giving response is very, very low compared to the print newsletter.  This is true across the board for nonprofits in general. Our monthly email newsletters bring in a fraction of the gifts that our three print newsletters do.

One thing we don't do is direct mail, i.e., buy mailing lists of donors who've given to other animal welfare groups and send solicitations to them. You know, those envelopes with the animal photo on the cover with some kind of tagline that's supposed to get you to open the piece.  Most people would be shocked to know how many of the animal welfare nonprofits (well, most big nonprofits) sell their lists of donors so they can make more money.  Want to see how this works? Here's where you'd buy a list of donors to the ASPCA, the HSUS, PETA and North Shore Animal League. 

This is "standard" nonprofit practice -- it's not unique to animal welfare charities at all -- but it just seems to us that there's a violation of trust with your donors to turn around and sell their names, addresses and giving history to a mailing list firm, just to make some additional, marginal revenue.  At the very least, you should have your donor's permission to sell his or her name to someone else.  Which, of course, isn't going to happen, and thus why the typical donor isn't asked for permission.

We only send our print newsletter to people who've made a donation or who've asked to receive it. This keeps us much smaller in terms of donors than we would otherwise have been, and makes us rely on media coverage, word of mouth, web searches and other "free" ways for people to find out about us.  But overall, we're much more comfortable doing it this way.

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In the spring/summer newsletter, you'll see a P.S. at the bottom of our letter on page 2, mentioning that we are changing our name to Rolling Dog Farm.  Yes, indeed.  After living here for a year now, we realized that being a "ranch" just doesn't work in New England -- we get funny looks when we say "Rolling Dog Ranch," and everyone calls us a farm anyway.  In fact, any property with acreage is a "farm" in this part of the country.  We know some people will want us to stick with our heritage, but the name change is as much about the future as it is the present or the past.  Five years from now, people will really wonder why we’re called a ranch, since the move from Montana and our beginnings on the Ovando ranch will have receded into distant memory.  So this was as much about shaping our future identity as a sanctuary based in New England and acknowledging it in our name.  We will be rolling out an updated website with the new name in a couple of weeks, and making other changes as we go.  It will be gradual, so don't expect everything to be changed all at once.

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The current Shelter Challenge started on Monday, April 4th, and ends at midnight on Sunday, June 19th.  Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners.  There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.

Because of your votes, we won $1,000 as a weekly winner in the Shelter Challenge that ended in March.  Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!

Back In The Hole I Go

Last August, I mentioned that the dogs were all finding their favorite spots at the new location here in Lancaster, and that blind Dusty had discovered a hole under the fir tree in the front yard to use as his personal den.  Well, he waited all spring to get back in his hole.  First, the snow wouldn't melt.  Then it melted, but the hole was filled with water.  He'd patiently lie on the ground under the tree, a few feet from his hole, waiting for it to dry out so he could start denning again.  Finally, it was time, and a week or so ago Dusty was back in his hole.  I took this shot the other evening.  He couldn't be happier.  Just as he did last year, he spends all day there, not coming out until we call him into the house.  Actually, I think he could be happier if we took the backhoe and dug him a hole four feet underground.  Now that, he would say, is a real den.  (No, we're not going to.)

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The current Shelter Challenge started on Monday, April 4th, and ends at midnight on Sunday, June 19th.  Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners.  There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.

Because of your votes, we won $1,000 as a weekly winner in the Shelter Challenge that ended in March.  Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!

Molly and Priscilla Get Adopted!

Yes, our two beautiful blind Poodles have found a wonderful new family to call their own!  Kathy K. and her husband Chris T. from South Tamworth, New Hampshire, came out on Saturday to meet the girls and, naturally, fell in love with them.  It wasn't long before we bundled the girls into the back of their Land Rover, kissed them goodbye, and waved as they drove out the gate. 

Kathy and Chris have a couple of miniature Poodles and a Beagle/Dachshund mix they recently adopted, as well as two horses.  Kathy had been looking for another dog to adopt as a companion for their Beagle/Dachshund mix when she came across Molly and Priscilla on PetFinder.  One look at our "belles of the ball" was all it took.  Several emails and phone calls later, we had a visit scheduled. 

Molly and Pris were shy at first, but it wasn't long before Molly was pressing her head into Chris' leg.  We could tell immediately that Kathy and Chris were going to be perfect for the girls.  After getting home yesterday evening, Kathy emailed us some photos.  Here they are in the kitchen with Kathy, with Molly showing she'll press her face into any available human leg:

Notice her fluffy tail is a-wagging!  Priscilla's tail is down, a sign she still isn't quite sure where they are and what's going on, but that didn't last long, as you'l see in this next one:

Yep, she's made herself at home.

Kathy wrote, "The girls are so good. We love them very much already. You have to see how happy Chris is (they are following him)."

Kathy and Chris, thank you so much for bringing these special girls into your family!

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The current Shelter Challenge started on Monday, April 4th, and ends at midnight on Sunday, June 19th.  Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners.  There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.

Because of your votes, we won $1,000 as a weekly winner in the Shelter Challenge that ended in March.  Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!