Elvis Gets Ready to Go to BARC...

This is Elvis. He is getting his bath, preparing to return to BARC, the shelter in Houston. But only for his neuter and vetting so that he will be ready to go to a rescue in Vermont next week!

Elvis came to the farm a week ago with his mommy, Oreo. Both were BARC dogs who needed a foster until they could go to a Vermont rescue which will find them good families. New England has fewer shelter dogs because folks up that way seem to understand the importance to spay and neuter, better than other parts of the country.

So Elvis is in the car, ready to get his vetting and his health certificate so that he can travel to Vermont and find a family!

Elvis and Oreo were out of time at BARC and needed to move out to make room for the waves of new dogs, constantly pouring into the shelter. In a city the size of Houston, the numbers of new dogs coming to the shelter each day is staggering.

We are happy that we can help dogs like Elvis and Oreo by providing them a safe place to wait until they can move on to a rescue which can place them.

Elvis is a really sweet, even tempered dog, just like his mommy, Oreo.

Unfortunately, she has to wait at the farm while we treat her for heartworms. Sadly, she was heartworm positive and most rescues will not take HW+ dogs.

Oreo is taking a holistic heartworm treatment we get from a veterinarian in Florida. It will take her about 6 months and she should be Heartworm free at that point.

Elvis had his operation on Thursday at the BARC clinic and he is coming home this afternoon.

Oreo has cried the whole time he has been gone, so she will really be happy to see Oreo!

Can You Help Elvis and Oreo Stay Together?

If you know someone or have a family already studied who would consider adopting TWO dogs together, I would love to see Oreo and Elvis stay together. They are sweet with one another and very loving. Please email us at Intake@SmilingDogFarms.org or call us a 979-559-1062 if you know someone who might adopt Elvis and his mommy together, so Elvis does not have to go to Vermont without Oreo! We can provide the heartworm treatment Oreo is taking so that her new family could continue her treatment until she is heartworm free!

Animal Rescue Site Holiday Shelter Challenge Daily Contest Update for Saturday, Oct 30

8th Place but IN TROUBLE!

Please vote today and every day on every computer you have access to! And... please... sign up at least ONE NEW VOTER to start voting for us every day! Just click on this link to vote:

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/shelterchallenge.faces?

We have the same numbers as yesterday nationally. Number 7 is still .86 and we are still .74 --- no change. Number 9 remained at .65 but Number 10 is now tied with them at .65. Someone is moving up... it's just not US!!

The $43 Million Dollar Man is still standing astride the whole contest in 1st Place with 1.94%.

But the Basenji Rescue in Texas -- the ones we were once so sure would never overtake us after we moved ahead of them -- is STILL gaining on us! The spread is now just 2.22%... yesterday it was 2.23% ... day before it was 2.29%... then 2.37... then 2.43...

The Basenji Rescue has shaved .21% of our lead in just 5 days! If we dont do something to start generating more votes and more voters, they will pass us and we will drop out of the Top 10!

It is that bad.

And it is the weekend. When people do not have access to their work computers!

We have got to get our Team voting every day, like we used to. Without that, this contest is lost.

And then we have to get our Team to find NEW VOTERS every single day -- like we used to.

Nothing less is going to keep us in the running!

Sutherelands Home & Garden in El Campo is voting for us every day from ALL SIX computers in their store! (We buy ALL our building materials there because their prices are great and they have superior service! We highly recommend them!) Maybe you can find a retailer in your area where you do business who will help us from their comupter(s) every day!

If you are not currently receiving these daily news emails from me and would like to be added to my database, please contact me at hellerich@aol.com

Please put on your thinking caps and try to find us some new ways to get votes -- some new computers to get online for Team Smiling Dog...

Let's Get Fired Up, Team Smiling Dog! Let's surge ahead this weekend while others rest!

Laverne & Shirley's Big Transformation! The Garland Girls Are Ready to be Adopted!

Some of you may remember when Laverne & Shirley came to the farm from the Garland Shelter a few months ago.

They were two pit-mix pups who had a horrible case of mange -- they were missing large patches of fur and had skin lesions with open, bleeding sores. What was worse, they were going to be euthanized because they had mange and no one had offered to take them!

We brought them to the farm and started treating them with sulphur baths and Amoxicillin for the open sores. They also received weekly Ivermectin shots. We put Nu Stock sulphur cream on their faces, because it is easier to keep it out of their eyes than the sulphur bath solution.

Here is Laverne today! She and Shirley are completely healed and ready for adoption! You can see how beautiful their fur is, and what happy, playful girls they are!

Mange can be cured and these babies are the Poster Girls for that! Dogs with mange can and should have a chance to be cured and live out their lives, like these two frisky girls!

Animal Rescue Site Holiday Shelter Challenge Daily Contest Update for Friday, Oct 29

8th Place but LOSING Ground!

Please vote TODAY and every day from EVERY computer you have access to! Please sign up at least ONE new voter TODAY!

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/shelterchallenge.faces?

For the first time ever, we LOST ground today! Down from .75% all week to just .74% today! Numbers 9 and 10 remained the same, so we lost .01% to each of them.

Number 7 stayed firm at ,86% so now we need .13% to get ahead of them! Earlier in the week, we just needed .11% to move up!

The giant monolith (the $43 Million Dollar Man) in First Place picked up more ground and is sitting at 1.94% today! They gained .01 and we lost .01 so the net difference is they are ahead of us by .02% MORE today than yesterday!

And if that is not bad enough news, the Basenji Rescue continues its assault on us and continues to climb. Today we are separated from them by only 2.23% in Texas... down from a spread of 2.29% yesterday, down from 2.37% the day before and 2.43% the day before that. They are steadily moving up on us and we are not doing anything to stop them!

If we cannnot reverse these trends, Basenji Rescue will soon overtake one of the groups in spot 9 or10 and eventually inch their way ahead of us, stripping us of our #1 ranking in Texas!

We are no longer just STUCK in 8th Place nationally... we are DROPPING!

We need to get our team motivated to get our votes posted daily, and to get our voters to be finding new voters every day!

If you would like to be added to my database to receive these daily updates directly, just send me an email at hellerich@aol.com.

Let's get fired up, Team Smiling Dog!

Elderly Orson Finds Health and Home!

This is Orson. He is an older Rottweiler mix from BARC in Houston. He was running out the clock and needed to get out!

You can see that Orson has a pretty serious case of mange. He is missing hair all over his body, and he has a few open, bleeding sores. You can him scratching in this photo.

Orson also has heartworms.

We brought Orson to the farm so we could start treating him for mange and heartworms. We have ordered the holistic heartworm treatment from Dr. Wessner's clinic in Florida for Orson. We are hoping it will be here tomorrow.

This photo shows Orson getting his first sulphur bath, to combat his mange. Ricky just saturates his fur with the smelly yellow liquid, until every inch of skin is covered. We apply Nu-Stock sulphur cream to his face, because it is easier to keep it out of his eyes.

When he dries, we will put Revolution on him. Revolution kills mange and other parasites, including fleas, and it is safe to use on heartworm positive dogs.

Best of all, Orson already has an adoptive home lined up through Cindi, a volunteer at BARC. Orson's new mom is Pam and she lives in Cleveland, TX. She will be taking him sometime next week, and will continue his sulphur baths and his heartworm treatment. Pam is especially fond of the older dogs, and she even cooks for them! She is making a vegetable stew for Orson that will be ready and waiting for him, when he arrives at his new home!

Animal Rescue Site Holiday Shelter Challenge Daily Contest Update for Thursday, Oct 27

We are still in 8th place nationally!
Please be sure to vote TODAY from every computer you have access to! Please sign up at least ONE new voter TODAY! Just click on the link below to vote:

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/shelterchallenge.faces?

We're still at .75% and have not moved in days! Ninth and Tenth place are not moving either... they are still at .65% and .64% respectively.

Seventh place is still at .86% so they did not gain on us today, but neither did we gain on them. It is going to take a .12% surge for us to jump up into 7th Place!

Best Friends is still in first place with 1.93%... they are not weakening at all, and continue to climb.

The scariest part is that the Basenji Rescue is gaining ground on us in Texas! Today, we are only 2.29% ahead of them... down from 2.37% yesterday... down from 2.43% the day before! Somehow, we HAVE to get our voters energized...

And we have to get every voter to go find another voter if we are going to start moving forward again!

It is much harder now, I know. When you are competing on a national scale, our competition is getting large numbers of voters every day, just as we are. It takes all our effort just to stay even!

We will keep our votes coming in each day... and trying to sign up NEW voters each day... and see how high we can get!

If you would like to be added to my daily email distribution, please contact me at hellerich@aol.com.

Animal Rescue Site Holiday Shelter Challenge Daily Contest Results for Wed, October 27

We are still in 8th place nationally!
Please be sure to vote from every computer you have access to, and please try to sign up at least ONE new voter for us every day! Just click on the link below:

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/shelterchallenge.faces?

Today we are at .75%, the same as yesterday. 7th Place is up .01% today to .86 from .85 yesterday. We now need to gain .12% to move ahead of them!

Best Friends is still in first place with 1.93% of the vote. 2nd Place has moved from 1.49 to 1.50 to 1.51 in the last three days.

We are still in first place in Texas, although for the first time in weeks, we actually lost ground yesterday slipping from a lead of 2.43% over the Basenji Rescue to 2.37% lead today.

I have heard some folks ask "Where are all our voters?" but the fact is, our team is still voting every day in large numbers. It is just that our raw vote is less than #7 and all the others above us. Our teams' votes is what is holding us in 8th Place... without our big daily turnout, we would drop like a rock!

So please know that our team is still out there every day, scavenging for new voters and getting our votes up on the board... It is just that we are competing nationally against organizations much larger than ours!

We will keep our votes coming in each day and see just how high we can go!