July 1, 2005 

Senior Pets for Senior Homes www.7bellssanctuary.petfinder.com

We start the month by offering sympathy to Kim on the loss of Precious, Shanda and her family on the loss of Buster, Michele on the loss of Bear and Mary on the loss of Miss Empress. It is not easy letting go, yet it is the kindest final act when they can care for their beloved pet as they cross to the Bridge.

Visits to the Good Samaritan Care Center in Cole Camp were made by Marti and Tipi Girl and our newest volunteer, Devin taking Billy Bob. Tipi always has a tail wagging good time. Billy Bob started out a bit timid, then warmed up to everyone in wheelchairs extending their hands to touch him. Quite a change from the scared little dog that cringed from any hand when he first arrived.

Our special adoption for the month was delivering Monique into the arms of Martina. While she was actually adopted in May, Martina flew in from Florida in June and Marti personally handed her over to Martina. June adoptions were Billy Bob, Sammy, Lil Matt & Lil Joe. Lil Matt and Lil Joe were actually transfers to the foster home of another rescue who made sure they got good homes.

Heather surprised us with a visit to see Longview. He keeps surprising us with his courage to live. He has never forgotten her and stretched out beside her on the ground for hugs, petting and kisses. Michael, Janet and their children came out by appointment to meet all of the dogs.

Trina has been extremely helpful with the dogs here. We are able to take a different dog to each of her obedience/behavior modification classes.

We have had several young volunteers help us with holding the dogs this month. Payton, Alyssa, Madison and Devin have all been a tremendous help with the remaining small dogs of the original Magnificent 7 bunch. The dogs have made tremendous progress, yet definitely benefit from being held by young children. Plus, we MUST teach the children of today so that they will grow up to be the caretakers of pets in the future. We also have a new volunteer, Melvina, who is using her computer to help match dogs in shelters with rescue groups. Mary will soon be using her computer, courtesy of Art, and Marti will be using her computer, courtesy of Larold, to help spread the word about dogs needing homes. We adore all of our volunteers. All have special abilities and we are grateful for their help.

We were also pleased to have Brenda's day care children attend our first fund raiser and help with the dogs. We were very pleased at the turnout even in the hot weather. Patty and Ruby helped at the booths and Patty also served lunch to everyone. We have made plans to attend the next Dieckman Swap Meet/Gigantic Garage Sale to raise funds to care for the large, seniors that take longer to find fur-ever homes.

Last but not least, we had our annual inspection by the State of Mo. Gary Jones made recommendations to the fencing for the small dogs. He also made recommendations on some of our paperwork. He will return within 30 days to make sure we have followed his recommendations. Doug, Dallas, Robyn and Russell all gave up some of their valuable time to help us install proper small dog fencing. The fencing was designed with large dogs in mind, thus had to be improved for the small dogs that we recently took in.

We have made some changes to our home page and other pages. We hope you like the Saga of Tarot Yoda, courtesy of Brent at Petfinder. We could not do what we do without the continued help of Petfinder folks.