Sanctuary animal updates:
Since our last update on March 20th, we have found homes for Sheba, Connor, BooBoo, Nelson (again), Eden, Gus, Kiali, Diamond, Cisco, Buttercup (again), Zoie, Hank, Myra, Bear, Harley, Blackjack…and a cat!!! Barney found another home, thank goodness! He was too young to spend his life here. He went to live with the people who adopted Kiali.
We BEG all our adopters to please post updates in our online forum. We LOVE to see the pictures and read the stories. Note that we have added a whole bunch ourselves, but we’d love to follow our animals stories, and so do our volunteers. Check out the adorable picture of Eden in there. Too cute! We also got updates on Hunter, Foxy, Rex, and more. Take a look, and add your own.
We took in a wonderful dog from another rescue group this week that asked us to help. Daisy is just the sweetest rottweiler and was scheduled for euthanasia. A wonderful rescuer, Doreen could not stand to allow her to be killed. She spent her own time and money to save this dog and finally found us. We took Daisy in and we absolutely love her. Daisy is the most gentle, kind, fun dog. She has a great sense of humor and we all really like her. She is eight years old, has some arthritis, but she generally does ok, and she absolutely loves toys – especially balls of any kind. Come on down and play with Daisy. Or better yet, consider giving her a home. She’s had a really sad, sad life. She deserves a family to love her, and believe me, she will give that love back.

Horse Update
Blackie continues to do well. His eye is completely healed now and he is so much happier. The first few days were a little weird for him as he got used to only one eye but now as long as you don’t startle him on his blind side, he is back to being his friendly, affectionate self. We REALLY need people to come and groom, bathe and brush our horses. This is the season for this. They are shedding their winter coats and they need to be brushed out and washed to get all the dirt from winter out of their coats. PLEASE come and help us if you are familiar with horses. We have ten horses here that need your care!
We are also laying seed in all our pastures. OH MY GOODNESS I had no idea how expensive pasture mix seed was. $70 a 25 pound bag! We bought six, but it didn’t do the job. Can’t afford any more right now, so if anyone is feeling selfless do you think you can get us some pasture mix? We could use about another six more bags. Come on – these horses have NEVER had an opportunity to really graze. We really want them to have grass to graze on. We also rented a spreader from United Rental. The guys there are just the BEST. Thank you guys for your generosity. So anyone feel like coming up and spreading some seed? Please help us make this a better environment for our horses.
Speaking of which we are working on getting our horse groups together. The plan is to put all four of our very elderly horses together – Blackie, MoonRay, Maureen and Kingfish, our two Cushings horses are already together – Molly and Murphy and that will leave a third “herd” of Noble, Devil, Mary and Francis. We will have about six pastures, if we can get them seeded, to rotate the horses through so that they can finally graze like real horses. Come and help us! We need to get the fields seeded, we need to take down fencing to make the pastures bigger, we need to repair fences that have boards broken, and we need to paint the fencing that we have. This is the time of year we need you to really come out and help us. If you get this newsletter and you can’t afford to give financially, then please give us your time and your labor. We NEED you or we simply can not keep doing this. These animals are in your community and need your help, love and support.
New Dogs
We got a call from a shelter we have helped in the past. They had some of the youngest, most beautiful dogs – all about to be put down. Could we help? All dogs had to be spoken for by Friday and out by Sunday. We immediately looked over the list and we pulled 14 dogs. We called our transporter, but alas, they were off for the week, and unavailable. We called two other transporters but they wanted $100 a dog to get them here. Ouch. No way we could afford it.
I was starting to get desperate and went down to the kennel with the printed list and pictures of the dogs.
John S, a serial volunteer was there. I asked him if we rented a van would he drive the 15 hours to get the dogs, then stop 4 hours away at another shelter and pull 12 dogs from there as well. He looked at me and smiled, like I was kidding, but when I didn’t smile back he just nodded and said “Let me make some calls.”
Within an hour he had worked out a replacement for him at his job (thankfully his boss adopted a dog from us a month ago and was fully supportive and helpful) and he was ready to go the next morning. Problem? He needed a co-driver and a van.
Well, Matt started calling around to rent-a-van places and when Enterprise heard what we needed they dropped their usual rate of $440 and 25 cents a mile to just $400 and unlimited mileage. THANK YOU ENTERPRISE! It is local business help like this that keeps us going. The total on the truck now is 20 adult dogs, and ten puppies.
Still, how are we going to pay for the gas, the van, the hotel, the health certificates and other expenses for these dogs? Enter Rose T., who IMMEDIATELY made a generous donation to cover all of those costs. She has come through time and time again to save dogs with us. Without her I can guarantee you that at least 70 dogs that we saved in the past few months would be dead right now. Her financial help has paid for all of those dogs to be brought here. Thank you Rose. You are truly a blessing to us, and there are many dogs who owe you their lives and their happy homes.
Now, a co-driver. Hmmm. We looked around and there was our medical liaison, Janet, minding her own business, cleaning dog ears and filling out charts and Matt and I looked at her and she looked at us and she said “Uh Oh”, and soon enough she was making calls and she was out with John the next morning. They picked up the van, loaded it up with crates (no room for their luggage!) and drove all night. They arrived at 3 am, went to sleep for four hours, and met the shelter worker the next day to load up the dogs. While there a dog, who had been dumped in the parking lot that morning, was discovered and that went into the van too (see picture of Janet with the abandoned dog!). Off they went to the next pick up only to find the people were late. Three hours late actually! They waited with all the dogs in the car, and the new folks met them (they were REALLY VERY NICE, but everything down South is flooded and they were met with tons of problems that day in getting to the location). They loaded up and hit the road.
They are currently on their way back and will again drive all night. It is 3:30 here and we are fifteen hours away. They will arrive sometime in the wee hours of the morning after driving all night, for two days straight. Remember that John is a volunteer. He received nothing for this. Janet doesn’t get overtime, we simply can’t afford it. She is also on her own time. I can’t tell you how emotional I get when I think of the selfless act of these two people to save 27 young, sweet, friendly dogs, from being euthanized. These are people that are truly putting their love of animals before anything else. I don’t know what else to say about that, because when I think on it too hard, my eyes well up….but if you see Janet or John around here, just give them a hug and say “thank you”, will ya?
Now we have to get all these dogs spayed, neutered, up to date on shots, deal with all their medical problems (many are sure to have heartworm) and chipped and into homes. Please, can you help us with a donation?
Dog Training?
We have found a dog trainer that will be running canine obedience classes from Pets Alive. The course is $250 and is seven weeks in length. It is all positive reinforcement training and during that time you will teach your dog to sit, stay, come, down, walk on a loose leash, off (no jumping), and leave it. The classes will be held on Tuesdays or Thursdays for one hour, fifteen minutes a session. If you would like to join up for our next class, please email training@petsalive.com with your preferred day of the week and we will set up a schedule. There will only be five or six dogs allowed in each class, so space is very limited. We will take members in the order they apply and the rest we will put on a waiting list for the next class, so please sign up as soon as possible if you wish to attend.
Thank you volunteers
Carmine and John have started installing the new fiberglass dog doors. Thank you guys so much. This is so much work, but thanks to them, Cindy M and most especially Joe Sylvester from Creative Glass in Wyckoff NJ our dogs and staff will soon be safer and happier in their kennel runs.
Thank you also, to the wonderful Linda Eder. Linda is a musician that helps raise money for Pets Alive at her concerts. She started this tradition at her concerts where she invites people to come up and put quarters on the stage. She gathers them all up at the end of the show and gives them to us. She had a concert this month and invited us to attend. Let me tell you if you have not heard her, you really don’t know what you are missing. Matt and I had a fabulous time at the concert and her new album “The Other Side of Me” is available on her website. At the end of the concert, she gave us almost $4000 that she had raised over the past few months in this fashion. Thank you Linda.
Pets Alive also welcomed the Minisink 4H club last week. These kids held an event for us and collected tons and tons of items for Pets Alive. Dog toys, beds, food, bleach, cat litter, cat food, you name it! They showed up with all the animal items they raised for us and filled our garage! Just goes to show you what kids today can do, and what a great lesson for them. Matt took them around and gave them a tour and tried to keep them all from getting hurt and it looks like he did a great job. Thank you Tara and the 4H kids, and Matt. We so appreciate being the beneficiary of your kindness.
Speaking of Matt, he reminisces about Sara on the one year anniversary of her death, remembering some of the animals as well. Read it at The Pets Alive Blog.
Don’t forget our upcoming events
Girl Scout Cadette Troop 454 of Liberty is hosting a big adoption event at Betta Pets & Supplies in Monticello, NY, on April 19th, from 10-2. We will be bringing many of our dogs and cats to this adoption event and would love to see you there. Volunteers also needed to help staff it, pack up and unload. Please contact Jill if you can help that day.
Rusty’s Place has asked us back for Saturday April 26th. We’ll be there with some of our cats for adoption. In addition the owner of the Lighting Emporium (across from Rusty’s) has asked if we would like to coordinate another adoption event with his huge annual sale. His sale will be April 25 – April 27, and we’ll be there!

Please consider helping us continue our mission
of finding homes for animals in need!