Carrie and Baxter Update
It looks like we may have to give back Carrie and Baxter. Rob and Marisol Thomas have been trying to keep this from happening. Here is what they are doing, and how you can help!

• Marisol and Rob Thomas’ open letter to their fans
• Interview with the Albany Times Union
• Interview with the New York Daily News
• Comment on the Black River Stable Guestbook
• Call the justice who awarded them the horses back (Justice Joseph Rechen) and express your outrage – 518-658-2020 (when they are not there it is a fax, so please feel free to fax a letter!).

Animal Updates

Since my last update on November 3rd the following dogs have been adopted: Cajun, Charlie, Cookie, Zoe, Jeb, Gustav, Thaddeux, Boomer, Tina (again), Delta, Butch, Sam, Craig, Maggie, Mallory, Hampton, Jill, Belle, Stayn, Miller, Buddy, Shiloh, Mitch, Mandy, Yody, Baby Girl, Buddy Boy, Eaton, Pharoah, Jada, Piper, Huckleberry, Steffi, Agassi, Dudley, Colonel Louie, Winnie, Raven and TWO cats!!! Junior, and Missi ! Wow. Forty animals in less than a month. Wow. Good luck our little four legged friends. Be good!

Special Needs:
We are thinking of doing away with our screening around the dog kennels and replacing it with something else. We thought perhaps clear plexiglass would work there – but it’s a LOT of plexiglass. The screens are pointless since we don’t use the kennels anymore in the summer and the dogs are outside, but in the winter it would be great to have that enclosed better than with torn and ratty screens. Anyone have any ideas, or a cheap way to get that? Email us with your suggestions!
Many months ago someone donated and printed stickers for us to use on our folders. We are in need again but I appear to have misplaced their information. Can anyone help us with this? We can not afford folders with our logo printed on them (which is what we give out when an animal is adopted, with all their paperwork in it) and someone had suggested buying inexpensive folders, printing up the stickers with our logo and putting them on each folder. We have been doing that but are now out. Please let us know if you have anyone that can help with this. The stickers were a good size that we could put in the center of the folder – there were four to a sheet of paper. Thanks for your help or input!
Please also remember us after the holidays. We can ALWAYS USE GIFT CARDS — Target, WalMart, Amazon – any gift card you received that you can’t use – I am SURE we can. Even redeem points for gift cards and donate to Pets Alive. We would really appreciate them.
This month we could really use some 3-lb paper trays,. We always need these and unless we get them donated, staff needs to hand wash over 100 metal dog dishes every day. A box of trays last a long time. Please consider donating some to us to free our staff up for other caretaking. We can also use Canon Ink Cartridges (30, 31), HP ink cartridges (92,93, 98) 100 foot hoses, panacur horse dewormer, Murphy’s oil soap, Libmann wonder mop mopheads, paper towels, bleach, garbage bags (black yard bags), Preventic collars, postage stamps, corn oil, and duct tape. Thanks for your kind consideration on these items!
Welcome to new staff
Pets Alive welcomes two new caretakers – Frank is our new cat caretaker and started this week, working with Dale at the cathouse. He’s a great guy and very good with the cats. We welcome him and thank him for joining our team. Please stop at the brick house and say hello. We also welcome Brianna who is our new horse caretaker. She will be starting on Sunday and has a great resume of horse knowledge. We’re thrilled to have her join our team as well.
Kayla’s Angels
This is Kayla. Kayla is an AMAZING young girl who has taken it upon herself to make, by hand, her “Angels of Hope”. These little angels are made of wire and beads are amazing. You would not believe that an eleven year old could have made them, they are simply astonishingly sweet, and beautiful. Kayla asks for a minimum of a $5 donation for each angel. She attaches a picture of one of the animals at Pets Alive and it says “Be an Angel of Hope for an animal”. ALL the proceeds go to Pets Alive. Please stop in to Pets Alive today to purchase your Angel of Hope.
Pets Alive – a Local Resource
Do you know that by the end of December, Pets Alive is on track to rehoming one THOUSAND animals. One thousand animals this year will lie in homes, on beds, in front of fireplaces, run with children, and give joy to one thousand families thanks to Pets Alive…and all of you. Are you aware of what a tremendous resource Pets Alive is becoming in this area? This past month we have taken in dogs from three other local shelters when they were out of space, and we placed all of those dogs in new homes. Shelters don’t WANT to kill animals. Some are forced to and so Pets Alive is stepping up to help and asking them to call us first. And they ARE. They are calling us from shelters and asking us to help, they are calling us from veterinary offices before they put down good dogs, transporters call us before they leave high-kill shelters to tell us about something special they think we could place – and place them we do. We are becoming exactly what we want to be – a powerful no-kill resource in this (and other!) areas. This has been our goal and thanks to all your support, we are reaching it. Now shelters, transporters, veterinarians have other options to euthanasia and that option is Pets Alive. Thank you for helping us be what we need to be – a place that says yes when others can not.
Thank you’s
We have to give very special thanks to Pat Whitacre (and Best Friends) this month. We have had a dog here that we have been making very little progress with. Amelia could not be handled and we had no idea how to help turn her life around. We found a wonderful supporter – Anita M who donated to us her frequent flier miles to fly Pat Whitacre here from Best Friends. Thank you to Best Friends for giving us this week with Pat. Pat not only had Amelia wagging her tail and coming to be walked, but he helped us with some other canine issues while here (such as some food aggressive dogs). Pat made such a difference in the week we were here – watch for a future blog on that this week, complete with pictures of Amelia being pet and walked and taken for rides in the car. Thank you so much to Pat, and for Anita and BF for helping to make it happen!
With one missing cat caretaker it was stressful for poor Dale…she (and all of us at Pets Alive) would like to STRONGLY thank the volunteers that came in every single day to help her out. Sonja and Lynn – thank you. Thanks so much for coming here every day and making sure everything was done so well. Thanks also of course to all or regular cat volunteers (Camille, Liz, Allison, Peggy, Jim and Bonnie) or also coming through for us!
Thank you to Joy who got us a list of everything needing to be done around here and then roping John into doing all the work for us. John is just getting started but we already love him. He and his wife adopted Shelby from us so it is great to see her again when they come!
Thank you to Sue and Marty! They are so cute! Sue came down here, removed the Halloween decorations and redid Pets Alive in a winter wonderland! It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! I just love it when the kennel area looks so beautiful. We are so appreciative of all your hard work and love for our shelter. Thank you for making us look so good!

Thank you to groomer Deb S. (who adopted Honey and Wally from us a couple of months ago) for coming in this week and bathing and grooming a bunch of our dogs. Mama Boxer just LOVED it and some other dogs that were in real need are feeling very nicely now. We really appreciate this kindness to our shelter pets. Thank you Deb.
Thank you to Joan for doing a video Montage of our animals and putting them to music – they are so much fun – you can watch them from our adoptive animal pages.
Many of you comment all the time at how wonderful the animal photos are on our website. We rarely ever publicly thank Becky for this but Becky comes here every single week and takes all these photos for us and uploads them all to her site for us to use. She has never once charged us a dime and always has a smile on her face, even in the pouring rain, freezing cold and with dirty dog paws all over her. Thank you so much Becky. We could NEVER EVER do this without you. We are so appreciative of everything you do for us.
We have a banner!!! TWO in fact! We have never had a banner for Pets Alive Events and Elaine C. took it upon herself to get someone in her company to print up and send us two banners. They are just FABULOUS!! Thank you Elaine! We love them!
Thank you to Lauren B for all the data entry help. You really helped us in getting up to date with our database. Thank you so much for sitting there all day with your task and being so courteous and polite. We so appreciate your help.
Thank you to Don B. who filmed the video of Pets Alive for us for our Furry Tail Evening. He did a great job and people “awwed” in all the right places. It was a great film.
Special thanks to Toni for helping us out when the latest transport arrived and some of the dogs coming from a southern shelter were very ill. Janet was off that day and Toni immediately jumped in, took control, handled everything smoothly and efficiently and helped to save the life of the puppies on that transport and ensure the safety of the other dogs by not cross contaminating anything. You’re a lifesaver Toni…thank you.
Thank you to Animal Communicator Joanna Seere for coming in and loving up Buddy and working with many of our special needs animals. Thanks Joanna – you are the sweetest person!
Very special thanks to our crazy volunteer transport team Cathy and Cyndi. They will have a blog soon about their adventure but both used their own funds and time off to drive non stop for three days to save a van load of dogs. You guys are the absolute BEST. Thank you for saving all those precious lives!
Thank you to Steven Lutz – again his Eder Fan Club ebay site has been continuing to raise money for Pets Alive. You’re the best Steven!
Thanks to the overwhelming number of people that called, emailed, donated and volunteered to help to get the pregnant boxer to us. Please check our blog for more information and updates about the pregnant boxer (not!) and the litter of pups we took from that shelter.