Sanctuary animal updates:
Since our last update on May 19th the following dogs were adopted: Terry2, Rebecca, Doris, Frenchy, Sammy, Denver, Sparky, Yogi (but was returned), Jasper, Dudley, Paisley, Strutter, Tangelo, Glacier, Zesty, Agassi, Forbes, Charmin, Treasure, Nanook, Denali, Scooter, Stewie, Finnegan, Moxie, Honeycomb, Lola, Dempsy, Samson, Scrappy Doo, Penelope, Clover, Bambi, Juniper, Breeze, Jazz, Sadie, Precious. Precious had an amazing story and you can read all about her here. She is now safely in her new home with one of our daily volunteers – Sonya. They are BOTH so happy and we are really glad. This was truly a great match. Foxy, one of our horses was also adopted this month.
Snausage was once again, NOT adopted. This is a picture of him telling everyone what he thinks of that. Sorry Snausage. We will try again this month for you.

We had a slow three weeks for adoptions because we took in a few dogs that had some very weird symptoms. We are used to kennel cough and various other respiratory illnesses as dogs develop this as a result of stress from transporting or kennel life in general, and we treat it and they are fine within a few days. It is par for the course in a kennel where dogs come in and out. But this time we had some nagging issues with some dogs that was just not clearing up and some symptoms that made us decide to quarantine them much longer to be sure to keep adopters dogs and our volunteers dogs safe. We took nasal swabs and blood from every single dog on the property (over 80 in all) and sent them to be tested. It all came back clean except for some minor regular stuff. Still we always feel it is better to err on the side of caution and make sure we don’t transmit or help spread canine disease. Thankfully this time it was overkill but we feel that this is the only responsible w
ay to run a shelter and a kennel.
Thank you to the staff that worked extra hard and Janet for going above and beyond these weeks to make sure everyone was ok. Thanks also to Dr. Crawford who ran all our samples FREE OF CHARGE except for our shipping costs. She has been WONDERFUL to us. A very interesting result though was that dogs that have distemper shots were showing they had not built up immunity to it in many cases. It is now felt that if you did not give your dog a series of three distemper shots (such as they would have gotten as puppies) that even though you vaccinate them yearly it is not creating full immunity. This is frightening. As a result we will more than likely be changing shelter policy and RE-vaccinating every dog with a three part series of distemper shots and we are recommending that you do the same for your dog if you do not kn
ow his past history and if his shots were done correctly as a pup. Sadly we do not know the history of most of the dogs that come here. I plan to revaccinate the two dogs I adopted as well. I am not personally a big proponent of vaccinations, I will be honest with you, but the results of the testing of every dog in our kennel has us realizing this is the only safe mode of attack. Distemper is almost always fatal. If your dog gets it, he will likely die. So we want you to know of these latest facts so you can make an educated decision. Dr. Crawford is an expert in the field of shelter medicine and illnesses. She has rewritten the recommended protocol for shelter animals.
Intakes:
This month we took in a dog from Brooklyn (Nikita), Bobey and Penelope from S.C., we got Max, Sadie, Van, Samson, Yogi and Fresco back, and took in Johnny and Rem locally.
Animal Cares and Concerns
Biggie has lost a whopping 16 pounds! Please come down and walk him. He needs to move around in frequent SHORT walks. Long walks are still a no-no because he could have a heart attack with the amount of weight he is carrying but he LOVES people and loves to get out. Please help us continue his weight loss program. Houma also continues to do well and we’d say he was out of the woods now and completely recovered. Now all we need is a home for him. Oreo (the kitchen cat) had to go in for a dental this week. She did fine and is back in the kitchen wreaking havoc and attacking everyone she can get her little claws on. Glen (horse) continues to improve with his leg issues and Moonray is doing well too. Our new horse caretaker, Renee, is just great and she is working with all the horses on their rude behavior. She even has Murphy being polite and taking his cushings medication. He used to be a bear about it but now he accepts he IS going to take it and the sooner he does,
the sooner he can be let alone again. So all in all they are coming around to Renee’s way of thinking and learning to be polite, courteous and respectful. Thanks Renee.

We ran a Chip-In, and raised over $5000 but it ended without reaching the total. Please consider helping us with this. We need to order the fencing SOON. I have another Chip-In running now to try to complete the raising of the money that we need.
Gift Cards
Looking for the perfect gift? Give Pets Alive for all your occasions. Make a donation to Pets Alive in someone’s name and we’ll send them a card that you can personalize. We currently have six cards (dogs, cats, mouse, horse, etc) to choose from, and six different occasions (Birthday, Celebration, Sympathy, etc). Click here to see all our cards and send one today! You can also add a personal message to your card.
General Updates:

Janet was on her way to the vet’s office this week and when she arrived they told her that a young man had just been in trying to find a home for his dog. He had no where to live and he was deeply worried about his dog, feeding her and finding her somewhere safe to be. He seemed not to care about himself. The receptionist gave him directions to our place, not realizing he was walking (we are a few miles away) and he headed out to walk to us. Janet ran out to find him, and did. She met Eddie and Jodicee, his dog, and both were equally sweet and down on their luck. We put them up for the night until we could figure out how to help. The next day Matt and I met with Eddie and found him to be a clean, honest, decent man. We told him he was welcome to stay in our small apartment in exchange for helping in the kennel and with the yard work. He readily agreed. Please stop in and make him feel warm and welcome. He has only the backpack he was carrying, and he doesn’t drive,
so it is difficult for him to shop and get food. If you come down, feel free to make and bring him something to eat! His room has a refrigerator and a microwave. Most of all, we are dog friendly and his beloved dog can stay with him. We don’t know how long Eddie will be with us, but he and Jodicee are welcome and perhaps he was sent to us for a reason. For us to help him, but also for him to help us. I know you will all be kind and compassionate to this very sweet young man. He seems shy to take anything from us, and is very eager to earn his keep here. Since we’re very eager for some steady help, it is truly a good match.
Thank You:

So much to be thankful for. We sent a separate mailing out this week to thank Becky and all the people that helped with our yard sale. It was a great event. Becky is simply amazing. I know how exhausting it was for her. (Becky would work a 12 hour day at her job, drive an hour up here and then work here for 2-4 hours, then drive all the way back and do it again the next day). Thank you so much Beck.
Huge thanks also to Trudy S. Trudy adopted Aaron and Kendall from us. When our dryer blew up last week she emailed me and said go ahead and buy a brand new one, she’d foot the bill and while we were at it, our washing machine looked a little shaky, we should get a new one too…oh and buy that three year maintenance plan. WOW. We were floored. We started squealing like little girls (well that was mostly Matt) and we danced around with our eyes bugging out. Yowsa. What an awesome thing. She gave us a $2000 budget! We got front end loaders – so we can wash those big dog blankets, and these things even have a setting for towels! We sometimes walk in there just to stare at them in awe. Staff is fighting over who gets to do laundry now. 🙂 Trudy – thank you so much.
Thank you to the OTHER Becky who has been coming regularly to work with our dogs. You’re a real sweetheart and the dogs really appreciate the time you spend with them.
Thank you to April from NatureSpeaks. She has a Nature Photography & Paintings website and would like to donate a minimum of $5.00 per sale to Pets Alive Animal Sanctuary from all sale proceeds, some items will be a larger donation & in the person’s name who purchased the print.
Anthony Trott is also trying to help Pets Alive raise funds for our eventual veterinary clinic. You can review his artwork and website here. Thanks Anthony.
When Bob and Maryellen found out the dryer died, they also offered to buy us one (and we had a lot of you guys checking freecycles for us – THANK YOU!). I advised that Trudy had already stepped up to that plate but we also desperately needed a harrow for the horse fields. Could they help us? They didn’t even bat an eye – absolutely was the answer and then they sent twice the amount of the harrow so we could get anything else we needed. Weeks like this make my eyes water. I can’t believe people are so good to us. Thank you all for believing in us and for caring so much. Renee ran right out and bought the harrow. Currently we have to pick up all the manure in our fields. Horses eliminate about 10-12 times a day. Multiply that by 10 horses. See where we’re at? Ugh. This harrow will enable us to break it up and spread it as we
rotate pastures. It is an absolute godsend. Thank you Bob and M.E.
Thank you to John R. for donating a whole bunch of cabinets, dishwashers (that we sold at the yard sale), bathroom fixtures and shelving to us. Thanks to Joe for helping us get all these items and making the connection for us. Thank you to Frank V for giving us the truck for transport. Together you really helped us here and we can’t wait to get everything installed. Our supply room will be amazing once they are in.
That bring us to the man of the month – Marty. Marty and his wife Lynette came down with the help of their friend Eric to redo our bathroom. It was QUITE a major job. All the walls and ceiling had to be ripped out they were so rotted, decayed and filled with odor due to the past rodent issue that has been down there. It was hideous. Now? AMAZING. The bathroom is completely redone, clean, new sink and cabinet. It was such a boost to staff and volunteers since that is their main bathroom. It’s pleasant to use now and not like going into a portosan. Marty is also going to be ripping out the walls in the storage room and putting the cabinets in for us. These were REALLY nice people. We saw them again at the yard sale too. If you have work you need done, I can highly recommend him. You can contact Marty at: L&M Home Improvements, P.O. Box 1133 Wurtsboro, NY 12790 (845)498-9046 (email is mad-man-marty@hvc.rr.com).
Thank you to Alina for the donation of office furniture. Alina works for a company that was replacing all their office desks, chairs and cabinets. She thought we might be able to use the old stuff. OLD STUFF? It’s immaculate and looks brand new. It’s gorgeous. Thanks for thinking of us Alina, that was really kind. (Alina adopted Zoe, the big St. Bernard from us!)
Big thanks to the Connecticut Humane Society for the food donation. They got a huge donation that they could not use and thought of us. Thank you Maria for putting us together with them and driving all of it over to Matt’s so he could transport it the rest of the way here. Thank you very much.
Thanks to a great group of 8th graders from the National Junior Honor Society of The George Grant Mason School in Tuxedo, NY and their advisor OJ Meekins, who carried out their community service project at Pets Alive recently.
John H. (the lone volunteer who showed up for May Spruce Up day and weed wacked all day!)
The Morris brothers, Sean and Matt, who weed whacked the memorial garden while the yard sale was taking place.
Ken and Wendy, who are working out the final details for starting up the youth education programs at Pets Alive and GOT OUR KENNEL lights working! The middle row has not worked in about two years. THEY DO NOW! Thank you guys!
TrishAnn who saw the plea for help when we were “in laundry hell”. In less than an hour showed up at our doorstep and lugged a couple of loads of Pets Alive laundry to the laundromat.
Fran and Dave D., donated food , supplies and treats. Dave came back the next week and fixed the fence leading to the dog yard to make it much easier to open and close. He also noticed our diesel tractor wasn’t firing on all pistons and promised to come back and replace them. Thanks Davey.
Alumni Picnic
The first annual ‘Alumni Picnic’ will be held on June 20th. This is for all dogs that have been adopted from Pets Alive to come back for the day with their families to enjoy a picnic, games, and fun day! There is NO COST! It is our way of thanking you. On that day we will move all our dogs in to the kennel for the day and set your dogs up in the outdoor runs. If yours gets along with others we’ll match up a few dogs per run! It will be great to wander from run to run and say hello to everyone that was adopted in the past few years. We would love to welcome you and your dog(s) back, say hello, love on them for a little while and talk and laugh with you. We will be serving drinks and beer and food and we invite you to bring something if you wish – BUT NOT NECESSARY! Please RSVP (yes only) to volunteer@petsalive.com.
We could use some help that day too! We need loan of a megaphone or a PA system, music – can you say DJ? Better yet, ARE YOU A DJ???, tables, tents, grills, traffic cones, cooks to create culinary delights, such as potato salad, pasta salad, baked beans, desserts, or let us know your specialty!
We need people to work the event: setup crew & cleanup crews (put up tents, tables, chairs/take down tents tables chairs), parking attendants -(determine appropriate parking areas prior, and direct traffic at event), dog yard attendants, welcome center greeters (sign-in guests, issue name tags), 50/50 Raffle sellers (roving), merchandise table staff (sell t-shirts and 50/50 raffle tickets at table), grillmeisters, food servers, hosts, hostesses (stage the food and replenish supplies as necessary).
Activity Coordinators to run the Blessing of the Animals, Alumni parade, Face painters, Fun activities( Water Balloon Race, 3 legged race, etc.), Dog Contests
If you can help, please send an email to volunteer@petsalive.com Please be sure to type what you will help with in the subject line. Let’s make this a HUGE SUCCESS! If you are coming and you have NOT RSVP’d, please do so! We nweed to have an estimate on how many folks and dogs will be there!
Special Needs
Needs this month are COLLARS. We REALLY need dog collars. Even used ones. Please. We had a whole group of dogs chew the collars off each other this month. The little varmints. Paper towels, bleach, dog toys, loose leaf rings, paper plates, plastic utensils, paper coffee cups, plastic cups, 3-lb paper trays, a tri-fold machine, and garbage bags (black yard bags and kitchen draw string bags). Thanks for your kind consideration on these items!