Community Outreach

This past weekend was an interesting one that ended up on an extremely high note.

Friday at the Farmer’s Market we met someone ready to adopt Chinga, an American Bull Terrier (Spuds MacKenzie if you remember the reference). Unfortunately, the scheduled meet and greet did not go as planned, so we’ll have to reset trying to get her adopted (she was just a little too much energy for the older dog the man already owned ~ it happens sometimes so “meet & greets” are a good policy to ensure dogs are compatible before the commitment is made). ~ More than $110 was collected in donations on Friday.

Saturday we had six dogs set up outside in front of the PetCo in St. Augustine. For one of the surprisingly few times, weather was a factor and after a few hours it started to rain pretty hard. Earlier that day, a man and his kids had stopped by and spent time with Allie, a smaller brown lab mix. He left without making any claims to come back for her. Just as we had considered calling a day slightly ealier than planned, the family had reappeared and was now ready to adopt her. It was kind of diffucult to make sure all the paperwork stayed dry, but everyone was patient (a good sign for a family taking on a new dog), and we were able to complete the adoption before going home.

Sunday we went back to Petco, but since it would be just two of us, we decided we would take two dogs that had been at the shelter the longest.

Smokey, was a young adult pit-bull mix with a very nice personality whose prior owner could no longer keep him. He had been overlooked at the shelter for a pretty long time but today, with his kennelmate as the only other dog we took with us, he would have his day in the sun (yes the weather was better today too)…a couple saw him and although they mentioned they had been intending to adopt cats in the near future, Smokey was the exact type of dog they had one day planned on adopting. They left telling us they would discuss it so we kept our fingers crossed. Not soon after, they did indeed come back to take him home. As they completed the paperwork, we found out they lived in a rural area where Smokey will have lots of room.

That left us with Colbert, a dog found in Palm Coast on Colbert Lane well over two months ago, making him one of the dogs who had been at our shelter the longest. Colbert is a black lab mix with one brown eye and one bright blue eye which always got him noticed but still not yet adopted. It was so disappointing to have to bring this happy dog back to the shelter from one week to the next and now it was Sunday afternoon and he was the one and only dog we had at our adoption tent. UNTIL…

A man and his daughter came up to see him. It was late in the day and earlier we had gotten our hopes up from a couple who then talked themselves out of adopting him. Now I was thinking this would be one last shot to get him adopted today. They went into the store saying they would talk it over. As a volunteer, there isn’t much you can do but hope they walk back towards you as they exit the store. Well, that’s exactly what happened…they wanted to adopt Colbert. As we started the paperwork, I learned from the conversation that this was a career Marine who had obviously seen war up close and personnal, but he was very soft spoken and was adopting Colbert as a promised birthday present for his daughter. This man fought for our freedom and now Colbert had freedom in the form of a new home.

Rare is the occasion that Outreach volunteers don’t return any of the dogs that they start out the day with back to the shelter, but it feels great whenever you are part of the adoption process. If you have been thinking about getting involved with this part of volunteering, please get in contact with me so we can get the ball rolling.

Thanks!

~Howard