A Plea, a Please, to Keep a Meaningful Thing - Hound Sanctuary USA

From April Lamb. Dear Rescue Partners and Rescue Advocates,

Hound Sanctuary (USA) recently purchased, moved to, and retrofitted a much larger, more dog-friendly facility in order to have more room and more joy for more podencos, galgos, and others while we prepare them for and select their perfect forever homes. The sanctuary comprises a 5000 square foot building on about 2 acres of land that includes two very large yards, a medium sized yard, and a small yard, all with 6 foot tall, secured fencing.

In order to accomplish this huge step, I had to leave my paying job (my 10 year real estate business) behind. I am at the sanctuary all day and all night for the dogs. We sold our personal home in order to obtain the money for a down payment for the sanctuary property, and to have a bit of reserves to pay for the retrofits. I imagine that many people see the photos of the new sanctuary and think that we must be wealthy and not in need of help, but this could not be farther from the truth. Our entire life’s savings has already been poured into the sanctuary, yet unfortunately, there is still much that needs to be done, as needed repairs continue to be discovered, and changes for the dogs, such as remodeling one of the bathrooms into a dog bathing room, simply must be done.

Finding the funds for the remaining retrofits and ongoing repairs and maintenance, in addition to paying the monthly mortgage, insurance, utilities, and dog transport, et cetera, quite oddly, has become much more difficult since we opened the new sanctuary. Donations are down, Pawholders subscribers have not increased in several months, and our main source of fundraising—monthly auctions on Facebook—is recently losing its shine as Facebook has been burying auctions and other posts and disallowing us to place them in high visibility spots on our page. Add to this the plain fact that our old expenses—the ones we had before buying the new sanctuary—remain, always, and we are...well...growing more and more gray.

So what are we to do? We could either do less international transport, or we could ask our Spanish rescue colleagues to help, given the investment we’ve made in a safe place for rescued Spanish hounds; the former is antithetical to our founding mission, however, while the latter, I think, would be hard for most rescuers in Spain to fathom—understandably. We could increase our adoption fees so that the adopters cover the expense of bringing their hounds here; again, I suspect the result would be a lot of balking and a lot less adoptions. I could go out and find a full time job to help pay expenses, but then again, there would be less time for the dogs. Why exactly did we do this again?—to help dogs, of course, not to find a new way to keep paying for a new property I don’t need if I don’t rescue dogs.

What I know we have to keep doing no matter what, and ask you to also do, is to convince more and more people to support Hound Sanctuary. If every person that has ever visited our Facebook page donated $10 a month, we would likely never have to post this sort of plea again. Or, if I may dare to dream, perhaps one of you will become our very own rescue angel by making it your mission to convince someone of means to make an Endowment gift, a non-directed gift, a tribute or memorial donation, or a substantial cash donation to Hound Sanctuary.
Our reality is simple. We are dedicated to saving these hounds. We are here and committed to them. We need your commitment too—do not assume otherwise just because the sanctuary is beautiful and the dogs are happy and well. Do not let Hound Sanctuary run out of money because if that happens, it could all come crashing down, figuratively speaking. Please, if you love these hounds, if it truly is “all about the dogs” for you, then forget whatever else might be going on out there, and join us in keep this reality alive.

--
Rain Jordan, President
Hound Sanctuary
www.houndsanctuary.org
831.239.9417

Hound Sanctuary is devoted to rescuing, rehabilitating, and rehoming
abandoned, abused, and neglected hounds (and other dogs as funds and space allow)
locally, nationally, and internationally. We also provide long term safe haven
and lifelong emergency support, as well as public education and adopter services
including detailed care instructions and follow up, an adopter's
support group, and basic force-free training information and assistance.