05/08/2019
I had the pleasure to get to spend some time here in their barn. This is an amazing place. Even if u have $5 im sure every penny would count.
I met Carol Hine, the founder of SAINTS online in 2004. She was writing a blog about the animals she was fostering and I was captivated by her stories. I remember Arthur the blind german shepherd, Brew and Sophie the seniors that had lymphoma cancer, Wilber the pug who was an indiscriminate p**p eater, Bill the lab who was too plain to have ever received a single adoption request, and finally Cooper the beagle from hell who had gone to and lost 6 homes. In 2004 I adopted my heart dog, Butch, who had lymphoma cancer. I remember carefully counting on my hands how many months longer Sophie and Brew had lived past the time they had been given by the vet. I don’t remember which one - but one had gone 7 months beyond - and we are talking about 15 and 16 year old large dogs here. I emailed Carol and introduced myself and Butch and asked for advise on how to keep Butch alive longer. She emailed me back and explained that Sophia and Brew were in palliative care and that meant they got pizza and cookies for dinner. A few weeks or month later, there was a dog that arrived at my local shelter – His name was Marley and he was an old pit-bull lab mix of some sort. He was withdrawn and quiet and he looked like death was whispering in his ear. Marley disappeared from the shelter one day and he went not where I thought... but with Carol. Soon after Carol announced, on a pet forum, that she was starting a rescue I think I was one of the first people to email her and say I wanted to help. Six months later Marley passed away and I still remember crying. That poor soul who probably had not had a good life didn’t die in a shelter not belonging to anyone. He died wrapped in someone’s arm and he belonged to someone. Marley is what SAINTS is all about.
Fifteen years later there is still a running theme of the animals that come to SAINTS. One just has to read the Facebook stories of the animals that come to SAINTS, pass away at SAINTS and sometimes find their very own homes after arriving at SAINTS. Some are lucky enough to find a home, like Molly who waited a year to find that home. And some like Yoda, Stanley, and Conan (all who passed away last week) have SAINTS be there last home.
SAINTS started with 30 animals and today we have 121 animals at the shelter and over 40 in permanent foster homes. Each has their own story to tell. We are their voice to the rest of the world. Even though we have more animals, more property, developed better programs and things have changed and yet they have not. Spay/ neuter has revolutionized the BC animal welfare landscape. Young, healthy dogs and cats are now harder to find. But what hasn’t changed is that the old, the sick, the unadoptable and the palliative are still streaming into shelters and the reality for SAINTS is that the amount of requests we get now is probably greater than when we began.
We wish we could run SAINTS without asking for donations but the reality is we wouldn’t have been able to expand and help over 1000 animals in the last 15 years without donations. We have 10 days to raise $8,000 and hit our goal of $24,000. If you believe that all animals deserve to have hope for a better tomorrow please consider donating to our campaign The Amazing Raise. I thank you, Carol thanks you, the staff and the volunteers thank you and especially our SAINTLY crew thank you.
Team Shop http://fundrazr.com/Team_Shop
Team MP Room http://fundrazr.com/Team_MPRoom
Team Barn https://fundrazr.com/Team_Barn
Team House http://fundrazr.com/Team_House
~Sheila Kullar
