Quarterly Newsletter July-September 2021 |
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Read about what's been happening at HSoP! |
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Welcome to our second quarterly newsletter! Here, you'll find a summary of everything that's gone on at HSoP in the last few months. From fundraisers, to events, to stories about some of our most special animals, you'll get a behind-the-scenes look at a few of the most important happenings at our shelter. |
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July turned out to be quite the busy month for HSoP. Here are some of our highlights: HSoP's Reopening On July 5th, HSoP opened its doors to the public for the first time since March of 2020. It was a long and bumpy year for all of us, but we're thrilled to finally welcome our community members back inside the shelter! As many people know by now, we're open to the public on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 1:00-4:30pm every week. We are available by appointment only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Our wonderful supporters have adjusted to this new schedule, and we look forward to opening our doors full-time once it is safe enough for our staff, animals, and community. It has been lovely seeing the public come into our facility and fall in love with their new best friends. We hope to see more potential adopters as the months roll on! Donation Bin Kitten At about 8:30 on the morning of July 10th, one of our Animal Care Attendants arrived at the shelter to hear a kitten crying from the donation bin outside our front door. The kitten was crying so loud, Megan could hear her from across the parking lot. We checked the outdoor cameras to reveal that about 45 minutes earlier, somebody had come by and dropped the six-week-old kitten, loose and by herself, into the donation bin. Megan took this sweet kitty inside for some food and water, and later named her Doja. Thankfully, Doja looked to be a healthy kitten. She stayed at HSoP until she was grown enough to be spayed, and kept staff entertained the entire time. Our Public Relations Manager, Lauren, loved Doja so much that she decided to give her a forever home. Now at about 16 weeks old, little miss Doja is a happy, healthy, and rambunctious kitten! You can take a look at her pretty face below. |
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July Microchip Special Each quarter, we offer microchip services for 50% off for an entire month. July happened to be another month for microchip specials, and we're excited to see our community members taking advantage of this deal! In July, we saw ten pets come through our doors and leave with permanent identification. These seven cats and three dogs can now always find their way back home if they happen to get lost. For just $15, the owners of these pets can have peace of mind knowing their furry friends will come back home. Thank you to everyone who took advantage of this opportunity! For those interested in our microchip specials, October will be our next month to offer 50% off rates. If your pet isn't already microchipped, we encourage you to come in and take part in this special. Penguin Kittens Back in June, we had two lovely tuxedo kittens come to us after being found on a farm. This brother and sister combo settled in nicely, and were joined by another sister less than two weeks after arriving. The black and white trio were quickly given names based on famous penguins, and were aptly called the 'penguin kittens'. Linux, Pingu, and Lala were wonderful kitties who each had their own distinct personality. They continued to grow and learn through their stay at HSoP, and found their forever homes by the middle of July. Moscow Realty graciously sponsored the stay and adoption fee for each of these kitties, ensuring they would have no problem getting adopted. Thank you Moscow Realty! |
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August was an exciting month at HSoP, and just as busy as July. Here's some highlights: Kitten Season Sponsorships August 30th marked the unofficial end of kitten season, and the official end of our kitten season sponsorships. We would like to thank Deborah Howerton, The Holden Family, Moscow Realty, Emily Hartside, Katherine King, and Sugar Danimals for choosing to become kitten season sponsors this year. With your generosity we were able to save, raise, and rehome dozens of kittens in the last few months. Thank you so much for your contributions! We still have plenty of kittens flowing through our doors, and will always happily accept any financial or material donations. If you'd ever like to donate to our cause, please visit the HSoP kitten supply wish list on Amazon! New Staff Member HSoP typically requires three full-time animal care attendants (ACAs) to take care of our animals properly and keep the shelter running. In May of this year, one of our awesome ACAs left for another position. We immediately started the search for a dedicated and skilled ACA to fill this role. It took several months of looking for the right candidate, but we finally met the perfect fit! Kassidy started here on August 17th, and has quickly adjusted to the way we do things. Kassidy has always loved animals (especially her cat Sophie), and is excited to work in such an animal-oriented environment. We are so thankful for Kassidy and her dedication to the animals! It has been extremely helpful to have another set of hands around here. Welcome, Kassidy! Clear the Shelters This year's Clear the Shelters adoption event was a success! From August 23rd to 28th, we offered adoptions for free and half-price. The nationwide adoption incentive was spearheaded by NBCUniversal, who graciously allowed us to use their graphics and photos for advertising purposes. The purpose of Clear the Shelters is to do just that- clear out the shelter and make room for more homeless animals. To incentivize adoptions, our generous sponsors paid for 11 cat adoptions and 5 dogs adoptions to be free and half-off! This week-long adoption event helped immensely in finding homes for some of our longest-staying guests. New Dog Kennel Gate When we talk about how awesome our community is, we really mean it. For a while now, HSoP has been looking to install a gate in our dog kennels that separates the "quarantine area" from the rest of the kennels. This area is specifically meant for dogs with unknown vaccine records and behavioral histories. When a stray dog comes to the shelter, we will first place them in the quarantine area to ensure our other dogs aren't exposed to any infectious diseases. We wanted the gate installed to keep the public away from this section and its residents. When we approached Nathan from Cedar Ridge Construction about having the gate installed, he said he could have it done in no time. Fast forward a little while later, and Nathan had installed a beautiful and functional gate for HSoP staff to use. He didn't stop there. Nathan decided to donate his time and materials to our shelter! The money saved from this new gate will go on to help feed, vaccinate, and provide medical care for several of our homeless pets. Thank you Nathan from Cedar Ridge Construction! |
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Howling at Hamilton This year's dog day at the pool was a blast! We saw more than 270 dogs attend the five-hour-long event, and there was tail-wagging fun the entire time! The UI Men's Tennis Team generously donated a few hundred tennis balls to hand out, and these were great for getting nervous dogs to leap into the water. Some of the more confident jumpers made sure to participate in our pool jumping contest at 5:00 to show off their skills. This year's winners leaped more than 20 feet into the pool, wow! Each of the three winners enjoyed awesome canine gift baskets from Idaho Central Credit Union. The fun-tastic fundraiser generated more than $4,000 for HSoP, which will help immensely in our ability to provide care for homeless animals. Our PR Manager was on-site to photograph the festivities, and these pictures were then uploaded to Facebook for our supporters to see. We would like to thank everyone who made Howling at Hamilton another success this year! We already can't wait for next year's dog day at the pool. |
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Adam Browder visits HSoP Multi-platinum country star Kip Moore had a performance at the University of Idaho on September 9th. A few days before the concert, we were contacted by Adam Browder, lead guitarist for Kip Moore. As an animal lover himself, Adam explained that he tries to make time to visit local shelters while on tour. He asked to visit our facility and meet some of our available animals so he could shed some light on the work we do. The day of the concert, Adam left soundcheck to pay us a visit. We really enjoyed having him here, and so did our pups! He edited together a wonderful video about his visit and the dogs we had available for adoption. Going above and beyond, Adam also launched a fundraiser that generated more than $180 for HSoP! Best of all, both dogs featured in his video have since been adopted. We are truly thankful that Adam has chosen to use his personal platform to support shelter animals! Bonfire T-shirt Campaign On September 16th, we launched our first campaign through a fundraising platform called Bonfire. This company helps nonprofits to create online fundraisers through the sale of branded merchandise. For our first campaign, we had the graphic designers from Bonfire illustrate the beautiful face of Wobbles, HSoP's office cat of close to 15 years who recently passed away in January. This illustration was then set as the focal point of each shirt, with our name and slogan surrounding the design. The shirts for our campaign are printed and sent out every ten days, which helps cut down on material costs and increase the profit that goes back to our shelter. HSoP receives all profit after material, labor, and shipping costs. We hope our community enjoys these shirts honoring Wobbles and her legacy. With the wide array of merchandise available on Bonfire, we look forward to launching more fundraisers for our supporters to participate in! This first campaign of ours sold 29 shirts and raised $301.02 for our shelter. Thank you so much for supporting our mission! We can't wait to see these shirts around Moscow and Latah County. Little Italy's Medical Care In late August, a sweet kitten believed to be about 5 months old was found with a leg injury along 1st Street in Moscow. The little man swooned HSoP staff with his unique markings that resembled a beard and goatee. This kitty, lovingly named Little Italy, was taken to Animal Clinic & Hospital for treatment. It was soon discovered that his back right leg was broken and in need of a cast. The wonderful team of veterinarians patched him up in no time, thus starting his six-week-long recovery process. Little Italy rocked his beautifully designed cast for most of September, before having it removed on the 27th. He still has about 10 days of cage rest left before he can find his forever home, and he'll work on building back some muscle in that time. Little Italy has always been in great spirits, and absolutely loves getting attention from people! Keep an eye out for this handsome man, he'll be on the hunt for his best friend very soon. Congrats to Little Italy on a successful recovery! You can see him with a fresh cast down below. |
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HSoP animals currently available for adoption: *Thankfully there are not too many to feature here!* |
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| | Ross, Chandler, and Joey This rat pack is on the hunt for their forever homes. They would love to go home together, or individually if there are friends waiting for them at home. | | |
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| | Narcissa This absolutely gorgeous girl loves to be loved on her own terms. She is very motivated by treats and will let you know when she's done cuddling. | | |
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We love hearing from our community! If you'd like to get in contact with us for any reason, feel free to shoot us an email, call the shelter, or reach out to one of our social media accounts. For ease of access, you can also press this button to be redirected to our website! | | |
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