1/30/12 At Lighthouse

Hola Y'all!!!

Mom can't get the vote site to come up this morning so we're not sure what our status is! If you're having the same problem please keep trying and please keep voting!!
Just go to www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Click on the "Shelter Challenge" tab. Then choose Costa Rica for the country and click "search." That should bring up Lighthouse. Click "vote" and then type in the letters/numbers that appear to confirm your vote.
Once you have voted, the next time you log onto the vote site there should be a spot just below the search box that says, "This is the shelter you voted for during your last visit." or something similar. All you have to do is click on vote. You won't have to search for Lighthouse anymore.

None of us have had baths in a while cause we've been so sick. But now that we're feelin' better Mom and Dad think it's time to clean us all up!!

Joy got her bath yesterday!! A very gentle, warm, massaging bath and a warm blow dry!!! She sure looks pretty!! I bet she feels better too!!!
Most of us furkids always feel better when we're clean. We don't tell you humans about it though 'cause you'd want to bathe us WAY too much!!! We'd get used to it and then it wouldn't be so special!!!

It's been REAL windy for the past few days!! It was so windy last night it made Laika scared!! She kept waking Mom up and getting in bed with the other 7 of us. It sounded like the house was gonna blow away!!

More baths today. Mom promised me I can be first!!!!

Tailwags!!!
BudBud

1/29/12 At Lighthouse

We're still moving up a little each day in the challenge!! THANK YOU!!!! Help us win this one and then we can try to help the other shelter win the next one!!
Just go to www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Click on the "Shelter Challenge" tab. Then choose Costa Rica for the country and click "search." That should bring up Lighthouse. Click "vote" and then type in the letters/numbers that appear to confirm your vote.
Once you have voted, the next time you log onto the vote site there should be a spot just below the search box that says, "This is the shelter you voted for during your last visit." or something similar. All you have to do is click on vote. You won't have to search for Lighthouse anymore.

Mom and Aunt Nancy had a GREAT time yesterday. Mom found the perfect lamps for the bedroom!! They'll hang from the ceiling so none of us furkids can knock them over!!! YAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!! That means all us furkds can party hearty and not have to be careful!!!
And they're really pretty too!! Bright colored flowers are painted on them!!!
Me and Mom love bright colors. They cheer us up!!!
Mom still has to find some for the living room.

They went to the Pequeño Mundo store too. Pequeño Mundo means small world. It's kind of like a Big Lotts!! Mom gets the diapers there for Juliette and Joy. She just buys regular baby diapers and cuts a place for the tail. Juliette and Joy don't mind wearin' them a bit!! And it saves lots of accidents.

It's been kinda chilly here the past couple of nights. Mom says it's a GOOD thing to have 7 dogs in bed with you on cold nights.

Please don't forget to vote today and ask your friends to vote!!

Tailwags!!
BudBud

1/28/12 At Lighthouse

HOLA Y'ALL!!!

We climbed a little more yesterday in percentage!! We can do this, folks!!! THANK YOU!!!! Please keep voting!!
Just go to www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Click on the "Shelter Challenge" tab. Then choose Costa Rica for the country and click "search." That should bring up Lighthouse. Click "vote" and then type in the letters/numbers that appear to confirm your vote.
Once you have voted, the next time you log onto the vote site there should be a spot just below the search box that says, "This is the shelter you voted for during your last visit." or something similar. All you have to do is click on vote. You won't have to search for Lighthouse anymore.

We're all still feeling better!!! YAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!! And we're LOVIN' the home cooked food!!!

Mom's goin' shoppin' with Aunt Nancy today. Mom usually stays home with us and Dad does the shoppin' but he says Mom needs to get out more. She's startin' to growl a lot. hehehe

She wants to go look at some lamps for the living room and bedroom. The lamps we had have all been broken by overly exuberant rescue kids. Mom says that's ok though. They broke them cause they were happy and jumping with joy.
She says this time she thinks she will try to find hanging lights to hang from the ceiling. That way the furkids can't bump into them!!!

Thanks again for voting and please keep it up!!

Let's win this thing

Me and Mom have been trying REALLY hard to get another Costa Rica shelter listed with Petfinder so they could be included in the challenge. We were going to ask all of you to vote for them this time. They work out of their pocket too, just like we do. And they don't get any outside funding. That's the kind of shelter we would like to see win this challenge.

They have been trying to become members of Petfinder for some time but, for some reason, they have not been able to complete their membership. Now Petfinder tells us that "new" members cannot be included in the challenge. Seems kinda unfair since they've BEEN trying to become members before the challenge started but I guess rules are rules.

The Bahamas shelter is way ahead, as usual, and they will probably win a weekly prize, so the shelter in 2nd place will win the international.

All the international shelters in the top ten seem to have funding other than the grants, except us. (Yep, we're still in the top ten) So me and Mom can't decide who to vote for.
Some have annual budgets of over $100,000.00!!
Some have MONTHLY budgets of $20,000.00 plus!!!
Mom went into shock when she read that. LOL!!
They already have money coming in and have lots of "assets." (whatever those are) so we want to help a shelter that is not so well funded by other means.
Others are kill shelters. (:-[
Several of them ship plane loads of dogs to shelters in the US. That seems kind of unfair to the other US shelter dogs who are waiting for homes.

It's just really hard to know who to vote for. That's why Mom and me were gonna try to help this other Costa Rica shelter. We KNOW how badly they need funds. We KNOW they aren't funded by other sources and $1,000.00 would mean as much to them as it does to us!! It wouldn't be just a drop in the bucket like it would for some of the other shelters.

Mom even thought about having you vote for us again and just donating the money to the other Costa Rica shelter, but, according to the new rules, if we win this challenge then we can't win the next one. And by then our SURPRISE donation, ($1,000.00) from the fund raiser in Canada, will be running out and our funds will be low again.

We're kinda between a rock and a hard place. (:-[
Here's the only plan we can come up with.....
If we all went ahead and voted for Lighthouse this time, move into 2nd place and Bahamas wins a weekly prize, we could win the international division again. That would put another $1,000.00 in our shelter funds and hold us over through the challenge we are not allowed to win.
THEN....in the next challenge, since WE wouldn't be allowed to win it...we could all vote for the other Costa Rica shelter!! The one we KNOW doesn't have outside funding. HOPEFULLY by then they will be able to be in the challenge.
Does any of that make any sense?

We're grasping at straws here to help the other shelter AND keep our own doors open, so if anybody has a better idea we'd sure love to hear it!!
MEANWHILE!!! Please go ahead and start voting for Lighthouse again. We need to get started as soon as possible if we're gonna move into 2nd place to try and win again.
Just go to www.theanimalrescuesite.com. Click on the "Shelter Challenge" tab. Then choose Costa Rica for the country and click "search." That should bring up Lighthouse. Click "vote" and then type in the letters/numbers that appear to confirm your vote.
Once you have voted, the next time you log onto the vote site there should be a spot just below the search box that says, "This is the shelter you voted for during your last visit." or something similar. All you have to do is click on vote. You won't have to search for Lighthouse anymore.

Some of us furkids have been really sick over the past few weeks and Mom and Dad have been really worried and working hard to make us better.
Me and Milana got REALLY sick and had bloody diarrhea all day and all night.
ALL of us felt really bad and were real lethargic but me and Milana were the only two who had the terrible diarrhea.

We think it was some new food Mom mixed in with our regular food. Maybe it was just a bad batch that had some ingredient in it that was bad. We don't really know but that is the only thing that ALL of us ate so Mom says it just about had to be the food. So we had to throw out all that food and start over with new.

Bunny had another seizure and possible stroke and was really sick for several days. She was real disoriented and seemed to go into sort of a daze several times a day. She'd just stand and stare. Not moving and seeming not to hear when Mom and Dad spoke to her. Mom started putting Taurine on her food and, for the past three days, it seems to be helping.

Joy's congestive heart failure is worse and she is coughing a lot more. Mom has changed her medicine and it seems to be helping a little.

Me, Joy and Bunny are all on home cooked food now. Rice, chicken, potatoes, carrots and broccoli.
It's GOOD!!! And Mom just mixes in some vitamins and stuff too.

Anyway, y'all let us know what you think we should do to help the other Costa Rica shelter. PLEASE!!
Hope to hear from lots of you!! We've missed sending out the reminders every day.

Tailwags!!!
BudBud

News fron Lighthouse 1-16-12

HOLA Y'ALL!!!

Me and Mom are trying to help another Costa Rica shelter get listed on Petfinder so they can be in the challenge. If we can get them listed then maybe we can help them win the grant this time!! Would that be great or WHAT!?!?

Novi, (now Chloe) came to visit the other day. Novi is the orphaned kitten that Nadine fostered for us and then decided to adopt!! She's doin' GREAT!!!

We have company right now from the states!! A high school classmate of Dads is here with her husband!! They're really nice folks and they brought us LOTS of goodies!! And their vet sent us a lot of stuff too!! YAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom's not letting us have a lot of the treats they brought yet 'cause all of us dogs here at Lighthouse have been sick for the past week. Mom thinks it might have been a new food she had mixed with our regular food. Me and Milana had one night of constant bloody diarrhea and all the other dogs were really feeling bad too.
Bunny got sick too and we think she may have had another stroke.
Joys congestive heart failure is worse and she is coughing a lot.
Whatever made us all so sick has caused complications for us older furkids. The younger ones are feeling fine now. Us seniors are better but still not great.

You folks say some prayers for us and send healing thoughts too please!!

Tailwags!!
BudBud

Announcement about the current shelter challenge

Our Joy is not feeling well. She has congestive heart failure and though she's been dealing with it pretty well and taking her medications, recently she is coughing a LOT!! Please say some prayers and send healing thoughts for her ok? She's SUCH a sweetie.

Me and Mom have been talkin' about the new challenge.

Although the rules have changed this time around we are still eligible to compete in this round of voting. BUT!!!!! We think it's time to give another shelter a chance. Hopefully a small shelter like us who is not being funded by other sources.

Usually we could not afford to do this but we got a surprise donation from Tarla and Jill!! They found an abandoned puppy while they were vacationing in Costa Rica, brought it to Mom and then decided to adopt. They did a fund raiser for us at their doggie day care place (The Beloved Dog) in Canada and they raised $1,000.00!!!!!!!! THANK YOU TARLA, JILL and THE BELOVED DOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another thing is, we have not had a lot of rescue kids for this past couple of months so our expenses haven't been so high. There's only 15 of us furkids here right now!!!!!

So we are thinking maybe we should sit this challenge out and give another small, international shelter a chance to win this time.

Mom's reading up on all the shelters in the running and trying to figure out which one to vote for. She says it's hard to know which ones are really in need and which ones are already getting lots of donations from other sources.

We wish there was some way they could let the "funded" shelters run in one contest and the "non-funded" shelters run in another. It seems like it would be more fair for the other small shelters like us.

We DO plan to participate in the next challenge though and hopefully you folks will help us win that one!! We'll probably be running out of funds by then.

Me and the other furkids have been really sick for a few days. Me and little Milana had a horrible day and night of bloody diarrhea and we both got pretty weak. Mom slept on a twin mattress on the floor with all of us for three nights 'cause we were so weak and she was afraid we'd try to get off the big bed and hurt ourselves. All the others were sickly too but not as bad as me and Milana. Some others were throwing up but it wasn't bloody. But we ALL felt real bad. We're all still on medication. We're feeling better now and our appetite is coming back.

Dra. Sharon says it was something called toxoplasmosis. That's a pretty long name. She says we could catch it from bad soy in our dog food, eating bird or cat poop, eating hot dogs or sausages, and lots of other ways.

Mom is almost sure it was a bad batch of food.
The food was NutriSource and it's supposed to be a high quality food but Mom says it may have had bad soy in it.
Now Mom is feeding us cooked rice with chicken and some veggies in it!! WOW!!!!!!!! We LIKE IT!!!! We're all feeling better now. She says she may just try to stop using any of the commercial foods. She says you can't trust what's in it or know where the ingredients came from. Some ingredients comes from China and it's POISON!!!
Mom says they have stopped labeling WHERE stuff is manufactured. They say where it is "distributed" but not where it is made.
Also, even if it's labeled "Made in the US" they still buy their ingredients from places like China. YUCK!!!!!!!!!!

Mom has been sick too. She had pneumonia last week. She's feeling lots better but she still coughs a LOT!!!

We had a really unique sunset the other day. There were clouds between us and the setting sun and it shined through and lit up one cloud right below us!! It turned the cloud pink!!! Then the cloud drifted away and it all turned into a BEAUTIFUL sunset.

Anyway, we want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you for helping us to win the last challenge and we hope you will vote for us in the next challenge when it rolls around.

BIG, HAPPY, FEELING BETTER TAILWAGS!!!
BudBud and the whole Lighthouse crew.