RESCUING DOGS & CATS from georgia kill shelters--approved by leon
 

RESCUING DOGS AND CATS FROM GEORGIA KILL SHELTERS-APPROVED BY LEON

Hello and happy holidays to all Net54's and a big " thank you" to Leon who is allowing me to post this

Being retired for the past 2 years has given me lots of time to think what to do in the coming years. An animal lover with 2 dogs and 2 cats, I have come to realize that my calling is to save as many as I can from the kill shelters here in Atlanta . There are 100,000 euthanized each year in Atlanta and if I can save and find homes for some of these, it will make a difference in the lives of many families and of course , to the animals I save.

My goal is to acquire land in an outlying county, provide necessary shelter for the rescued animals, and find homes not just in the Atlanta area but in the non-kill states where people often adopt from the southern kill states. Never having done anything like this before, and feeling overwhelmed by the task ahead, I have contacted a similar organization in North Georgia and they have graciously offered to meet with me after the New Year and answer my 3 million questions as our interests and goals are similar.

While I realize that donations down the road will be necessary to continue, there are a few things I can think of that I need to do NOW in order to begin this venture. Anyone who is able to volunteer or know someone who can for the following is greatly appreciated.

1) Formation of a Ga. non profit 501c3 corporation

2) Website creation---

3) Business Plan--While I have many ideas and will be learning a lot more from my meeting next week, I have neither the experience ( nor the smarts!) in putting this in a presentable format. I imagine I would need a business plan to present down the road to potential big donors or to already existing organizations with whom one can work in getting the animals adopted.

If anyone is able to help, please contact me at forazzurri1@aol.com or my cell is 770-873-1181

Bill Latzko
Homeward Bound Adoption Center (probable name!!)

It's a noble task, Bill. If I had all of the money in the world there would be no more euthanizing of unwanted pets. Good luck!!

.

Noble undertaking and a good cause. I was involved with a couple of rescues in California and not an easy task. My advice is to talk with some people who have successfully done this. You might want to talk with Donna Harrington of Furry Angel Foundation out of Rancho Mirage California on the logistics of fund raising and day to day operations. Another contact is Ron and Michelle Holt of Love Shack rescue. As a veterinarian, I have worked closely with both. One is a cocker spanial rescue and the other is an all breed rescue. You should probably also involve a veterinarian in your plans for at least advise and hopefully medical care and supplies.

My thoughts,

Ken McMillan DVM

Thanks much!
 

appreciate it!

Great advice, thanks
 

will follow up with them!!

If you talk to them, mention that you know me from the board. All wonderful people and good friends. You will probably get better info that way. Donna is a real sweetheart with the Furry Angel Foundation and Rob and Michelle are pretty special also.

I rescued my dog from an animal shelter. Best move I ever made. And best dog ever!

All 4 of our dogs came straight off of the street, running loose and apparently unwanted, and all in poor condition (one was pregnant). They are all great dogs and are a part of our family now. I have always thought of approaching a billionaire with a plan just like Bills in this thread to see if they would like to change the world and make it a better place for our pets.

That's amazing Bill, thank you!

I'll be a donor once you're up and running. Big animal lover too with three dogs.

thanks Jeff and I ....
 

certainly won't forget your offer come the time!!!!!!

thx again

a real funny
 

Ken--I played with the words "love shack" also but it's the name of the local adult sex shop here so I vetoed that name pretty quickly!!!!

Interestingly, Curly of the Three Stooges was an animal lover and spent his free time finding homes for stray dogs.

I've said that there's nothing nobler in life than giving an animal a good, happy life.

Hi Bill,

Best of luck in an admirable undertaking! My dog is a rescue and I we will never have anything but in the future.

As for 501(c)3, in Wisconsin anyway (and I assume elsewhere), you can start by filing your articles of incorporate with the state with the intent to file your 501(c)3 with the feds. The state decision is usually faster and then allows you to operate as a 501(c)3 pending the review of your federal application. I think some law schools offer free consultation services for things like this, so you might see if you can find someone to review your completed 501(c)3 application before you submit it. You might find this site useful:

https://www.firstinspires.org/sites/...ng-a-501c3.pdf

For the website, you might look at Wix and Squarespace. Both of those are pretty user friendly.

I would also like to ask that you keep any cats you house inside or in an outdoor enclosure 100% of the time - and require that people that adopt a cat from you do the same. Cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds and 12 billion mammals in the US each year. Outdoor cats also transmit diseases to people and have shorter life expectancies than cats that are always kept inside.

thanks
 

thanks for the suggestions..much appreciated

Your doing a great deed. I live up here in North Georgia and theres several of these organizations that you could ask for advice. I believe you can also partner with a few.
I always loved the show on t.v. called Pitbulls & paroles.
Here is a list of a few:
Furkids
Angels Among Us
Homeward Bound
You Lucky Dog

As an animal loving family, I will also donate when up and running with some auctions here on net54. We have 5 loving dogs and I would adopt more if I could afford it. Two of our dogs we inherited when my mother-in-law passed away in April 2016. Even though they are a little difficult, we could Not put them in a shelter or find them a home where we would not know what happened to them. Dogs are truly mans best friend. Keep us up to date with everything.
Best of Luck!
Robert

we have 2 rescue dogs and my wife fosters stray kittens in the spring for a group that will catch strays and have them fixed. Very rewarding!!

Keep us informed!!
Ken

We have a Rescue Dog which is a Blue Tick Beagle Schnauzer mix. This past summer a Treeing Walker Coon Hound was abandoned in front of our house, we took care of her, got her spaded and found her a home with my cousin .He can't thank me enough he loves her. The shelters here in NC are over crowded and some are kill. Picture of the Treeing Walker my cousin has a GPS tracker on her collar

We have six cats and three dogs. All from shelters. Actually one of the cats was right off the street. Real piece of work that one. All of the pets we have ever had have been rescues. First one was a greyhound from Florida.

I can't help with any of your immediate questions unfortunately, but once you start to need a network of contacts for places in the Northeast that help with placement let me know. I can hook you up pretty well.

"When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction." - Mark Twain

These two brothers came from a rescue, I have had them for 11 years.
Much good luck to you.

are you still
 

involved with Sea Shepherd/ whale rescue??

God bless Leon ...save the dogs

Very, very noble cause.

Our two cats (Callie & Lily) we're rescued by us off the streets and our dog Lucy was a shelter puppy.

Good luck and God Bless.


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My leopard gecko Captain Jack is 17 years old this month. I have him since he was a hatch-ling.


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Cool gecko, Chris. I have had numerous gecko's over the years. We have a lot of little non-discrepant ones around where we live. . Try a Tokay on for size LOL....mean little buggers they are.

Thank you, Leon.

My Captain Jack will actually walk up and down my arm.

The pet place that I bought him from 17 years ago is amazed that he is still alive.

But if you take good care of a leopard gecko (stress is the primary killer) I believe they can live 25 years.

Good luck with this great endeavor. I've always been a dog guy, but we have 3 cats here who we personally rescued, and we created shelters and feed now 4 others who live outside.
God bless you!

Love Shack Dog recue from Landers California to be more exact

Love that.

I keep nuts (for the squirrels) and seed for the birds in my car. I also keep dry cat and dog food.

I hate seeing animals scared and hungry.

Great luck with your endeavor.

I would do anything for my two little kitties Mickey and Peanut.. Good luck with your new adventure and let us now how it's going..

I'm an auction house writer by day and a husband, father and rescue cat lover by night. Our cats are each 14 years old. One (who I jokingly tell my wife is my "other woman") was found as a newborn inside a casino dumpster in Reno, Nevada.

given you are starting a non-profit and are looking for volunteers i would recommend www.volunteermatch.org, whether it be to assemble a board of directors (https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/...u-need-a-board) or are looking for other volunteers.

My three cats are all rescues. Good luck!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...36024ea5c1.jpg

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Bill- I admire and share your passion for our dear domestic friends. While I'm not in a position to build my own PET Property, I donated generously to Paws Humane here in Columbus. Their goal and mine is for them to become a no-kill facility as soon as possible. Paws is where I met my best little friend and I am forever thankful for that.

In January, I financed a Dog Park on our property...Condos.

Another concern and goal I have is to eliminate puppy-farms. The Pet-land chain is notorious for using them.

The local Pet-land is located on one of the busiest streets in town, and, as far as I can tell, has no vet on staff, while 'stocking' at least thirty real-cute by obviously miserable puppies two to a small cage with waste caked to their fur. No place for these pups to get either exercise or socialization. I saw all of this in my sole visit to the store...and hate it too much to return. Sickening. And to think this is how we treat our favorite animals!

I will be contacting you in a few days to see what we can get done.

-Raymond

Noble cause - I'd like to help, but we already do our part here on the opposite coast. In addition to only owning rescue dogs, we often have a 3rd (or 4th) dog around that we are fostering through local rescue organizations.

We host foster dogs until they are adopted. This keeps them out of shelters and safe, and also makes room behind them in the shelter they were taken out of.

It can be sad seeing some of them go after a while - although some have been adopted within a day or two, some we have had for 4-6 weeks and you can get quite attached. It can be a lot of work but we know we have saved and placed a lot of dogs over the past 10 years that otherwise may not have had a chance. It is really rewarding when some of the owners send up updates years later.

I would encourage anyone who is able to foster dogs for their local rescue if/when needed.

animal rescue
 

call me when you're up and running , and I'll donate

our doggie who passed away last yr
 

my first tattoo ever!! our Princie-doggie


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Very noble undertaking. Wish you the best of luck and look forward to hearing about your progress. My wife ran an animal rescue called RecycledLove for 14 years. No physical location so it was built around a network of foster families. We've had hundreds of animals through our house over the years. It became overwhelming with a full time job and family. We're still very active but had to release the reigns. The rescue actually took in a couple of the Vick dogs. They were all rehabbed and adopted out. The last dog just passed away some months back.

Animal rescue is so rewarding but at times is very disheartening. You literally see the worst of society. For every animal lover there's probably twice as many people that have no regard for living creatures. Those ASPCA commercials that you have to quickly turn the channel are real and probably somewhat tame. As much effort you put in doesn't make a dent in the problem and probably never will. It will take you places you never thought you'd ever go.

A couple words of advice. Having a physical location is huge but stick to your business model or you will be overrun. You can't save every animal. You're going to get calls from everyone with every sob story you can imagine, you have to be able to say NO. Expenses run up very quickly, quicker than donations come in.

Keep in mind though, matching an animal with a family is an incredibly rewarding experience. It totally outweighs any negative stuff you will go through and is the reason you're doing what you're doing.

Good luck and hit me up if you want to discuss.

My mom belongs to a local interchurch group that gathers and distributes food and clothes to local homeless. It is done with people from different churches doing it under the same network umbrella, but with no fixed home base. Just saying this to point out that you can have a network of like-minded people that help out and work together.

And, of relevant note, a few of the served homeless have dogs, so the network also distributes dog food.

Another group to talk to would be saveadog. http://www.saveadog.org/

One of our dogs came from them and was originally a foster dog we had. One that would constantly climb on my lap when it was football time. We already had one dog, so it took me a month or so to cave and ask if we could keep her.

A couple things I picked up from them, or from a newsletter by someone else.

A general rather than breed specific rescue is easier. For a few reasons, like the shelter staff not being good at identifying breeds.
Many kill shelters won't deal with rescue. Seems odd, but as it was put, the sheer numbers make the job pretty much suck. Adding some usually fanatical person who gets on them for working for a kill shelter and railing on about how every dog should be saved makes the job just that much worse.

I think saveadogs approach was setting things up in advance, arriving with space in the truck for "about x dogs" and asking the shelter staff to give them the most adoptable among the ones with little time left. They then drive to their area, and distribute the rescued to foster homes. That works well since there's less required in facilities, and the foster homes can give them an idea what the dog is like.

Either way, be open to there being a few that simply can't/shouldn't be rescued. Like large dogs that have a serious dislike of kids. That usually doesn't lead anywhere good.

Concerning your last comments, I couldn't (politely) disagree more except for dogs that are completely sick with no hope of recovery. To me this is like saying, well, some people don't deserve to be cared for. I think that is pathetic.

Mike, love it!!

Good luck!!!

This is a wonderful idea Bill! Our puppy Cassie came from a kill shelter in Texas. A rescue organization up here sent out a call for people to foster and she came on a truck with 6 or 7 other dogs last winter. I pretty much knew after the first day that I wasn't going to give her up. We've had her just over a year now. Here she is with one of her Christmas presents last week and on her birthday a few weeks back. My wife dressed them up like that, not me :D

I can respect that.

The dogs do deserve to be cared for.

I've had dogs pretty much my entire life, the most recent died of cancer about 5 1/2 years ago. My daughter who was maybe 18 months at the time sort of still remembers her. (That was a surprise!)


I put it pretty much the way it's been told to me by a few people in rescue. It may be harsh as it's phrased, but it's their reality.

The hard side of things is that the situation that allows that care AND safety for everyone else can sometimes be hard to find.
One of the fosters we had for a Border Colie rescue killed one of our cats while I was in the shower. The rescue gave me heck for not having the dog in a crate almost constantly. (Which is why that was our last foster for them. ) Of the fosters we had it had appeared to be the most mellow and sane of the bunch. one little incident with a cat that seemed to be quickly sorted out.
I liked that one, but if they hadn't come for it fairly quickly......
They did add no cats as a caution on their website.

With thousands of dogs in shelters and running out of time, the rescues tend to focus on the adoptable. Aggression to kids or other animals (except natural stuff like squirrels of course, never had a foster or dog of my own that tolerated them) Makes adoption harder. Aggression towards kids makes it nearly impossible. Here, in the fall we had a 7 year old killed by two dogs not too many blocks from our house. No rescue wants any part of that.

luke lyon
 

god bless you and your wife ...octavio

Here is a nice video (Chris stapleton) for ALL our ANIMAL LOVERS
Stop Animal Cruelty
https://youtu.be/qnI5se3OdeM

Each of my four cats are rescues, and they often remind me of one of the closing lines from the movie, "Marley and Me:" A dog doesn't care if you're rich or poor, smart or dumb. If you just give him all your heart, he'll give you his in return."

Who says you can't buy love?

Larry

Great thread Bill!

I rescued my cat Ruby from the Las Vegas Animal Shelter. Best purchase that I've ever made.