Humane Society Visit, End of 4-40

Last Friday we went to Humane Society to drop off our huge collection, and meet a few people. I had emailed back and forth with the volunteer coordinator previously, and she wanted us to meet some folks in Marketing. They even arranged a volunteer photographer to take pictures of Henry.

Here is Henry with Dino the socialization mascot in front of the donation center. Dino had hip replacement done by the good doctors at the Humane Society, and of course Humane Society covered the costs too. Henry never had close contact with big dogs before (they are right about the same size, 75 lbs), so Dino was quite a new experience for him. Dino's foster dad let Henry walk Dino for a bit and give him treats. Henry recorded the experience on the 4 Weeks, Forty Blanket blog.

Next to the donation center is a door that leads to the surrender counter. Every time we went to donate someone went into the surrender door with a crate. If you are thinking about bringing a new pet home, please consider the shelter.

To wrap up the 4-40 project, we reached the target on Monday when we picked up from three separate locations. A woman lives in Los Gatos mountains offered to meet us in town, so we met her in the high school where her child was in band practice and which Henry will be attending in three years. Then we went to a home in Almaden for our second pick up. This was through Henry's post on lmtrade, a Yahoo Group I started years ago for Las Madres families to buy/sell/trade household items. A woman responded to Henry's email and offered a big bag of blankets and towels. In the afternoon, we went to our third pick up of the day in Los Altos. This was through Henry's post on a Freecycle group, another big bag of blankets and towels. I think these people really like Henry.

Back in July I told my mom about the 4-40 project, so she collected a bunch of stuff from her friends and neighbors. On Tuesday we went and picked these up. Our final total was 55 blankets, countless towels, sheets, and lots of toys. I'm very happy with what we've accomplished, very happy with how Henry managed the project and made his summer meaningful.

Operation Blanket Update

We are in week three of 4 Weeks Forty Blankets and things are going very well. To date we received 28 blankets, some pads and small rugs, bags and bags of sheets, towels, and even more bags of stuffed animals. We have a visit scheduled for Humane Society tomorrow morning when we, hopefully, might be able to hand some of these items directly to the adoptable dogs.

Now the question is, how am I going to fit all these in my little car?

(Bucky is not invited on the trip, although he certainly would enjoy a romp on the big lawn and the playground that Humane Society set up for exercising the dogs. He was here to supervise our photo shoot.)

Bucky on Vacation

We spent early part of this week on the central coast of Califonia, which we planned to visit last summer but didn't make it since we couldn't find a dog sitter. Now that Bucky is our only dog and with his fragile state I don't trust others taking care of him, he went along for the ride.

The ride he had! Everywhere we went he had fans. We picked restaurants with outdoor seating, and people stopped to admire "your cute old pug". At an icecream shop a girl volunteered to bring a bowl of water outside so she could meet "the cute puppy". The place we stayed was right on the beach, and Henry and Dad enjoyed hours of whacking a paddleball around. To my surprise, Bucky had a great time exploring the beach. He doesn't walk very well, and I thought it's more difficult for him to walk on the soft sand. Instead the sand cushioned his falls, and he really liked all the new smells.

Four Weeks Forty Blankets

Henry and I have August off from camps and work, so we are going to collect 40 blankets for the Humane Society. Henry is mostly in charge of the project, and I'm helping him here and there with ideas and most importantly, driving. So far we have collected eight blankets and tons of stuffed animals. Yesterday we did our first drop off at Humane Society and visited some of the adoptable dogs.

You can follow our progress on our blog: 4 Weeks, Forty Blankets; or our Facebook page in the same name.