around the time i started this blog i mentioned that i’d like to begin donating some of my winnings to different charities. well, tonight i’m happy to report that i just sent $50 to Save the Dalmatians and Others Canine Rescue, Inc. here is a link to their website and a few words about who they are:
http://www.savethedals.org/
Save the Dalmatians and Others Canine Rescue, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax-exempt organization dedicated to the rescue of Dalmatians from shelters, the promotion of adoptions of shelter Dalmatians and education of the public about the Dalmatian breed. We began in 1996 when founder Terri Haase and a friend started taking their Dalmatians to movie theaters during the showing of “101 Dalmatians” to distribute educational flyers in an attempt to stop impulse buying of Dalmatian puppies. Save the Dalmatians was formally incorporated as a California non-profit corporation in 1998. We are all unpaid volunteers.
my family has had a dalmatian in our home since before i was born and i consider myself very fortunate to have grown up with such a wonderful breed. they’re beautiful animals, but as i got older, i came to realize how misunderstood they were. in my lifetime disney has produced two ‘101 dalmatians’ movies and both times i can recall my dad shaking his head while looking through the classifieds at all the dalmatians that were being given away. basically what happens is families go watch the movie and impulsively buy a dalmatian, thinking they’re the cutest, most social animals they’ve ever seen. admittedly, dalmatians are beautiful, but if you don’t have the patience for them, they’re not the easiest animal to bring into your home. therefore, a large number of them get abandoned.
i have a ton of stories about our dogs, but the most compelling i think is about sam, the dalmatian who saved my dad’s life. what happened was my dad was driving down to iowa to see my grandma (his mom) and he took sam with him for whatever reason (i think he just wanted some company to be honest). a couple hours from his destination he started feeling really sick and decided to pull over and to take a nap. he left late in the day, after work i think, so he was tired and his stomach was killing him. as he tried to fall asleep, our dog sam, kept bothering him and refused to let him rest. after 15 minutes or so he got up and finished the drive. by time he got to his hometown, he was feeling so sick that he went straight to the hospital. the doctors told him that his appendix had ruptured and they needed to do emergency surgery to get it out because it was essentially poisoning his body. after the surgery he was told that if he hadn’t gotten to the hospital when he did, he probably would not have survived and that’s when he realized, sam was the reason he didn’t didn’t take that nap. thank you sam.
to conclude this post, here is picture of our last dalmatian, gert, who passed away about 2 months ago.
Gert
