Mid-Year Donor Report 2010

Hello Friends and Family,

I’ve made it half way through my fourth year now, and I wanted to give you an update on how the support raising is going.

I always have two numeric goals when it comes to fundraising, and one connecting goal.

Goal number one - raise my budget for the year, which is usually my salary plus a little bit more. Last year, I raised about 80% of my budget, and I’m really working hard at hitting the 100% mark this year.

Goal number two - have at least 100 donors giving to my budget. Last year, I had 92 different donors, so I set a new goal this year to add 30 new donors. Counting for the fact that I’ll probably lose a few donors, if I add 30 new donors, I should have at least 100 donors for 2010. This is a critical mark that I have to make. I have already added 15 new donors this year, and I’m working toward another 15. Several new donors could only give a moderate amount, but they still count as a new donor whatever the amount may be.

If you’ve been thinking of making a donation, but thought your amount wouldn’t add up to help enough, please understand, it all adds up and every little bit helps. Donations can be monthly or annually, whatever is good for you. Besides, even a little bit helps me to achieve my 100 donor goal for the year. This way, I’m concentrating on connecting with donors, as opposed to connecting with dollars.

Goal number three – connecting with donors. It’s sitting and talking to donors who are helping our cause. Some donors are struggling with their own finances or family issues, so talking and praying with them is a way for me to help the donor who is helping me. I pray that all is going well for you and your family. If not, let me know and we’ll pray about it with you.

Any questions or comments, please let me know.

Jeff Juhala

DJ at 8 weeks

Parvo Puppy and the Mis-Adventures of the “Dog Wiper”

After months of searching for a family dog, we finally settled on a German Shepherd mix puppy. It’s actually been a laborious task of researching and visiting many local shelters to try and find the right dog for our family. We didn’t want a puppy, I should say, Janet and I didn’t want a puppy, but the kids did. We decided having a puppy would be a great experience for the kids to live through and realize the ups and downs of having a puppy. We stumbled across a litter of nine pups at the Irvine shelter and fell in love with a little guy they named Dunnigan. We said okay and picked him up after he had been neutered. Eight weeks old, 10 lbs. and he was ours. The kids settled on a new name, DJ. We had the dear lad three whole days when he got sick. We had him checked and he was positive for that dreaded puppy virus Parvo. We discovered that the people at the shelter and the vet don’t even like to say the word Parvo out loud. It’s sort of the black plague of the dog kingdom.

The vet said a Parvo Puppy has a 20% chance of surviving if you do nothing, a 90% chance of survival if you hospitalize them for at least three days at $1000 a day, or a 50/50 chance if you buy the meds and administer them yourself at home. That means IV’s twice a day and 4 different shots every 8, 12 and 24 hours. So, I became a part-time Vet, getting up at all hours to give shots and clean up all the doggy messes. You see, Parvo makes the pups vomit and have diarrhea for 4-6 days, all day long. Someone asked me if I had become the “Dog Whisperer” and I said no, I’m the “Dog Wiper”, a far less glamorous job I can assure you. After a very tiring and heart-breaking week of meds, money, and messes to clean up, the skin-and-bones young pup turned the corner. DJ is now Parvo-free, weighs 17 pounds, and is acting like a true puppy once again! He is both a joy and a pain with his razor sharp little teeth constantly finding our flesh and bone. We know his mother was a Shepherd, but those teeth make me think his father was a great white shark!

Skinny Parvo dog after not eating for 6 days

I had him sleeping on my lap one day and he flinched during some strange puppy dream. Janet asked if he was in his REM sleep. I said, “Dogs don’t have REM sleep; they have Rem Tin Tin sleep.”

Healthy DJ now Parvo free.

Passion vs. Zealous
One thing we noticed through this whole doggy searching process is that there are a lot of people who are very passionate about helping abandoned dogs and cats. In fact, some of them have crossed over from being passionate to being zealous. I can really appreciate passion in people for whatever cause they believe in. My definition of passion in this form could be: caring so much about something that you take action and invest yourself in a significant way into what you believe in. The people at many of these shelters and rescue foundations have a passion for saving dogs and cats. I can appreciate that. A zealot, however, could be defined as: expecting others to care about something as much as you do. I’m thankful for the passion of these workers and volunteers, but some of them were practically insulting if we didn’t think and act the same way about dogs that they thought and felt. We were even turned down from taking a dog, simply because we wanted an outdoor dog, not an indoor dog. The zealot dog lover responded to my wife by saying, “Why would you even want a dog if you’re not going to keep it inside?” DJ is an indoor/outdoor dog.

It makes me wonder about what I’m passionate about and what I’m zealous about. How about you?