Plans

As many of you know, we are planning our first litter of puppies, and to say the least we are quite excited. But one of the big hiccups for me and the puppy stuff is the whole issue of bringing more dogs into this world and what that means overall. So Kathy and I decided if we were going to occasionally have a litter of pups, that we had to figure out how to give back to the canine world.


The first thing we did was rescue, rehabilitate and rehome a black lab mix named Bailey. I am happy to report that I have had many conversations with Bailey's new forever mom and she is adjusted and happy in her new home. (Although Bailey wishes to report that she is not crazy about salt on sidewalks. I told her I was sorry I didn't find her a home in Arizona, but her new mom was going to get balloon boots.)  But that didn't seem like quite enough.

Now as much as I would like to keep every puppy I produce in our planned litter, some are already spoken for, so I had to figure something out that would allow me to go forward in good conscience. I am all to aware that a free puppy, way to often, equates to no long-term committment to the dog. (We only need to look to the aforementioned lab mix for proof in the pudding.) So we decided that we would have all of our puppy homes donate to a good canine charity rather than giving any money to Riverbend. This decision left me feeling clear-headed about our decision to bring more albeit beautiful puppies into the world! (It is perfectly acceptable to read and see bias in the last sentence.)
So then the decision was which one? I spent the last days trying to figure out if we had a local canine charity I could get behind, and unfortunately all I found were loosely run organizations without real organizational capacity, or ones that their administrative overhead far exceeds acceptable standards. (I could spend hours ranting about organizational capacity, but will spare you my tirade.) So I turned my sights to national canine charities. Well I won't spend too much time recounting the travails of that mess.

But the long and short of it is, we have chosen Corgi Aid as our charity. I spent several hours reviewing their IRS 990's this morning, and I see nothing but good! Further it appears from these public forms that their administrative overhead is nearly 0%. Which means just about every dollar donated is used for the health and well-being of a rescued corgi. How much better can it get than that?

I can follow my father's oft words of wisdom..."at the end of the day, you only sleep with yourself. Let's that guide every decision." I do, and will continue to!