Hi y’all, hope you are enjoying our beautiful central Texas fall weather. I’m sure our dogs are very happy not having to endure the awful heat any longer.

RECAP ON ART FOR ANIMALS – Thank you to the Friends of the Georgetown Animal Shelter for hosting another successful Art for Animals. After expenses the event made $13,000! Thank you to all the artists that donated their art to us, and our fans for attending the event. Thank you so much to all the volunteers that worked so hard to make this a success. JoAnna Green our chairman did an outstanding job. Christine Albanese was in charge of the silent auction, and Maureen Rutledge was in charge of the live auction, thank you ladies. Thank you to all the other 50 + plus volunteers that volunteered many hours to help make this event a success, we could not have done this without your help! Thank you also to the Southwestern musicians that add so much ambiance, and also to Gina Grove, our auctioneer. The “Friends” are getting some quotes to decide how to spend the proceeds – at this time we are considering a shade awning for the stray side of our dog kennels and a surgery light for our surgery room. We will keep you informed of how we spend the money. We are currently discussing ways to improve the event for next year, and might even add a wine tasting (which has been suggested by many people).

INTRODUCTION OF VOLUNTEER LIAISON – Miguel daCunha – Miguel is a new volunteer that would like to help me with our volunteer program. I have created a new position of volunteer liaison and Miguel is going to be contacting new volunteers to help get them trained and involved in our organization. I look forward to working with Miguel and having him improve our volunteer program.

VOLUNTEER NEWSLETTER – Another new thing we are going to try is a volunteer newsletter. Right now this newsletter goes to volunteers as well as our shelter supporters. The new volunteer newsletter will be just for volunteers and will contain training tips as well as information that we want all volunteers to know about.

NEXT GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING FOR “FRIENDS OF THE GEORGETOWN ANIMAL SHELTER” will be held this Saturday, November 19th @ 10am at the Parks Admin Bldg (1101 N College). We will be discussing our fundraising plans for 2012 and would love to hear your ideas.

ADOPTION GUIDE TRAINING – will be offered this Saturday at 11:30am, and will last approximately 1 hr. An adoption guide is an important role in our shelter and certainly will help us improve our adoptions. An adoption guide works with our visitors to match up the kind of animal that will fit with their family and lead to a success adoption – happy family, happy animal equals happy ending! Let me know if you would like to attend this training.

Thank you to our dog walking group that is making sure our dogs get out twice a day to potty, and to walk if time permits. Many dogs that come into the shelter are house trained and if these dogs are not taken out of their runs to potty this just add to the dog’s stress level. If you have a free hour in the morning or afternoons and could join this group let me know.

KENNEL HELP OVER THE HOLIDAYS – The shelter will be closed on November 24th & November 25th for the Thanksgiving holiday. If you could help with kennel chores the staff would very much appreciate help. We start the chores at 8am and if we get several volunteers are done within 2 hours. Email me if you could help us.

STATS FOR OCTOBER: Once again we achieved “NO KILL STATUS” for the month. (Animal shelters consider themselves “no kill” if they euthanize less than 10% of their animals). This is not an easy thing to achieve for an open intake municipal shelter. Thank you to Laura Hobgood-Oster and Jimmy Smith (our rescue coordinators) for working so hard in getting animals to rescue. Their dedication to our shelter is one of the reasons we can achieve this status.

• 155 pets received (started month with 79 pets)
• 62 pets adopted
• 17 pets euthanized (7%!!!!)

Our journey continues. Thank you for helping us make the lives a little happier for the homeless animals of Georgetown, we couldn’t do this without your help!