Fundraising for Spanish Stray Dogs – An adopter’s tale

My name is Lindsay and I am extremely passionate  for animal welfare and rescue of all varieties, though I have a particular affection for dogs. I believe the passion stems from my parents, and from the very day I was born. Let me explain!

I was born at home in March ….  in rural Dorset. My father was the local Vicar and went out to see one of his parishioners on a farm around this time. The farmer’s wife was bottle feeding a couple of new born lambs when he arrived but there was another just lying in front of the Aga. He asked about this little one and was told that she was the runt of the litter and they were just “letting her go” as it was felt she wouldn’t survive. You’ve guessed it – that evening my mother was nurturing a new born baby and a lamb!

So from day one of my life I am sharing it with 3 rescues – Mary the lamb, Whisky the dog, and Soda the cat (they also had quite a sense of humour!)  My parents were a true inspiration to me.

Let’s now fast forward to the present day as I don’t want to bore the pants off you with all my rescues over the years, there have been so many! Besides the whole point of this blog is regarding my fundraising!

My 2 present day inspirations! Chico and Pancho, my beautiful Bods!

Chico is not actually from Spanish Stray Dogs UK(SSDUK), but I’m sure you won’t hold that against him! I was a very late starter to Facebook and adopted him before I knew about your wonderful charity. He is a Spanish stray though and was actually meant to be a Labrador – again let me explain! I have always had a particular love for Labradors and most of my previous rescues were this gorgeous breed. When we lost Max 5 years ago, a beautiful Labrador cross, whom we adopted age 13 years, we began to look again. I am a glutton for “needy” and elderly dogs that are so often overlooked. However, one day when I was looking on a website, a photo popped up of this extremely forlorn-looking and emaciated dog – he had the saddest eyes and was just imploring me to rescue him – yes I just had to have him – welcome home Chico! I still get teased today by my family with quotes like “well he’s the funniest looking Labrador I’ve ever seen” I have honestly never looked back, he is the most gorgeous, affectionate, cheeky and loyal dog. I am now totally besotted with Bods!

Then along came Pancho in November 2018! He is an SSD and I’m sure most of you already know about his very sad history. He was 11 years old and known as the spinning dog! He was a constant cause of worry for all the lovely people who were involved in his rescue and rehabilitation. He has Post traumatic stress disorder from his previous trauma and abuse and his stress would manifest itself by him spinning so much that he literally collapsed initially. He just found life in the pound too stressful for varying reasons and was brought over to the UK early 2018 to foster care. We followed his story but didn’t feel at the time that we were able to offer him a home owing to a long-awaited holiday in September. It would not be fair to leave him so soon. When we returned he was still waiting for his forever home so the rest is history – here we are nearly 10 months down the line now since adopting him! I can’t deny that it’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride at times! But he really has come on well, he so wants to be loved! We still have the occasional stressy spinning moments but these are far less frequent and on the whole, he appears a very happy dog. His separation anxiety has much improved and we are both very proud of him. He is such a cheeky and comical character – when he gets excited to see you when you’ve been out, or, if he simply decides that he wants a bit of attention, he literally hurls himself at you. He may not be the largest of dogs but he has certainly got some thrust behind him – the word bulldozer springs to mind!

Now on to the next part of my story before you all fall asleep – my fund raising for SSDUK and how it all began! I retired after a 36 year career in nursing in March 2015. I was not yet ready to go out to grass though, just tired from all the stresses of nursing. Luck was on my side – a new Co-op store was due to be opened in the village in April so I applied for a job and was lucky to be appointed. A new era began! During the first year in post my manager James asked if I would like to become the Community Pioneer for the store. This involved organising fund raising and events each month for local community causes. I had never done anything like this before but took up the challenge! I have honestly never looked back. I set up a book stall in the store, the proceeds of which went to the chosen cause each month and began to organise things such as Tombolas, raffles, table top sales etc. etc. each month as well. It proved to be huge success and I loved doing it. Initially it was a paid post – 2 hours per month! But then suddenly the Co-op decided to abolish the post. I was devastated. All was not lost though – I asked James if I could continue with the fund raising in my own time and he agreed to this. He was very supportive of what I was doing and we were after all raising lots of money for the local community which is one of the Co-op’s main ethos!

Now for the exciting bit! Last March, the community cause of the month folded so I had a gap. By this stage I had joined facebook (told you I was a late starter!) and was following SSDUK. It was around the time of the awful plight of the poor dogs in the Pound following the torrential rain and flooding. I took the bull by the horns and asked James if I could raise funds for your cause that month (well if you don’t ask you never get!) Luckily for me he knows how passionate I am for animals and agreed. So my friend and colleague Sue and I decided on a Tombola (who doesn’t love a Tombola!) and a “Guess the name of the Dog” competition.

We raised £785 over the month. People were so generous and we were able to raise lots of awareness of the cause.

Later in the year luck was once again on my side! By September we had no local cause booked in for December. I like to let the organisations choose which month they would like to be involved and I think  the general consensus of opinion was that December was a “no- goer”. I think they felt that people would be more interested in buying Christmas presents than giving money to charity. More fool them! Once again James let me have the month for SSDUK. Sue and I put our thinking caps on and came up with the idea of a craft stall so from September onwards we were busy knitting and sewing away. Believe me, I am no knitter and could only manage simple things like scarves and hats, but Sue who is much more talented than me knitted some amazing animals with Christmas outfits on (I only wish I had some photos to show you but better luck next time!)

This time we raised £615 which I thought was pretty good for December!

More good news – James is now allowing me 2 months of the year for SSDUK. So again Sue and I put our thinking caps on and came up with another Tombola and  “adopt an animal”. Now to writing more posters and promoting the cause!

Basically I have been trawling charity shops and buying any cute little furry dogs in good condition to then put up for adoption. When I told one of my brothers what I was doing he kindly sent me a huge box of beanie babies that my niece had collected when she was little – all types of animals and all in excellent condition (hence the “adopt a beanie baby or cute fur baby!). We had well over a hundred by the beginning of August so off to a good start.

We actually did the fund raising over 2 weekends this time (well it didn’t quite turn out “we” over the 2nd weekend but I’ll come on to that!) Saturday 17th August, myself and a couple of colleagues Phil and Amelia (and Amelia’s boyfriend Connor!) set up the stalls on a breezy but bright day. It was actually Amelia’s 21st birthday – I’m sure she should have had better things to do on her 21st bless her! And Sue who had to work that day came out and helped during her break! Shows what support we have.

The day was a tremendous success. We had lots of fun over the hours and more importantly raised lots more awareness for the cause. Many people asked for details re the charity so we directed them to the website. By the end of the day, around half of the animals had been adopted and gone to their forever homes, and around half the tombola items won. A very good day in all!

• 

• 

The following Saturday the 24th, Sue and I were due to do it all again. Unfortunately, Sue was asked to work on over the afternoon (she was due to finish at 11am) owing to staff shortage. She was gutted – so was I!

Hey ho, it was a beautiful day and I certainly wasn’t going to let this stop me. August bank holiday is our busiest weekend so I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity of raising lots of money and awareness. So I set to in getting the stalls set up, much harder on your own but I got there! I then took a photo of my handiwork and the day began in earnest!

Of course once I was all set up I was stuck really. What I mean is, with all the animals, tombola prizes and money tins I couldn’t leave them! I had to ask a customer at one stage if she would mind looking over the stall so I could go and have a wee! (I did know her by the way, I didn’t just grab any unsuspecting customer!!!). It was such a sweltering day if you remember and the front of the Co-op is in full sunlight all day. I was gradually peeling off clothes and melting when a customer went to the boot of her car and brought me out an umbrella. How kind is that. Unfortunately there was nowhere to secure it and I couldn’t exactly hold it and run the stalls but the thought was there! Anyway the day went really well and I had great fun in running the tombola and trying to get as many little animals adopted as possible. There were so many holiday makers around and they loved the idea. I think the fact that I was doing it on my own made more people stop and talk to me as they felt sorry for me. Finally around 4.30 pm, with the majority of the animals gone and very few tombola prizes left, I decided it was time to pack up. I was resembling a lobster by this stage so probably looking a bit scary! I started packing the animals up first and as I was doing it decided I’d rather not have any tombola prizes left so began asking any customer who passed “what will you give me for this?” “how much for this prize?” “all in a good cause” etc. etc. I felt a bit like a street seller and probably sounded like an old fish wife but it worked – everything went! Mmmm… perhaps a thought for a future event, I’m always looking for new ideas.

Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for! I’m thrilled to say that we beat our previous record and raised a tremendous £810. It took me over a week to count all the money but it was worth it and I gave a little whoop every time I reached another £100!

Okay, so I know I have a decent boss who allows me to do this fund raising from work, but to be honest, if the worst came to the worst and we had a new boss who didn’t allow it, I would still not be thwarted. I am so passionate about it now, I would just find another venue. Perhaps a local car boot sale; a stall at our village fayre; a coffee and cake stall from home; a stall at the local community centre. Where there’s a will there’s a way and I would definitely find a way!!!

This is our charity, the charity we love and owe so much to because of our beautiful fur babies. Perhaps we could share some ideas regarding fundraising – either for yourself or for me (I’m always looking for new fun ideas). There must be so many thoughts amongst you all.

Just a reminder of my 2 little inspirations and why I do all this. I want for all the dogs in the Pound to have the chance of a forever home like Chico and Pancho

Well if I’m going to try and break the record again in December when Sue and I are having another craft stall for SSDUK, then I’d best stop talking and get back to “clickety clacking”!!!

This post blog was written by Lindsay Poupard