I agree that those who donate should only donate to the rescues that are listed. I would be on that list if I had needed to seek out donations in the past but I worked independently in Destin from 1996 to 2004, Atlanta from 2004 to 2006, Freeport, Fl 2006-2008, Pensacola 2008, and now back in Freeport. I had to relocated a couple of times due to getting married and for employment. Again, I have always done everything independently and mostly by word of mouth or just picking up strays. I do have great references such as Village Vet, Paw Paws Pet Grooming, Wilson Floor Cover/Josh Gilder, Sea Side Bulldogs, Remax of Greater Atlanta/Teri Berkes, Earthlink/Mike Strutton, Steve Willis/Willis Law Firm, Wash Me Now II/Lee Ramsey and more. All of these mentioned businesses and people will give you excellent references on my participation on rescuing animals and adopting them out as well as my work ethic, honesty, generosity, and the care I give to my personal permanent dogs. All of my personal dogs are rescues that I have permanently kept due to different reasons such as long term medical care needed, behavior issue's leading to unadoptable, hard to adopt out breeds and seniors, personal preferences, etc. I am of course not able to keep any more permanently. I have definitely hit a cap on that. But I do have room both in house and on land for rescues. I am zoned residential but located in an area where almost everyone has large lots and there is no
HOA. I have had no complaints! My lot is completely surrounded by medium brush and tree's. I have almost one acre privacy fenced in front and back, driveway gates, cross fenced making up 4 separate large yards all privacy. All of my dogs and rescues are kept inside my house and my climate control side garage building. I also have dog doors for them. I do closely supervise the dogs to control the noise level. They do like to play and bark but I keep it down to a minimum. I get discounted medical benefits, supplies, etc. from various vets and pet supply wholesale companies. I purchase multiple coupons on ebay to save on dog food and dog treats. I have just hit a point where my career loss and my bad luck with finding a new career and/or working seasonal jobs has drained my financial stability. I have always found ways to finance everything myself until the past several months. I have borrowed and I have sold anything I had of good value. I have been struggling to find ways to pay all of my bills and to save my house from foreclosure. Despite all the financial stress, I am still wanting to actively and aggressively keep rescuing animals. My rescue activity ability has decreased and it is weighing on my conscience heavily knowing how many animals are out there needing help. I have excellent character and work ethic references and would not be asking for help if I didn't absolutely need it. I am optimistic that my financial distress is a temporary situation that will get resolved in the near future. So please know that I understand if people are hesitant to help out. Please don't feel obligated or guilty if you can't or don't think you should. I have received mostly positive responses and knew there would be a little negative and questionable responses. And that's okay. Hopefully my incorporation for non for profit will be completed soon and my financial stability will improve. I will then start taking the necessary steps to becoming a larger scale rescue facility. I have the deepest passion for all animals and I both want and need to become a major rescue operation. Well I hope I have answered all or most of the questions that are on the different responses. Please know I will not be upset in any kind of way if people in our community and other communities would rather donate to other organizations. I was just hoping to get a little help even temporarily. I had several people tell me I should ask for help so I finally have tried it. I will work on getting some
pictures of rescues on here. I don't have pictures of them all because I have found homes for dogs that were in foster care. I still took care of vet expenses, found them a new home, picked them up and took them to their
new owner's home, and took care of travel exenses. I apologize for all the rambling. I just keep having more ideas and info come to mind. Most importantly, again, I am just happy and appreciative of the major amount of attention that this thread has brought to animal issues. It would be great if we could all work together to make major improvements to our shelters, rescuers, etc...! Best Regards, Danielle/Ruff Haus