December Newsletter of The German Shepherd Rescue Trust
Straight into this month – unbelievably we’re into December already!
2011 GSD Rescue Christmas party
Our grateful thanks must go to DSS for sponsoring our Christmas party again this year; they provided some fantastic prizes.
We did hear some comments from some who attended this year’s party about the distance they had to travel to get to the location. While it’s always great to see everyone there we must remember our adoptions are NZ wide and holding the Christmas party at the superb NZ Kennel Club grounds makes it possible for those from the Waikato, and even further, to attend.
It was wonderful to have at the party this year, our most recent and our longest standing adoption, numbers 3 and 933 - 930 dogs being adopted between those two.
Masterpet supplied us with the most fantastic prize for our big raffle this year. We had really good ticket sales and are so very appreciative of the support from Masterpet. The winner of this raffle was ecstatic to receive her prize. Thanks must also go to Forrest Hill Veterinary Clinic for the donation of 18kg bag of Hills Science food and to Tania Wooding for her donation of a Tupperware gift pack.
Calendars
We’re pleased to say calendars are selling well, our pre-orders and subsequent orders mean we only have 50 copies left!
Don’t Over Indulge!
Christmas is fast approaching and it is a time of giving but don't be too kind to your pets with food over Christmas. The extra goodies from the Christmas table can actually do them more harm than good. You might think it would be lovely to give them the ham bone but ham is quite fatty and rich and could lead to an attack of pancreatitis. Raisins and chocolate are toxic to dogs, particularly chocolate - the darker the chocolate the more toxic it is. So while you might not purposely feed your dogs chocolate think about where you might leave wrapped boxes of chocolates – under the tree??? Just the right place for a dog’s keen nose to find them and help themselves to the contents!
Animates BBQ
This month’s BBQ at Animates in Glenfield will be moved to Sunday 4th to coincide with their Santa photo day. This should provide a lot more foot traffic so should give us a good result leading up to Christmas.
Strike Out All Abuse
In the most recent issue of Animal’s Voice is an interesting article on spousal and child abuse and it’s relationship to animal abuse; some of the stats quoted are scary! Here are a couple of excerpts.
“… Arnja Dale, curriculum leader of the Animal Welfare Investigations programme at Unitec, has recently completed the first New Zealand research investigating the co-occurrence of animal abuse, child abuse and domestic violence. Her study found that people who abuse their children or perform domestic violence in front of them, are 22 times more likely to abuse animals.”
“In a national US study, 85% of battered women’s shelters reported that women seeking refuge talked about incidents of pet abuse. In another US study, 83% of families with a history of animal abuse were identified by social service agencies as having children at risk of abuse or neglect.”
Like I said – scary stats! And something to store in the back of your mind if you ever see a child being mishandled or a spouse being even verbally abused!
But let’s not end of a sombre note. This is the last newsletter before Christmas so let me take this opportunity to say thanks to everyone who has and does support GSD Rescue. There are over 900 GSDs in New Zealand who say thank you.
Have a wonderful Christmas everyone, stay safe and live well. See you in 2012!
Colleen Johnson
on behalf of the Trustees
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