We loved our fundraising event on Father's Day at Lou's City Bar in Columbia Heights!  So many of our adoptable dogs (and alumni!) came to hang out on the patio on this gorgeous day and get tons of pets and love from World Cup viewers. Photographer Catherine Shaw was there for awhile and snapped these great shots of our pups.  Thanks to all who came out and made this event a success!

In honor of Father's Day, AmazonSmile will donate an extra $5 to City Dogs Rescue for each customer who makes an eligible purchase on smile.amazon.com. 

AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization (such as City Dogs Rescue!) every time you shop, at no cost to you. When you shop at smile.amazon.com, you’ll find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization. 

You use the same Amazon.com account on AmazonSmile, so it's as simple as bookmarking smile.amazon.com and using that to shop on Amazon!  

Want to sign up?  Click here to get started!

Dust off your tiaras and cummerbunds cause we're throwing a Prom, and you're invited! Join us on June 21st at Jade Fitness (new business) for CDR Prom: Raise the Woof! 

We throw a lot of great events for City Dogs Rescue but we're really excited for this one. Early bird tickets are $85 and they include an open bar with top shelf liquor, finger food, and all the music and dancing you could ask for with music by VJ Tre.   Early Bird Pricing Ends Sunday 6/15!

We'll also have a photo booth and a silent auction with some really great prizes like a signed RGIII helmet and a 5 night stay at the Hyatt Place San Jose Del Cabo Mexico!

Buy tickets here: http://bit.ly/CDRProm (you must be 21+)

More information here: https://www.facebook.com/events/842090955804917/

Thank you, Ethan, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY from all of us here at City Dogs Rescue!

In April, City Dogs Rescue made a $3000 donation toward a vaccination program at Cleveland County Animal Shelter. This is their response:

CDR supporters raised $3,000 for vaccinations for Cleveland County shelter animals. A huge thank you to all of our supporters!

Last Summer, City Dogs Rescue, joined with several other organizations to encourage Cleveland County Animal Control to drastically change its adoption policies and practices and to end the gassing of unwanted pets.  City Dogs Rescue experienced a number of difficulties with working with CCAC at the time, including one particular incident involving CDR's unsuccessful attempts to rescue a sweet dog named Luna.  After this incident, CDR submitted a presentation to the County Commissioners outlining our concerns and suggested actions (see Blog Post).  After reviewing the presentation, County Commissioner Susan Allen reached out to us and has been very responsive to our concerns.  Based upon Commissioner Allen's review of the situation with Luna and similar situations involving other rescues, the Commissioners determined that changes were needed at the shelter.  Commissioner Allen expressed a sincere interest in having the shelter be more accessible to rescue and in reducing the shelter's euthanasia rate. 

A number of changes were implemented immediately:

1.  CCAC hired an internal rescue coordinator.  

2.  CCAC implemented several safeguards to try to prevent breakdowns in communication from occurring.

As a result of these changes, CDR continued to rescue dogs from CCAC but at an increased rate.  Since May 2013, CDR rescued over 80 dogs from CCAC, including the sweet Dixie pictured above (who is still available for adoption at http://www.citydogsrescuedc.org/dogs.html#.U0sdPcdqnv4). Many other rescues worked to get dogs as well.   (Since CCAC is a rural county, it must rely on rescues rather than internal adoptions for the bulk of its animals to be saved). 

CCAC just released its euthanasia statistics, and boy what a change one year makes!

Animal shelter statistics in 2012 vs. 2013
Animals adopted: 6%, 8%
Animals rescued: 8%, 46%
Total cats saved: 3.5%, 37.5%
Total dogs saved: 31%, 80%
Total animals saved: 18%, 59%
Total animals euthanized: 79%, 37% (a 42% decrease)
Animals euthanized by carbon monoxide: 64%, 36%
Animals euthanized by injection: 36%, 64%

Now, with even more exciting news, CCAC has agreed to remove the gas chamber by June 30, 2014 and increase adoption hours!  This is absolutely huge and we could not be more thrilled to see the end to this inhumane method of killing unwanted animals.  See Shelby Star Article and the video below.

But CCAC has not stopped there!   It also wants to adopt a program to vaccinate dogs and cats upon intake.  By doing so, it can potentially eliminate the unnecessary suffering and death of animals from Parvo, Distempter, and other easily preventable diseases.  CCAC estimates that the cost to provide these vaccinations is $44,970.26 on an annual basis (see breakdown of costs under "Photos Section"), but it does not have these expenses in its budget.  As a THANK YOU to CCAC for implementing these wonderful changes and to prevent unnecessary suffering and death, CDR wants to raise at least $2500 so we can to help these animals get vaccinated.   Vaccinations for Rabies, Parvo, and Distemper that are administered at the shelter can prevent unnecessary suffering and death. Sadly, City Dogs Rescue has had several of our dogs, including Jett, Sunshine, Octavio, Shotgun, Woodstock, and Vince, succumb to diseases that could have been prevented if vaccinations were available at the shelter.