If We Build It They Can Come
Fundraising campaign by
STEVEN LAROCK
-
US$0.00Donated So Far
Campaign Story
The Story
We
are at a crossroads of two paths and we need to decide collectively how
the rescue will continue in the future. Let me explain in detail how
this all works.
As a family we agreed that it would be best if the
rescue had its own building on our property that was separate from the
boarding guests and separate from our business entirely.
Let me
explain all of the benefits that would give us if that was to exist, and
let me tell you all the reasons it is so difficult for us to continue
operating out of the Lone Star Dog Ranch building.
We discussed a
building that is off of the Ranch property but it would be too expensive
just to purchase the land and it would not be affordable. It just
doesn’t make sense for us to have to drive away somewhere to tend to the
dogs we have saved and it would further complicate things as opposed to
making them easier.
What you might not know is that the Lone Star
Dog Ranch has lost clientele due to rescue dogs being allowed at our
facility. Even though we do not allow sick dogs to be at the Ranch some
of our clients did not want their dogs to be among the rescues at all
and therefore we have lost them as clients which of course has cost us
income that cannot be reclaimed.
It's very, very difficult to please
everyone and it gets more and more difficult to operate everything under
one roof. During peak times with holidays and summer we are at capacity
for boarding clients, and we have to plan for that and scramble with
all of our rescue dogs to get them all moved to foster homes so that we
can make sure we have room for our paying clients.
When you don't
have enough foster homes this can be very, very challenging and very
stressful. We are always looking for more foster homes but we don’t feel
it’s the solution for all of the problems that we deal with.
If we
had a separate building the rescue dogs would have their own building,
they would have their own yard, we could have our own isolation room for
dogs that might be sick with an upper respiratory infection. We would
have a place to have intake days from the mill auctions with the 20 dogs
or so we take in from there and not try and do that in the Ranch
building while trying to conduct business as usual. We would have a
place for adoptions to happen and a place for volunteers to come and
pick up and return dogs from vet appointments - once again without
disrupting our daily business on a regular basis.
It has become more
and more difficult to do and has become more and more stressful to
accomplish both things - running a successful boarding business, and a
successful rescue at the same time - in the same building.
If we had a
rescue building we could plan to go to an auction to rescue mill dogs
on a regular basis regardless of how busy the Ranch is with boarding
guests, it wouldn’t matter. We could pull from shelters regardless of
them being sick with upper respiratory infections because we have an
immediate place for them to go where they can be isolated. We would be
able to rescue many more dogs on a regular basis.
We could have
volunteers come to the building to help take care of the rescue dogs and
this would not cause a conflict like it does now with volunteers
stepping into the Lone Star Dog Ranch building because our insurance
doesn’t allow that. All of us who live on the property would be able to
walk over and visit with the rescue dogs, photograph them and work on
any and all behavioral issues that are happening in real time and not
try and do it over the phone with foster families or by sending Travis
out to homes to try and help which costs him a great deal of his own
personal time.
Organizer
- STEVEN LAROCK
- Campaign Owner
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