Click here for the current issue (Fall-Winter 2009) of the PHS newsletter.
December 20th 2008
Welcome to the latest edition of our newsletter! As always it has been a busy few months! The winter months are the most difficult for the animals at the shelter with the onset of the colder temperatures. Luckily, they have the support of our wonderful community who have shown time and again their dedication to them. Without you we would not be able to give them the care and compassion they deserve. So from all of us, a great big Thank You, Woof & Meow!
With the onset of Daylight Savings Time, the shelter hours have been rolled back to 10 AM to 4 PM . We will still be open 7 days a week.
Recent and Upcoming Events
The feedback from our Multi-Rescue Adoption Day has been fantastic! Over a dozen dogs and cats from the participating rescues went home due to that event, and we have been told that there were many applications placed for additional dogs and cats! It was a great day for the community and we would like to thank everyone again, including the Town of Patterson and the Patterson Rec Center! A special thank you goes out to Dawn Zerbo, of Holmes, for donating her 50/50 winnings back to Putnam Humane Society!
Our Flea Free Flea Market was another success, we raised close to $900 despite the fact that we were rained out on our original date.
Thanks to Michele Dugan, Stan Watkins and his crew at Crime & Merriment Mysteries, The Murder Mystery Dinner on 11/15 was enjoyed by 165 guests. We had a blast!
To start off December, we sold all sorts of crafts and presents for pets and animal lovers at the Primrose School Craft Fair & the Stormville Flea Market.
Our very popular Pet Photos with Santa at the Feed Barn were a huge success with lines out the door!
Yesterday we sold out of cookies at the cookie walk before 1:30! Amazing!
Looking forward to the spring, there will be a Valentines Benefit Concert in Putnam Valley, a huge pet event in Philipstown and our annual appeal letter will be in your mailboxes after the new year.
Lastly, our latest print Newsletter is available for pickup at the shelter office.
Training Pen
We have had multiple trainers in over the past few months to help us work with our current population and they all recommended that we build an area to work in. Thanks to a generous donation, we have been able to build a training pen for off-leash activities at the shelter! This will allow for more intensive training and also give all of the dogs a chance to get out of their pens and exercise. A special thanks also goes to Joe Duke of Duke Fence for building this is record time.
A special thanks to our neighbor
Mark Porcelli of The Storage Depot donated space to us to house our overflow tag sale items! The Storage Depot is located next door to us at 76 Old Route 6. Call them at 845-6460 if you need storage space! Thanks again guys!
Municipal Contracts
PHS is proud to announce that we will continue contracting with the towns of Carmel, Phillipstown and Southeast for 2009! Thanks to a large turnout at the Southeast Town meeting, we secured funding for 2009 by a 4 - 1 vote. We also signed a 3 year contract agreement with the Town of Kent effective Jan 1st 2009.
We currently have a smaller contract with Patterson and are working towards reaching an agreement with them for next year. Stay tuned.
Adoptions!
We are very happy to announce that the following dogs have gone to their forever homes! Callie, Kaylin, Pico, Troy, Lady, Cupcake, Hudson, Shilo, Luther, Reenie, Tuffy, Jacques, Noel, Montana, Chance, DIngo, Bullett, Blaze and long time residents Garrett, Hannah & Phoenix!
Cats who have found their forever homes include Sweetie, Snowflake, Felix, Gilda, Little Miss, Gabby, Mesi, Pippen, Phelps, Batman, Shenia, Slater, Dizzy, Breeze, Misty, Scooter, Katelyn, Skippy, Jonas, Nadine, Laurel, Brandy, Peter, Kate, Lita, Dale, Bonnie, Zorra, Tinkerbell, Jack, Reyes, Bob, Chuck, Titan and Sasha! We also have an additional 18 kittens in foster care that will become adopted once they are of age! Meow!
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Remember to keep your pets inside when it is cold. If you are uncomfortable outside, your dog our cat feels the same way.
Sincerely,
All of us at the Putnam Humane Society
October 13th 2008
The air is getting cooler, the children have returned to school and the reality has hit that the summer has ended. However, the changing leaves also bring an action packed fall season at PHS!
Late Summer Wrap-Up
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The past few weeks have been quite busy. In late September we had a wonderful day at Strutt Your Mutt. Hundreds of local dogs and their owners spent a day in the park, joined by close to a dozen PHS residents. Thank You to everyone who shared the day. We attended the Patterson Community Day, a Blessing of the Animals in Garrison and then it was up to Stormville Flea Market last weekend.
In the spirit of keeping busy, the rest of the month promises to be just as busy!
PHS to Host First Adoption Event
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On October 18, we will be trying something new! For those people who want to adopt an animal, but have a hard time walking into a shelter, we will be hosting a huge, Multi-Rescue Adoption Event at the Patterson Recreation Center, on 65 Front Street, in Patterson. We will be there from noon to 4 p.m. and area shelters, rescue groups, veterinarians, and animal related vendors will be participating. Dogs, cats, puppies and kittens will be available for adoption. This is the first time this has been attempted in Putnam County, and we are hoping to plant the seeds of increased cooperation amongst all of the animal welfare groups. Each individual rescue will be following their own adoption procedures. It will also be an opportunity to meet some of the area veterinarians, and pet services people in our area. Again, if you would like to help out, please email shelter@puthhumane.org and we will put you to work!
Flea Free Flea Market
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On October 25th, from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, we will have a huge tag sale event at the shelter. All sales directly benefit the dogs and cats here at the shelter. We hope to have something for everyone, so come on down!
Murder Mystery Dinner
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More fun will be arriving with our Haunted Mansion Murder Mystery Dinner, on November 15th! The flyer and details are available on our website. You can purchase tickets online or at the shelter office. Act quick, the show always sells out early!
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The Good Stuff!
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Now, for the reason we do what we do: the adoptions!
Dogs who have gone to their new forever homes since our last e-newsletter are: Chief, Durga, Baby Girl, Bruno, Flower, Rascal, Paul, Norman, Uno, Pojo, Zuki, Aubrey, Deranda, Skate, Jacques, Seaweed, Suzie and Delilah
Cats and kittens who found their new forever homes are: Abby, Nancy, Krackle, Abraham, Ronald, Baby, Buttercup, Martini, Sheryl, Marilyn, Pomona, Hercules, Nate, Buddy, Uno, Azalea, Kelly, George, Jefferson, Jeter, Willow, Melky, Pellet, Teddy, Flora and Pansy.
Kittens who are in foster with their future adopters are: Tiger, Lily, Jill, Holly, Hydrangea, Boots, Batman, Bonnie, Brett, Dale, Jackson, Joe, Kenny, LAurel, Lena, Maximus, Nate, Pena, Simba, Skippy, Zorra and Sugarfoot.
Congratulations to all!
A not so "dry" run
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Finally, a "Hat's Off" and a big "Thank You" to the staff and volunteers who helped prepare for Tropical Storm Hanna. After spending a long and later, very wet day 'battening down the hatches', 11 dogs went home for the night and the rest were moved indoors. It made for a much more comfortable night for all. Thankfully, Hanna was not as powerful as predicted and became a non-event. We used it as a learning experience on preparing for a weather emergency. Great job everyone!
Until next time, keep your pets protected all through the fall tick season by using their flea and tick protections. We will see you at the shelter!
Pawsitively yours,
The Board of Directors of PHS
Upcoming:
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Calendars will be on sale soon!
Cookie Walk in December!
August 25th 2008
As the summer is quickly fading and fall is almost upon us, we have a lot of news to report!
Many Thanks
We had a quick and overwhelming response to our refrigerator request. Thank you for all the offers. Who knew there were so many refrigerators out there just waiting for a good home? Thank you to Duncan & Holly Craven for your donation!
Joe Bondi with Knight Realms held a raffle with the proceeds going to PHS. The resulting donation netted us $700! Thank you guys and gals!
Next, we want to give a big thank you to the Camp Combe Service Corps, a group of middle school aged young people who helped do some painting and created a great play station for our cats in the community cat room. Some of them also painted some very cool paintings of cats & dogs that we will be hanging up around the shelter. Wow! It is just amazing what a little team work and some high energy kids can accomplish! Thanks Camp Combe!!
Speaking of enterprising young people, a group of young people in Carmel opened a lemonade stand in their neighborhood and raised $50.00 which they donated to the Putnam Humane Society. A special thanks to Julie Tramontana (age 7) and Madison Cucinella (age 8)for their great sales abilities!
It is so encouraging to see young people in our community take an interest in the Putnam Humane Society and to put their energy into making a difference.
There are so many more people we'd like to acknowledge! Thanks go out to the local veterinarians who have been working hard and making a huge difference on a daily basis in the health of the animals, our volunteers who do load after load of laundry, walk miles and miles with dogs, clean out cages and litter pans, show people our wonderful animals for adoption, and a thousand other jobs that benefit the welfare of the animals at PHS.
Members of our community have made generous donations of money, supplies, bedding, and food. Still others offer temporary or permanent homes to our dogs and cats.
We could not operate without all of you, and you are all essential to our success. So thank you all!
Committees
As you are aware, committee sign ups have been underway and we will be contacting you shortly to get started. Thanks for offering to serve on a committee or two or three! If you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. Just pick up a form in the PHS office, fill it out and hand it in to Colleen in the office.
Recent Events
We had a busy month with adoption events, a Dog Wash and a HosPETality Sunday. We are happy to report we made $3577 at the Dog Wash! Incredible! We washed a lot of dogs and had a blast doing it! Throughout the day, people enjoyed coffee, tea and lots of the goodies we had to offer for HosPETality Sunday. Thank You Patty Sparano for making this happen. Can't wait to do it again.
Upcoming Events
August 29th & 30th we will be at Stormville Flea Market, we can use help setting up and manning the table, please contact Alison if you can be there. September brings us Strutt Your Mutt on the 20th and we are going to try and sneak in one last dog wash on the 27th. Looking ahead, we are going to host a huge adoption event in early October at the Patterson Rec Center and in mid October we will have a "Flea Free" Flea Market at PHS. Check our site next month for details.
And Most Importantly,
Adoption congratulations go out to the following dogs in permanent homes: Noble, Rocky (finally!), Malachi, Unie, Bartles, Russo, Buddy, Zola, Mindy, and Claudia.
Congratulations go out to quite a few kittens and cats as well: Gus, Stormy, Flippy, Cream, Daisy, Lily, Chad, Brad, Dahlia, Tulip, Joe, David, Matilda, Joba, Pancake, Teddy, Elvis and Gomez!
We hope you enjoy our update and the new email format! Stay tuned for the next issue in early/mid September. We think we have all of the various email lists rolled into one. Turns out their were 4 lists in 4 different places. If this is the first newsletter you have received, the past ones are listed on the website. Sorry if you missed any.
Pawsitively yours,
The Board of Directors of PHS
August 14, 2008
Dear PHS Supporter,
We have had a busy few weeks since our last e-mail! Congratulations to our newly adopted dogs and their new families- Cynda, Roman, Buds, Ella Bella, Shorty, Birdie, Carmel, Munchkin (now known as Charlie), Marissa, Princess, Monaco, Sabrina, Adonis, Copper, Raymond, Sully/Freddie, Lucy and Paul! Cody has gone into foster care. Congratulations also go out to our newly adopted cats and their new families- Toni, Julian, Chip/Artie, Teddy and kittens- Molta, A-Rod, Jeter, Poppy, Rose, Anna, Hickory, Nathan, Nina, Pop, Lotus and Petunia! Matilda and Pansy as well as Molly and her three kittens, Tiffany, Frank and Zappa are in foster care. Sadly, Connie, a special little kitten passed away. Several more adoptions are pending.
We also have a busy time ahead! To begin with, we are having three adoption events. Two of them will be in New Paltz, on August 10 (already happened!) and the 17th from 11-3, an invite from Paws of Distinction. Thank you, Amanda Favoino! Be sure to check out the Paws of Distinction link on our website. The third event is also on August 17, from 11-3 in Wilton, Connecticut at the South Wilton Animal Hospital. Thank you, Dr. Fahy for this wonderful opportunity! We can use help transporting and handling animals for the two remaining events.
We are also having another Dog Wash on Sunday, August 24. If you missed the last one and want to get in on the fun this time, just let us know. If you had a blast the last time and want more fun, let us know you‘ll be coming to help!
Then to wrap up the month, on August 30th and 31st, we will be having our tent and table at Stormville Flea Market. We can also use help setting up and operating the booth as well as packing up to come home. If we have enough help, there will be time for a little shopping too!
Looking ahead to September, please keep Saturday, September 20 open for Strutt Your Mutt. We have a great day planned for all our canine friends and families. Also coming out soon will be the 2009 PHS Calendar! They will be out in time for holiday gift giving, so you can support your shelter and give a great and useful gift at the same time.
We have been blessed with some great donations as of late. Taylor Goslin, a North Salem High School Senior, has been busy raising money to purchase picket fencing to put between cages and in other areas to enhance the shelter looks and provide added safety for our residents. On Monday, August 11, she and a group of friends came down to the shelter and put it up! Thank you Taylor, and thanks to all of your hard working friends and family! It looks great!
The Southeast Home Depot has come through once again with even more donations! This time we received rugs and carpet for runs and cages. Their generosity is overwhelming. The Fishkill Home Depot has also donated even more rugs this week! So many good people have been stopping by the shelter and dropping off donations. It is heartwarming to know that so many people are concerned with the welfare of the animals and willing to help in some way. A special thank you goes out to all.
Speaking of donations, if you have a working refrigerator that needs a new home, please let us know! You can leave a message with Colleen or Sarah in the office and they will pass it on to us. Thank you!
We had a wonderful turnout for our Meet and Greet night. Thank you to all who were able to attend. We provided an opportunity for folks to sign up for committees and those committee descriptions and sign up forms are now available in the office. Please return any forms to Amy Morrison’s mailbox in the office. We will have committees up and running sometime shortly after the next board meeting.
If you haven’t been in to notice our new looks, the board members and a few volunteers came in on a Friday night after hours so business wasn‘t disrupted, in order to clean, paint and redesign our office. We had a lead on “gently used” office furniture from a discount furniture warehouse in Newburgh! We were able to redesign the office space to give more space and seating for visitors and potential adopters, at a fraction of the cost for new furniture.
If you missed an e-mail newsletter, you can keep posted and current on our website at www.puthumane.org All e-mail newsletters will be accessible there as well.
We will see you at the shelter!
Pawsitively yours,
The Board of Directors of PHS
July 18th 2008:
Greetings!
It has been a busy July so far!
We have had a lot of dogs and cats welcomed into wonderful new homes, foster homes and many more pending adoptions. Congratulations to dogs- Andy, Vegas, Crosby, Wink, Atticus, Tribute and Bo Peep and Max (adopted together!) for finding wonderful new families. Hats off to foster homes- both temporary and permanent for Monday and Wags. There are many more great dogs waiting for adoption. Congratulations to Clio the cat, for finding her wonderful new home. We have lots of kittens both at the shelter and in foster care available for adoption and well as some wonderful cats. Please come down and meet them!
On a very sad note, we said goodbye to two very special cats Stone and Rene who just couldn’t fight the fight any more. We miss them terribly.
There was a great response to foster home help and that is so appreciated! If we don’t call you right now, don’t worry…we aren’t losing your name and as soon as we need another placement, we’ll be calling!
We are pleased to announce our Dog Wash was a great success on July 13th. In addition to making almost $1300.00, we had lots of clean, spiffed up and micro chipped dogs prancing home with their proud owners! Thanks to all of you who helped out or attended. If you missed it or dog washing isn‘t your cup of tea- that’s ok, we’ll have plenty of other opportunities for folks20to pitch in and help out coming soon. One opportunity is right around the corner….
On Saturday, September 20th, at the Veteran’s Memorial Park, we’ll be having our annual Strutt Your Mutt event! Beginning in August, registration forms will be available through our website. We’ll be providing more details of how you can help soon. It is a very fun day for everyone. For those of you who haven’t been, we have great vendors, local kennel clubs, activities for your dogs, a blessing of the Animals, a parade of shelter dogs, and lots of fun games, prizes and culminating with a nice hike through the woods. Even if you don’t have a dog, please feel free to join us or volunteer to help.
PHS will also be having some Adoption Day events and we’ll keep you up to date on those as they evolve.
Although someday we’ll be moving to a new and wonderful shelter, we need to keep this one functional and meeting the growing needs of the county. We have some new fencing being installed, and are working out the details on its positioning. We have had some upgrades done to our plumbing and electrical system to allow for two more washing machines and another dryer. Kate McGunnigle, one of our great volunteers, was instrumental in getting the job done. She spoke to the powers that be at Home Depot and got us a great discount on some great equipment! She took the initiative from start to finish. If you have noticed the new look arou nd the place- you can also thank Kate for HOURS of painting with $1500 of donated custom mixed paint from Home Depot. It looks awesome Kate, thank you!!! And a very special thanks to the Southeast Home Depot! Kate has also had the support of some great volunteers sweating right along side of her- Thank you to the other painters as well!
Speaking of being appreciative, we’d also like to remind folks that lots of companies offer matching gift donations, so if you are making donations please check to see if your company is one who will match your donation. Another really easy way to help is next time you need to search for anything on the internet, or make and purchases, please be sure to use the search engine or shopping sites listed on the front page of our website www.puthumane.org They are really easy to use and they all earn us money. No donation is ever too small!
If you are traveling with your pet this summer, please be sure to check hotel rooms for items under radiators and beds before you let your pet loose in the rooms. Don’t let your dogs drink out of ornamental fountains, as they can have antifreeze added in cooler climate areas. Put collars with identification on your pets and remember to bring copies of all relevant pet records as well as a good quality picture of your pet. You just never know when there will be an emergency.
Thanks for all your support and we’ll see you at the shelter!
Pawsitively yours,
The Board of Directors of PHS
July 5, 2008
Greetings to the Membership of Putnam Humane Society,
Taking advantage of the spirit of Independence Day, we’d like to say that July has started with a bang and we have lots of opportunity for folks to get involved! We can use volunteers to do some general cleaning, mowing, weed whacking, laundry, socializing cats and walking dogs. We need foster homes for cats and dogs, permanent homes for dogs and cats, thrift store volunteers, people to meet and greet the public and to gather and put away donations. We can use drivers to take animals to vet appointments. If you have any special or unique talents that can benefit the dogs and cats at the shelter, please, don’t hesitate to mention them. All reasonable offers will be entertained and appreciated!
We can use donations of bedding (clean blankets, dog beds, cat beds and towels), office supplies (copy paper, stamps), laundry and dish detergent, stainless steel pet bowls, six foot leashes, dog and cat toys and treats and, as always, monetary donations help tremendously!
Our new summer hours are Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., and Saturday and Sundays, from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Coming up next weekend, we have our Annual Dog Was h! It will be on Sunday, July 13th, from 11-3:30. We can use volunteer dog washers for that event as well as participants. Please tell all your friends!
Our new Board is very enthusiastic and is up and running. John Anastasio has been elected president, followed by Nadine Ashby as Vice President, Lisa Capizzi as Treasurer and Amy Morrison as Secretary. Our Directors are Courtney Aponte, Bonnie Benedict, Alison Genez, Jill Gianfransico, and Bill McMahon. Our immediate goals include increased communication, improving the image of PHS, creating/standardizing policies and increasing our adoption rates and increasing our volunteer, member and foster home bases.
If you are at the Stormville Flea Market this weekend, please be sure to stop by our booth and say hello or help out for a while. We can always use more hands!
Pawsitively yours,
The Board of Directors of PHS
