Sponsoring Rescued Shelties

Most people aren't really aware how much it costs to run a rescue organization. Sure, there are expenses for transportation (e.g. retrieving dogs from an animal shelter), telephone, web sites, and food. Some of those (especially food!) can get pretty expensive. But the real costs are medical expenses.

Veterinary care is, service for service, far less expensive than human medical care, but it adds up in a great big hurry — especially because virtually no rescue group could possibly afford the cost of pet medical insurance for so many dogs. Almost every dog who comes into our program requires at least some medical care. Here are just a few of the common veterinary expenses that are required:

• Spay or Neuter — about half of all dogs we take into the program have not been spayed/neutered.
• Dental work — most dogs we get need a dental cleaning, and older or abused dogs often need teeth removed and even more dental surgery.
• Blood work — we do a basic blood panel on almost every dog we bring into the program, and older dogs always have a senior blood panel done.
• Vaccinations — it's no surprise that somebody who has relinquished their dog to a shelter or directly to us has not kept to vaccination schedules
• Medications — most veterinary medicines cost just as much as their human counterparts, and some cost even more because they're so specialized.
• Surgery — surprisingly many of the dogs who come into our program have cancer, usually undiagnosed; when feasible, we try to excise the cancers.
• Ultrasound — many illnesses are more accurately diagnosed by a (relatively) non-invasive ultrasound examination.
• X-Rays — other maladies are best diagnosed by taking one or more X-ray images, which frequently require anesthesia
• MRIs — on rare occassions, an MRI scan is needed for a diagnosis
• Wound care — dogs sometimes arrive into our care with wounds from dog fights, encounters with vehicles, or human cruelty
• Office visits — dogs who are with us for more than just a few weeks are usually given a thorough physical examination
• Euthanasia — every dog who remains in our care until the end of their life is gently and respectfully sent to cross the Rainbow Bridge, held in our loving arms.

None of those procedures are inexpensive and some can be stunningly costly. It is a constant struggle for us to pay the veterinary bills for several dozen dogs throughout a year. If veternarians we use (Cottonwood Animal Hospital) were not so generous and understanding, we'd be in serious trouble, because we are sometimes literally thousands of dollars behind in paying for their services.

And that brings us to to the point of this page:

Sponsoring a Sheltie

People often ask us "How can I help with [a particular dog]'s medical and other expenses? I can't adopt her for [valid reasons], but I want to help her because her story really touched my heart." Until very recently, we didn't have a program in place to allow individual dogs to be sponsored by one or more people, but we kept getting asked the same question. We are pleased that we can now give a better answer to the question.

If you see a Sheltie or other dog on our site, especially a senior or a dog with serious medical problems — and thus essentially unadoptable — and you'd like to help sponsor him or her, it's very simple. If a dog has a status of "Sponsorship", then the description of the dog will have a link that says "Sponsor This Pet". Simply click on that link and you'll be taken to a page that gives you the option of providing a one-time donation to sponsor that particular dog, or of donating some amount of money periodically (some specified number of days or weeks, monthly, or annually) to sponsor that dog. Make your selections and click Continue.

The next page asks for your particulars — if you've registered with our site and are logged in, most of the information will already be filled in on the form. You can choose to directly sponsor the dog yourself, in your name, or to do so as a gift to somebody else or in somebody else's name, or as a memorial to somebody.

Clicking Continue once more takes you to a page where can provide your credit card information or [please forgive me for being unable to complete this sentence right now, as the web page I'm trying to describe is currently down].

And that's it! You will then be a proud sponsor of a very grateful rescued dog.