Sunday, December 20, 2015 - Adoption Day

BILL ANNOUNCES: Straydog Radio Show covering the events of Sunday, December 20, 2015. Bill, Juana and our granddaughter Emma are here doing the Sunday report about our Adoption Day. We took some pictures at Straydog. But most of the pictures are of us loading up the big RagTag Rescue Mobile Adoption Day Trailer. The trailer is unbelievable and we took 15 dogs this time. Then we got on the road and went to Rowlett. Let’s talk about what happened on Sunday but, first of all, let’s introduce our guest, Emma. Good morning, Emma. How are you today?
 
EMMA: Good.
 
BILL: Go ahead, Nana.
 
JUANA: Sunday was a very cold day. We haven’t had good weather, when we’ve gone with RagTag. That’s twice with RagTag that the weather has been cold and windy.
 
As you can see, we had a full crew at Straydog. We all started our routine as we do every day. There’s Connor working in kennels and filling holes. Jacob was the walker of the day. I don’t know why in the world he had shorts on. They had shorts on at the Adoption Day too.

Connor fills up a hole that either Copper, Wendy or Cadet had fun digging.

There’s Jacob bringing Charlie to the park.

Charlie gets walked to the park by his buddy Jacob.

There’s Ronnie working in kennels. He’s in shorts too.

The kennels really do look nice right after they get raked.

Then at 9:00 Kate and Patrick Larkin, helped us take 15 dogs to Adoption Day at Unleashed by Petco in Rowlett. Ronnie, Stephanie and I brought all of the dogs. George was taking pictures. The last time we went, I picked larger dogs. For some reason, I thought the crates were bigger. This time I picked smaller and medium-sized dogs. There we are bringing all of the dogs to the van. You can see all of the built-in kennels. There are Wendy and C-Stat, the two puppies Sofia and Nina, Mercedes, who is the last of the four female Boxer/Hound mix puppies. Fallon already had a home visit scheduled. Morgan was adopted on the spot on Saturday. Talena has a home visit scheduled for this coming weekend, so we took Mercedes. We also took Fletcher and he had a lot of interest. Someone took an application home for him. There’s Ms. B. We couldn’t take Gina and Spencer, but they wanted to go.

Wendy tells Ronnie that she is not too sure about getting into this big trailer.

Juana stops for a quick snapshot while carrying Puppies Nina and Sophia out to the Ragtag Rescue Mobile Adoption Day Trailer. (That's Bill standing behind Juana.)

Here comes Stephanie with Mercedes.

And Ronnie with Fletcher.

Inside look of the trailer.

That's Spencer on the right trying to get Ronnie's attention, he want's to go too.

The dogs keep coming and coming.

Ronnie brings Ms. B next.

They also have a little bitty kennel for cats or Chihuahuas. It was a great opportunity to take an older dog and we took Allie. This will help us expose the older dogs to the experience of going to Adoption Day. It was the first time we took Pinky and she is so very sweet. There’s Ms. Coco. I was picking up Coco.

This is Ali that Juana is carrying.

Pinky is not too sure about the trailer either.

And here comes Ronnie bringing Coco.

We followed the trailer and parked. Kate, Patrick, Bill and I walked all of the dogs, so they could go peepee and potty. Most of them were good. The only ones, who got sick, were the puppies, Sofia, Nina and Mercedes. The rest of the dogs were fine.

There was a nice area for the dog to potty right next to where we were set up.

BILL: There are some good pictures of the dog trailer. They show all of the dogs in there.

JUANA: Patrick was asking me about the dogs. He wanted to know their names and whether they were girls or boys. Even though it was a cold day, we had a lot of visitors and we got some cash donations in our donation jar. There was a lady, who fell in love with both Patrick and Teddy. She and her companion wanted one or the other. They didn’t have another dog and they just lost their dog to cancer. I told them that we could do a home visit right then. We were going to talk about it some more, but this couple didn’t get back to me. Maybe they will call us.

This lady really liked Patrick.

The interesting thing was that we had a visit from a family, who were just going to Burger Island, which was a restaurant in front of where we were. They were going to have some onion rings. This couple and their little boy saw us and came by. They fell in love with Mercedes. The have one female dog, named Bailey. She is a Chihuahua/Dachshund mix. They went to eat and they filled out an application for Mercedes. They came back and sat with Mercedes and they had to have her. David Bonski and Glenda and her husband came to help and we want to thank them. I asked David Bonski, Kate and Patrick to hold down the fort, so we could do Mercedes’ home visit. Kate said that we couldn’t miss out on this wonderful opportunity to find such a good home for Mercedes.

We thank longtime Straydog Adoption Day Volunteer David Bonski for visiting us today to see and check out our new setup with Ragtag Rescue. We put David to "work," asking him to stay with the Larkins while Juana and I (Bill) went on the successful home visit and adoption of Puppy Mercedes.

This family fell in love with Mercedes right away.

A little meet and greet going on.

David Bonski tells these people that they are getting a great dog.

It was a very easy home visit. They only have one dog and it was very friendly. Mercedes is a puppy and she loves everybody. They have a beautiful home and a beautiful backyard. They have a secure six-foot fence with gates. The gates are locked on both sides, so no one can accidentally let a dog out. Their little Bailey was running so fast and Mercedes couldn’t keep up with her. The little boy was so happy. His mom and dad were so happy and they are animal lovers. They will give Mercedes a wonderful home. They have a beautiful pool and Mercedes sniffed it, but she didn’t get close to it. Like I said, it was a very easy home visit. We aren’t worried about the pool. They are always with the dogs, when they are outside. We inspected the yard and everything and everything was wonderful. Mercedes was officially adopted and she’s now Bella. We finished the paperwork and got a donation and we went back to the trailer. We walked all of the doggies and loaded them up to go back home. When we got home, we fed all of the dogs. It was a wonderful Adoption Day and we got great exposure. We really want to thank Kate and Patrick for all of their help and their tremendous idea. It was great!

At the home visit Juana holds Mercedes as she meets Bailey.

Mercedes was a little scared of the front door and Juana had to pick her up and take her in.

Mercedes's new Dad welcomes her to her new home.

Mom takes a picture of Dad and Mercedes (now named Bella).

Bailey shows Bella around the back yard.

And before you know it it's play time.

What fun they are having.

Bella with her new family. Congratulations Bella!

​BILL: We’ll be back soon with another report from Straydog.

You can listen to today's Radio Show below.