June 2013

The 2013 Rescue Picnic is July 20 at Ron & Kathy’s home in Tenino. If you would like to attend and haven’t received an invitation, please contact Ron at rescue@nwsams.com.

While looking back through past reports, e-mails and other information to be sure we got all the past year’s adopters on the list of invitations, it was striking to realize we were only involved with four dogs since last July. This is an all-time record low, and from what we have heard it’s happening to many rescues nationwide. The economy is getting better, which may account for part of it. In recent years more people have used Craigslist to find new homes for dogs, but even there we haven’t seen an increase. There are volunteers checking all online listings and we seldom hear of Sammies in the northwest. Recently we asked all our applicants to reaffirm they wish to stay on the list, and at this writing we have thirteen families who are in line for a dog. Slow business in rescue is great for our breed, but not for people who are waiting.

At this writing we think we may have an eight year old Sammy girl coming, but we’re not sure yet. It’s another case where the husband says the dog has to go, to which we always reply “keep the dog and let the husband go.”  We’ll see what happens.