This weekend, in honor of Valentine’s Day, WHS is helping people find their new sweetheart, well at least a sweetheart of the four-legged variety. This Saturday from 1:00-3:00, furry singles will be available to meet with potential families in mini-interviews.

A quick get-to-know-you meeting will be facilitated by volunteers ready to show off all of the pet’s qualities. After the timer buzzes, it’s off to the next waiting pet.

This event will give people the chance to meet with a variety of animals in a short time and even meet a variety of species – dogs, cats, rabbits and rats will be participating on Saturday.

If Destiny isn’t adopted by then, I hope she gets to try out speed dating.

I can’t wait to see how this works!

A video brochure about Willamette Humane Society produced by CCTV:

This evening Trent and I went to Wine & Whiskers, Heartland’s fundraising auction. It’s always nice to go to an event like this when you haven’t had to work for the past many months to pull it together and don’t even have to work that evening and can just enjoy the socializing and yummy food. Of course it is always nice to see all the Corvallis folks again – catching up with coworkers, volunteers, foster families, and community members.

The Heartland folks did a really nice job this year. The silent auction tables looked very pretty and there were lots of great things to bid on.

I ended up in a bidding war with several people for my favorite piece of cat art. But in the last seconds before the table closed, I got the last bid.

"Kinder Pets" by Naboo, Alderaan & Tatooine

I didn’t realize until halfway through bidding that this was painted by Brittany’s foster kittens. Brittany, your foster babies are very talented!

It took me two auctions, but I finally got the bookends I fell in love with at the last Wine & Whiskers. I was outbid on these last year, but lucky for me they got donated back to the auction for this year’s event.

I just loved how fun these were. Plus they’re very sturdy and therefore very practical. (Hear that, Trent? Practical. Worth every penny.)

It felt sort of weird to go to an auction to buy things when I just spent a good portion of my weekend getting rid of stuff that has been cluttering up our house. But bookends are useful, and it’s not like we’re getting rid of our books. And art is art, whether or not it’s done by a cat. There’s always some extra wall space somewhere!

What a fun evening! A great end to the weekend. Back to work in the morning. Looks like my foster kitty Ariel is still there. I’ll have to go say hi to her when I get there.

Yesterday my two foster kittens went back to the shelter to go back up for adoption after recovering from a cold. Jasmine the torti is a sweetheart who loves everyone and is fearless of dogs. She never cared when massive Romeo would come over and nibble on her. Jasmine also loved to hang out on Trent’s shoulder.

With how cute and sweet she is, I wasn’t surprised when I found out that in less than two hours of being on the adoption floor, she had already gone home. Yippee for Jasmine.

Jasmine

Her sister Ariel is still looking for a home. Ariel is an adorable buff teenage kitty who is super shy. Even during her time in foster, she never fully warmed up to people. At least she stopped hiding all the time and would come out when people were in the room with her, but she still doesn’t choose to approach people. I figured it’d take her longer to find a quiet, patient home willing to work with her. Maybe she’ll find her family this weekend.

Ariel

Today’s project: clean out the foster room in preparation for the next foster cats.

One of our wonderful Wednesday volunteers blogs about the dogs she meets during her dog walking shifts at the shelter. I love to see her photos and videos of our adoptable dogs.

I saw Martha at the shelter today and can’t wait to see her latest blog post.

www.adoptanoregondog.com

Thanks Martha for the great stories about WHS’s dogs!!

Today our shelter’s spay & neuter clinic performed our 250th surgery. It’s amazing to think that in just over three weeks, that is 250 fewer animals reproducing than our community had before!

Agate, a kitty available for adoption at WHS, was our 250th patient. She is a very pretty 8 month old girl who was found as a stray.

Agate

Now Agate is ready to get adopted!

Today I got to spend time with six great ladies from Newport. They came representing a variety of groups working for the Lincoln County Animal Shelter to tour our shelter and learn about our programs.

Recently Lincoln County faced the possibility of not having animal services any longer, but in November voters thankfully approved a measure allowing continued funding for the shelter.

Now this group, consisting of the Animal Shelter, Central Coast Humane Society and Friends of Lincoln County Animal Shelter, is working together to create a business plan for where to go from here.

These three groups are making the rounds of other local shelters, and visited WHS this afternoon. It was fun to show them around and talk about our programs.

Of course I had to share with them that Trent and I adopted our first dog from their shelter. Dante was a 4 month old stray puppy when he arrived at the shelter in Newport. In July 2001 I had gone to the shelter with my mom and sister looking for a dog for Jennifer. She found her Indy there that day, but the husky mix in a neighboring kennel caught my eye.

I went home that day and mentioned this dog to Trent who fell in love without even seeing him. We went back first thing the next morning to adopt, not knowing that the shelter wasn’t open. A nice staff member helped us out and even let us adopt the fluffy puppy right then.

Now 8 1/2 years later, Dante is still fluffy as ever and the best dog we have ever had.

Sir Dante LeFluffy

Thanks to Lincoln County Animal Shelter for being there for Dante when he was a stray and for helping us add him to our family. Glad you’re still there to continue helping the community’s animals!