Since this Summer’s Newsletter we are delighted that
MERLIN AND DREAMER have settled in with Matthew Bennett and Joanne Orchard and their family in Grimsby.
PRINCE, our lovely Welsh elderly gent, has gone to a lovely home in Bradford With a family who were just made especially for him! We are hoping that Bubble will soon find a home too!
EVIE, our gorgeous white and fawn girl whom we have had over a year, has found a lovely home in Sleaford and at last, at 5 years old is starting the rest of her life! Dear old Frisbee will miss her dreadfully……….
TARA who came back from her home as the owner developed an allergy has been rehomed with the Nunn family in Sheffield and has settled brilliantly.
JAVA now Zara has gone home to the Key family in Farnsfield, who sadly lost their previous Fen Bank Dog, the beautiful Basil, to Epilepsy earlier in the year. She is getting used to the cat!
BARBIE and TINY will be going to our very good friend in Scotland Ann, who always finds room in her heart for our long stay dogs, and has two spaces by her fire for these needy dogs, both of whom have been with us over a year!
K.C. the little pup brought in by the dog warden is now not so little and is a huge hit with his new owner Nigel Patterson in Wainfleet! He just loves everybody and in true pup style prefers two legs to four and kisses all and sundry whether they need a wash or not! It’s a real thrill to see a sad abandoned, poorly into a confident and very beautiful Saluki cross Dog with the sort of gleaming coat only a black dog can produce.
ANGEL our very shy beautiful blue girl has at last found exactly the right home with two Rag Doll cats and two Siamese and a very understanding local owner who is as enchanted with her as we are! We are so pleased this really needy little girl has the care and support she needs to enjoy her life now.
Sandra Miller Hooker and the Fen Bank Team, Kelly, Diedre, Leanne.
Welcome to our Summer Issue!
It’s June, it’s blowing a gale outside and the poor man who is trying to mend our guttering has just had the ladder fall on his head! They said it would be a heat wave today, the only heat is from Leanne and me mowing our respective paddocks prior to sneaking indoors in my case for a quick paragraph of newsletter in between mows! One has to write when the Muse strikes, I find, as the years advance!
It’s been eventful since last we wrote, our turn for an Inland Revenue Audit, thankfully passed, although we all had a blue fit at the news from the Labrador Lifeline Trust! Of course we weren’t perfect, but a few little errors were forgiven and we do try terribly hard to get it right! - thanks to Stella, Gerald and Trish! Quite a few dogs homed to some lovely people and one or two whom we chose not to home our precious charges. Only the very best will do for our boys and girls- at the risk of seeming sanctimonious!
It has also been the “Quarter of the Dental” and approximately 70 teeth have been extracted!! 34 of them from poor Oakie who was very “ down in the mouth” for quite some time!! Quite a lot of scrambled egg and parmesan cheese was needed to persuade him to eat at all! And for three months now the vet bill has topped £1500.00 each month! So despite the shop we are broke and we do need your donations!! The Gift Aid Auditor has said that we may now claim on cash donations and membership fees to the magazine when made out to FBGS as well as sponsorship donations, so if you can “ Gift Aid “ please do! It is a valuable income stream for us. Whilst we are on the subject, grateful thanks to the people we asked to update membership or forms and who sent a little extra or sometimes quite a lot more! The dogs and we are truly grateful to you all!
We have said Goodbye to some of our loveliest dogs to some very special owners
And LUCY Rodriguez, IZZY Smith- Rasmussen, OLIVER and TARA (yes one of our plain black girls!) Richardson, are all delighting their new owners together with little CASEY whose new owner fell in love with him at the Friskney show, and MERLIN AND DREAMER (2) who will become members of the Orchard family this week. The most joyful homing of all was PEGGY Wolfe who dipped her paws in the Koi pond, ate everyone’s biscuits and played endlessly with Sally her new Labrador cross companion- if ever a dog was delighted to go to a home it was she- and she’s doing brilliantly. These are just some of the dogs we’ve homed since the last Newsletter and there are one or two more to go soon, so its been really satisfying to see our dogs loved and appreciated.
We thought you might like to know how much it costs us to take in a dog to Fen Bank Kennels and then perhaps to add a weekly “keep” cost and this might help you to understand why we are ALWAYS asking for your money!
Average costs for a three or four year old fit ex racer:
Collection/flea treating/worming £12-£20.00 depending on the distance travelled
Innoculation £22.00
Neutering £70.00
Spaying £120.00
Dental £ 80.00-£120.00
So anything between £184.00 and £282.00 for a Fit dog and £400.00 minimum for a neglected animal
Plus =
Keep Per dog per week £22.68
(total no. of dogs (36 max, 30 minimum) divided by monthly outgoings £3,500)
We have 13 permanent or long stay dogs who have been with us more than 2 years minimum and some who have been here for 5 years.
Against this we can only put our requested homing donation of £55.00 for dogs and £65.00 for bitches and believe me we struggle to get that on many occasions! Mainly because there are trainers around here who give away un-neutered uninnoculated dogs “free to a good home” unchecked, uncared for and very often sent in to Fen Bank by the Police or the Dog Warden within a few months or weeks of their original abandonment – it was happening 8 years ago when we started the kennels, and it is happening now.
We always try to get a donation when a dog comes in of £50.00 and some do pay or even pay more than this, but the majority don’t and we take the dogs because of what might happen if we didn’t….. and of course they know that!
Sat our half way point in the year we have spent £3,690.00 more than we have taken in in donations and fundraising- and it is Summer when usually we do well!- and yes I am worried! We are constantly reviewing expenditure to see what can be reduced!
SO HERE IS THE APPEAL!
FUND THE NEXT FEN BANK DOG INTO THE KENNELS!
CHOOSE ONE OF THE AMOUNTS ABOVE AND IN RETURN WE WILL SEND YOU A PICTURE, HISTORY and NEWS OF THE DOG WHEN HOMED! You can donate online through the website or just send a cheque to the usual address. We shall be extremely grateful !
Please think about this- we really do need some help and as more and more rescues spring up, many without kennels .Those of us who do bear all the costs of rescue really do need your help- and the irony is that because we are so busy doing it, we have less time to get out there and fundraise than those who run homefinding schemes.
One of our gorgeous black girls has gone, but there are still MARY and TINY waiting for homes.
The lovely pair EVIE AND FRISBEE 5 year old white and fawn dogs still languish in kennels despite all our attempts to home them
OAKIE (of the minus 34 teeth) gorgeous loving black boy back in kennels through no fault of his own still waits
Our two Welsh dogs PRINCE and BUBBLE also waiting. We thought we had a home for Prince, but sadly it was not to be and Bubble is so unhappy in kennels. They are 9 and 7 respectively and lovely friendly dogs. Prince had to come down to kennels from my house because he was always in the dyke! Loves a swim!!
LADDIE, shy white and Black boy, and BRIAN our white and Brindle lad are also longing for a new home
TOMMY AND PEGGY, ANGEL and ALFIE, TROOPER, MARMITE, KATE, EVIE, MOLLY, BARBIE, RUSS, the list goes on and on…………….
A number of these are older dogs and really do deserve to end their days in a loving home. Some have behaviour problems and others will make the perfect and immediate pet- and all of them are absolutely gorgeous! So think on- surely you could squeeze one more in?
Thank you to all of you for the support you give us and the dogs- it is greatly appreciated.
Sandra Miller Hooker and the Fen Bank Team
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