Saturday was the big, annual fund raiser for Woods Humane Society. Pete and I have volunteered to help on-site for a few years, but this year we had not planned to participate because of my diagnosis in February. I have not had the energy to work with the dogs. There is a lot of responsibility and work to train and prepare the animals to be presentable for adoption. I have been feeling stronger since my surgery and I am currently between treatments–although I am still healing from surgery, I thought that I could at least go and walk a dog at the fundraiser.
Steve K. is the organizer of the events and assigns the volunteers to their duties. He said that Pete and I could at least be involved in the walk, and then I could leave when I needed to rest. We were at the park from 8:30 AM to about 11:00 AM–not including the time we had to be up early to get Tango (the parrot) up first, then pick up a dog at Woods at 7:30 am. It was still a long day. More so for Pete because he had to go back to Tango’s in the evening, and then be at SLO airport about midnight to pick up Tango’s owner.
It was so good to see many of the Woods staff and volunteers that we hadn’t seen for so long and catch up with them! It was very fun to work with the dogs and to feel good enough to walk the dogs for the event. Both Pete and I had small dogs this time, and they were both well behaved dogs and very sweet. My dog was named Frankie (a female mind you), and Pete’s was Mango (another sweet female). Both are available for adoption (hint hint)!
There are many booths at these events from vendors related to pet care and such, and we met some people at one booth who’s business was called “Central Coast Professional Pet Sitters Network“. They meet once a month for lunch with several pet sitting services and they actually help you to network your businesses. I have been wanting to get involved in such a thing to promote my business, and to get to know other pet services. Important, in case I am overbooked, or sick, and I would have to be confident in being able to recommend another pet service. I felt like it was a God thing because I have wanted that very thing!! One of the ladies in the booth also had been through cancer treatments and is a breast cancer survivor, so we connected. This whole journey has been an opening into a whole different community of people. I find that very interesting.
When 11:00 AM hit, I knew I was done. The event wasn’t over until 2:00 PM, but there was no way I could stay that long. We relinquished our dogs to one of the staff, and we were on our way. We had Cass at home anyway, so we wanted to spend time with her too.
We picked a good British movie on Netflix Streaming that I knew Cass would like and it was actually a mini-series, called “Catherine Cookson’s ‘The Wingless Bird‘”. We watched all three episodes at one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed on evening at the movies at home. Then Pete had to leave to pick up Tango’s owner.
It was a long day, but a very fine day indeed.