Pet Talk

by Staff Pioneer Times
17 years ago
www.houltonanimalshelter.com
by Cathy Davis
    To all of you who showed up for the walk-a-thon this past weekend, a very sincere thank you. There were walkers, organizers, helpers, WHOU did a live remote, Houlton Police Department was there to assist and make sure the walkers were safe, there were people who donated to the yard sale and those who purchased from the yard sale. All of you are greatly appreciated, especially considering it was a very cool and dreary day. We don’t have the final total yet but I suspect somewhere around $1,500 was raised, which will get us through another week, and from there we’ll come up with another project!

    Part of this weekend was an adopt-a-thon and we had many beautiful kitties at the Grange for you to visit. Although none went home this weekend, we had a lot of interest in our operation and I’m sure visitors will flock to the Shelter to view the hundreds of animals currently available for adoption.
    This year the walk-a-thon was dedicated to the memory of Morgan Cowett. Morgan and her family have been volunteering at the Shelter for over four years. They walk the dogs, they work with the cats, and Morgan had a very special way with animals. Many of the timid animals who needed extra special attention just blossomed under Morgan’s gentle touch, they felt her love and responded to her voice and she and her family worked wonders with the special needs animals.
    About seven months ago Morgan was diagnosed with a very rare and difficult to treat cancer for a young teen. She was such an inspiration throughout her ordeal, and used to tell her dad to make sure to go walk the dogs before coming to see her at the hospital. When she was between treatments and well enough to come to the shelter, she found great joy in her time with the animals.
    Morgan’s entire family stayed strong and positive and fought a very brave fight. Morgan lost her battle with cancer recently. Our hearts and prayers go out to her parents and her sister Sarah, who was also Morgan’s very best friend.
    In memory of Morgan and in honor of her wonderful family, many donations have been received by the shelter. All of this money will go directly to support adoptions. For the rest of the month of May, all adoption fees will be waived. At least 40 cats and dogs will be placed and if we don’t find homes for all of them in May, we will continue to waive the fee until we do. There are over 170 animals in need of homes, beautiful healthy pets who would make a great companion for you or a loved one.
    If you are allergic, have enough animals, or for any reason cannot adopt, but would like to help these homeless animals, you may make a donation to the shelter, in memory of Morgan Cowett, and your donation will directly support adoption fees to help us place just one more cat or one more dog.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could tell Morgan’s parents that over 100 animals found homes, wouldn’t it be a treasured memorial to a beautiful little girl whose greatest joy was helping animals if we could find this many homes for these deserving pets.
    If nothing else, I want you to do one thing today, hug your kids. They are so precious, so innocent, and such a joy. And if they have a passion, whether it is animals, or music, or sports or whatever it is, support them in the things that are most important to them. There is nothing more important in life than our children.
    God bless this wonderful family and bring them peace in their time of loss.