Northern Animal Rescue Newslette

							Northern Animal Rescue Newsletter
November & December, 2009

The past couple of months have gone by very quickly for the N.A.R. board members. There never seems
to be enough time to accomplish everything we want to get done. We are; however, very proud of our
young organization and the goals we have been able to achieve over this past year with the help of our
many partners, volunteer and associates.

Our November Board meeting was held on Tuesday, November 10th, and in attendance was our
invited guest, Thomas Sierzycki, the mayor of La Ronge. We had the opportunity to discuss many of the
issues we're facing related to animal welfare and control, as well as concerns surrounding the current
La Ronge pound facilities. Towards the end of the meeting, Thomas reassured us that N.A.R. would
have the full support of the town of La Ronge as we work to improve the overall conditions of stray
animals in La Ronge and the surrounding communities. We are looking forward to forming a strong
partnership with the mayor and his council members in the coming year.

At the November 10th meeting, we were all very excited that our web-site: nar1.wikispaces.com is now
up and running. We took a break to view the site for a few minutes and were all impressed with what
we saw. We are very appreciative of the time and effort that Dean Squires devoted to creating our site.
Thanks very much, Dean. Please visit our site; it has already been updated and changes are being
made on an ongoing basis to enhance it.

In November, we formed a very important partnership with the Saskatoon S.P.C.A. by pursuing their
offer to help us find home for dogs in the N.A.R. foster program and other strays we may have in our
care at various times during the year. They will take cats once in awhile but it's more difficult to find
space for them. In response to this generous offer, several board members and 2 community volunteers
agreed to transport animals to Saskatoon on Thursday, Nov. 12th, Friday, Nov. 13th and Saturday,
Nov.14th. In all, a dozen animals have been taken to the S.P.C.A. and over 80% of them were adopted
within a few weeks, several had found homes after the first week. Needless to say, we were all very
excited about this successful venture and plan on continuing to work with the S.P.C.A. in the near
future. It's possible that we will be transporting animals down on December 22nd and with luck, they
will all have a home for the holidays!

On Saturday, November 21st, N.A.R. had a table at the Morning Star Fair and it was a great success!
We sold dog cookies, t-shirts and dog outfits (donated by Cindy Gruel), held a raffle and displayed a
power point presentation featuring N.A.R. dog photos and a wonderful song entitled “Choose Me” by
the Song Trust. Many people stopped by our table to make donations in memory of Deb Menz. We
would like to thank the Menz family for their thoughtful gesture during a very difficult time.

Our December Board meeting was held on December 1st. This was our Christmas meeting and we
enjoyed a potluck smorg of appetizers for the occasion. We got down to business, eventually and
finalized plans for attending the Snowflake Tea at Gordon Denny on December 5th and made plans to
sell raffle tickets at the Co-op. We will be selling raffle tickets at the Co-op from 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. on
December 3rd,10th and 17th (all Thursdays). In addition to raffle tickets, we will be selling Happy
DogAcre 2010 calendars. The proceeds from the calendar sales will be used to cover the costs of
having volunteers from Happy Dog Acres come up in June to help at our We Care Pet Clinic.

Due to the extremely cold weather, N.A.R. Board members and other community volunteers have been
out delivering straw to strays during December. This has become an annual event that was initiated by
“Just Its Pets” who bring straw to LaRonge every year. The delivery takes place over a few days, until
La Ronge and the several Reserves have been visited. Several of the residents are used to seeing us
during these periods of frigid cold as many people came to the truck to request straw for themselves or
their relatives and neighbours while others made donations to N.A.R. and/or “Just Its Pets” in
exchange for the straw. We also delivered food to those animals that didn't appear to belong to a
specific home or were without food or water bowls. A couple of strays were taken in to our foster
program and we will be posting their photos and information on our web-site soon.