| CGA Celebrates Success and Looks Forward to New Opportunities |
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As most of you know, BLB Entertainment decided to end Mile High's 2008 Season months early on June 28. At the time, all we knew is that this was the last active track in Colorado, and as a result some 100-200 dogs would need to find homes. The information available was confusing and ever-changing. We teamed up with the other adoption groups in the state (Recycled Racers, Rocky Mountain Greyhound Adoption, ForGreyhounds and Almost Home for Hounds) to share information, ideas and resources. We notified the press, and did lots of events and interviews to draw attention to the potential crisis. We let everyone in the group know about how badly we would need fosters, adopters and donations. WOW!!!! What an amazing group of volunteers we have! It's hard to believe, but we are almost seeing the light at the end of this tunnel! All 5 of the adoption groups in Colorado worked very, very closely together, and our wonderful volunteer base stepped up, and we are well on our way to having the dogs out of the kennels and into foster homes or adoption kennels (in the cases of 3 of the other groups.). We believe when the dust settles, that we (all of the groups together) will have moved somewhere between 120 and 150 dogs (that should be completed in the next 2-3 weeks). Of course, once those dogs have come into the programs, we still need to find adoptive homes for all of them. Luckily, the press has been wonderful to us, and has generated tremendous interest in adoption! So, while we now have lots of fosters and adopters ready to bring a greyhound in, we are still limited by how many vet appointments we can get, and how much time our Adoption Counselors and Adoption Coordinators have. There are still dogs coming in, just not at the same pace that Fosters and Adopters are stepping up. What a wonderful situation to be in! We want to thank each and every one of you for your generosity-whether you gave funds or your time by volunteering---and please know that your money or the ways in which you gave of your time, creativity and energy have made a huge difference to this effort and to CGA as a whole. (Please don't stop donating or volunteering---we still need your help! I just want you to know how very generous all of you have been.) We still don't know what the future of racing in Colorado will be. There have been numerous rumors on both sides about whether the track will reopen for a 2009 season, whether another buyer will come in and start up the operations again, or whether someone will build another track somewhere in the state. As long as racing remains legal in Colorado, anything could happen, and we plan to be prepared for whatever that may be. The REALLY good news is that once this crisis is over, we will have set ourselves up very nicely to start helping out some of the other states that have too many dogs and not enough adoption resources. So, yes!!! We will still need lots of foster homes!! Please continue to send in your foster applications--just know that it could be a couple of weeke before we have some of the out-of-state dogs. It is our plan to remain very much alive in the Greyhound Adoption world, and continue on using the strength, demand and awareness that we have created over the years. We have so much momentum that we can still use it to continue to do wonderful things for these hounds! Thank you again! Rori Mattson on behalf of the CGA Board of Directors: Rick Bender, Rori Mattson, Rene Rieser, Mark McKay, Jody Laughlin, Tara Lindburg, Nathan Lorne, Clark Sonderby, and Jennifer Zanella. |
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