Holiday Photo Contest

Holiday Photo Contest

Enter your cutest holiday photo of your pet and you

could win a year’s supply of

Advantage Flea Treatment!!

How To Enter

• Simply e-mail your photo to info@PlannedPEThoodga.com and follow-up with a $5 donation either through our Paypal account, by mail, or by dropping by our clinic Monday – Thursday.
• The deadline for entries is December 19, 2010.
• Once the photo and entry fee/donation have been received, we will have fun Oohing and Awwwing until we decide on the Top 5 pics.
• The Top 5 pics will then be posted to our Facebook page for everyone to vote on. Just comment on the photo you would like to vote for and whichever pic receives the most comments will be the winner!
• We will notify the winner on our Facebook wall and via E-mail
• Check us out on Facebook to join in the fun!

Thanks for Giving

We'd like to introduce you to Lorenzo. A group effort among several different groups over the past week resulted in all 23 of Lorenzo's cats getting spayed and neutered!

Fernando and his wife rescued four cats last year who were abandoned by a neighbor in his apartment complex. They brought them into their home and, while Lorenzo admits that he wasn't thrilled with the situation at first, he loves them all now. Unfortunately, they didn't know about the importance of spay/neuter and before they knew it the four cats had become 23!

That's when he approached Georgia SPCA for help. Georgia SPCA referred him to Planned PEThood and when he came for his first appointment with 8 female cats, we discovered that he had LOTS more at home, including 7 kittens. So, we got on the phone and started asking everyone we knew for money and help. Spay Georgia agreed to pay to spay and neuter the rest of Lorenzo's cats and Georgia SPCA agreed to take the kittens and find them good homes. In addition, all of your kind donations made it possible for us to also give each adult cat a flea treatment because they were suffering from flea allergies.

So, we are thankful for our friends this week. Without them we wouldn't have been able to help Lorenzo and his cats!

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. Here are some extra pics of all the kitties we fixed yesterday.

Holiday Photo Contest

So, we were crunching some numbers today and we figured out that if each of our Facebook friends donated just $5, we could raise enough to have one FREE SPAY DAY!! You guys have been so generous and we hate to ask you for more money, so we wanted there to be something in it for you as well. So we thought and we schemed and we concocted and we planned and here’s what we came up with:

HOLIDAY PHOTO CONTEST!!

The animal lover with the best Holiday-Themed photo of their pet will win a YEAR'S SUPPLY OF ADVANTAGE flea preventative!!!

How It Works

Simply e-mail your best holiday photo of your pet to info@PlannedPEThoodga.com and follow-up with a $5 donation either through our Paypal account, by mail, or by dropping by the clinic Monday – Thursday.

The deadline for entries is November 30, 2010.

Once the photo and entry fees/donations have been received, we will have fun Oohing and Awwwing until we decide on the Top 5 pics. This will be a completely un-biased and democratic process based on the following criteria:

• Elizabeth will give preference to big-headed tomcats
• Lynette prefers big, doofy dogs,
• Holley will decide based on their “lips”
• Doc Riva will probably choose the pics of dogs with kids since she has two little rugrats at home.

The Top 5 pics will then be posted on our Facebook page for everyone to vote on. The winners will be announced before Christmas and the prizes are, in our opinion, AMAZING!

Grand Prize: One Entire Year of Advantage Flea Preventative

AND a free Planned PEThood T-Shirt

4 Honorable Mentions: Free Planned PEThood T-Shirts!

Invite all your friends to "Like" our facebook page and join in the fun!!

Thanks for all of your support!

The PPOG Team

Spay/Neuter? There's an App for that!

I’ve been waiting to use that Blog title for weeks!

We're excited to announce the new Android App for Planned PEThood. Scan the QR code below with your Android phone and it will take you directly to our App in the Android Marketplace.

The App has so many awesome features:

• Contact us directly
• Navigate to our location
• Check out our Facebook page
• Link to our website for pricing and other info
• Link to our Blog

But, the most exciting feature is the ability to MAKE RESERVATIONS!!

Our App was created by Michael Barton of Smartware Design based in Cumming, GA and we’re so grateful for his help! He did an awesome job and is a huge supporter of spay/neuter and rescue! Thanks Michael!

We will have the reservation program available on our website soon, so keep an eye out for that announcement as well!

Happy Halloween and Happy Downloading!

We're off to a great start!!

Planned PEThood has completed our first month of business. The results have been amazing, and have far surpassed our expectations. Notably,

• We averaged 20 surgeries per day during our 4^th week, putting us ahead of schedule in our plan to reach 35 per day by our 2^nd quarter of operation.
• Also during our 4^th week of operation, we saw a day when our feral shelves were completely full, holding 18 feral cats.
• We saw our first adoption between clients in our lobby, when a kitten who was trapped in a feral trap was adopted by a nice lady whose cat needed a friend.

We’re so thankful for the support we’ve received from the community! People have been extremely generous, bringing in supplies and goodies, and filling up our donation jar. Several have also been generous with their time, and we’d like to give them special mention:

• The wonderful ladies who dedicate at least one day every week to help us out – we could never do it without them!
• Nancy
• Kathe
• Phyllis
• Vicki
• Nick, who comes every Thursday afternoon to clean the clinic to within an inch of its life!
• All the rest of our volunteers who fill in whenever they have a few hours during the week or on Saturday for a vaccine clinic::
• Tiffany
• Heather
• Cheri
• Lindy
• Dave

We’d also like to thank:

• All of our amazing facebook fans who support us with “likes” and comments and bring us supplies when we need them! Thanks for everything you have brought us including the newspaper, grocery bags, paper towels AND BROWNIES!!! You’re the best!!
• All of the feral trappers out there. You work tirelessly to take care of those cats and brought us 14 last Monday when it had been raining all day Sunday and was still raining on Monday morning. Amazing! It is so wonderful to hear you all chatting about your colonies and offering advice to each other in our lobby.
• All of our customers who have been so grateful for our service. Thank you for bringing us your beautiful babies! Many of you even rounded up your payments to help our neediest clients.

Thanks to EVERYONE for making our first month so rewarding. It makes our hard work that much more worth it. We know that we have a long way to go but we are determined that we will help make Gwinnett Georgia’s first No-Kill county!!

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Open House

We want to thank everyone who supported Planned PEThood last night by coming out to the Open House. We had such a huge turnout! About 100 people dropped by throughout the evening to support Spay & Neuter. We appreciated the opportunity to get to know you all a little better, share some goodies from our vendors with you, and chat about rescue and Spay/Neuter!

More than half of you took part in the "Guess How Many Cotton Balls" contest.

First prize is a free cat neuter (or $45 off any surgery) and we actually had a tie! We'll be notifying winners tomorrow so be on the lookout for an e-mail from Planned PEThood!

We are so humbled by the generosity of our supporters. Our donation table became a donation ROOM! Look at all that stuff!

What this means to us is less money spent on supplies and more money to spend on SPAY & NEUTER!! Priceless!

As we mentioned on our Facebook page earlier in the week, all monetary donations received during the Open House and until the end of the month will benefit our SPAY IT FORWARD fund which will allow us to provide FREE spays & neuters for our neediest clients. Last night we raised almost $500!!! Amazing!!

If we can double that by the end of the month, we'll be able to have one entire day of free spays & neuters. We really want to be able to do a lot of these, so thanks so much for your support.

Tell your friends to link on over to our Paypal account if they'd like to help out!

Again, we just want to thank everyone for their continued support. We just can't tell you enough how much we appreciate you all! We're so excited to bring this important service to Gwinnett County!! Opening day is August 30th and we already have appointments booked!!

Elizabeth & Lynette

P.S. Here are a few more photos of the evening!!

Why we're opening Planned PEThood

This little sweetie is a very timely example of why affordable, accessible spay/neuter is needed so badly in our community and so many others around the country. As many of us know, this time of year is commonly known as “Kitten Season.” It starts in early spring and runs into summer and each year it seems to get longer and longer. This is when unspayed female cats start having babies - and those of us in rescue start to feel like kittens are coming out of the woodwork. Every day we receive multiple phone calls requesting help with kittens found under a friend’s deck, a stray kitten found in someone’s yard, an animal shelter overrun with babies that need to be bottle fed. It’s overwhelming to say the least.

”Doc” was found by my sister late Friday night on her way out of the parking lot of the hospital where she is a nurse. Fate sent him running in front of her car at exactly the right time, while she was stopping at the security arm at the exit of the parking garage. My sister threw her car in park and hopped out to chase after this little blur of black fur. Into the dark night in a not-so-nice neighborhood, she tiptoed, calling out to him while he darted away under the bushes. When she finally scooped him up with her lab coat, he melted into her arms, realizing he was finally safe. He was so thin, dehydrated, and dirty, weighing only about a pound, far too underweight for his age (about 10 weeks). He’s got a slight upper respiratory infection (antibiotics on board), diarrhea (clearing up after three days of good food and some pumpkin), and ringworm. And somehow, even after this rough start at life, he is the sweetest kitten I’ve ever fostered. He purrs constantly and nuzzles my nose (story to follow soon, I’m sure, on how I got ringworm on my nose).

Doc is the best example we could give all our friends and supporters of why we are opening Planned PEThood. Our shelters are always full, but especially overwhelmed at this time of year. If spay/neuter was more affordable and accessible to the general public, there would be fewer kittens entering our shelters every spring and fewer animals killed each year. We don’t even need to mention the fact that an adult cat has little or no chance for adoption at this time of year because of all the cute kittens available at shelters. How can they compete?

So, when we start to wonder why we’ve given up a year of our lives and financial security to start a venture that will be time-consuming, emotionally frustrating, and physically exhausting? This is why:

As always, thanks so much for your support!

Lynette

We're on the map!!

Planned PEThood of GA is excited to announce that we have signed a lease for our new clinic! We looked at several places over the past few months but we knew this one was right the minute we walked in! It requires very little renovation, just some new flooring and paint (and a little bit of plumbing), so we’re in the final stages!!

Our new address is

2860 Buford Highway

Building F, Suite 2

Duluth, GA 30096.

Here's a link to us on Google Maps.

We are thrilled to have so many friends who feel as strongly as we do about the cause! Your response to our last request for help resulted in significant donations. We are now within $5000 of our startup funding goal!

Everywhere we go we hear stories about how badly low cost spay/neuter is needed. Even when we speak to potential vendors for the clinic, almost every one tells us about a friend or family member who has a pet that needs to be spayed or neutered, but they can’t afford it. We are so proud to be able to provide this much needed service to the two AND four legged members of our community! This is truly a dream come true for Elizabeth and me.

People have been asking how they can help. Thank you for offering! Here’s how:

During our Renovations Phase, we need help with:

• Flooring – we are doing a three part epoxy floor so we need strong people who can run a floor sander! This is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of May 29-30th
• Plumbing – maybe you are (or know of) a plumber who is sympathetic to our cause? We are installing a couple of sinks and a laundry area.
• Drywall repair – are you handy with a mudknife? We moved a couple of doorways and have other touchup work to be done.
• PAINTING PARTY WEEKEND is tentatively slated for July 19-20th.
• Refinishing our reception desk (sand and paint)

Maybe you’re not interested in physical labor but you still want to help? Can you help us out with finding donations of products or services that we need for renovations or that are necessary to the daily operations of the clinic? Some examples are listed below. We would appreciate either the items on those lists or gifts cards to purchase them.

• Building supplies (Contact us for a full listing)
• Office supplies (Contact us for a full listing)
• Accounting Services
• Marketing Services, brochure & flyer design and printing

We’re hoping some of you would like to volunteer after the clinic is open, and we’ll have information on that later. We’ll definitely need your help with things like answering phones, filing & office work, cleaning cages, and extra TLC for our patients!

Thanks again for all your support and for helping us to help the animals of Georgia! We're excited to start saving some lives!

See you soon!

Lynette

It's Crunch Time!!

You haven’t heard from us at Planned PEThood for a few weeks. We’ve been remiss in keeping up with our blog and progress reports. But we haven’t gone away, just hunkered down – and now we’re in the final run-up to opening Atlanta’s newest spay/neuter clinic!

We’re currently negotiating a lease, and hope to have it signed by early May so we can begin buildout for a grand opening this summer. We’ve decided to remain in the area we know best, which is Duluth.

Now we need your help more than ever!

If 20 people will donate $1,000 each, we can open the doors knowing that our operating expenses will be covered for the 1st three months while we ramp up our average daily surgeries. Donors at this level will be recognized with special signage in our new lobby! Of course, we understand that not everyone has that amount available, and we’re grateful for every contribution.

Here’s how your donation can help:
 $100 Two boxes of suture
 $250 One “spay pack” of surgical instruments
 $500 One month’s supply of rabies vaccines
 $1000 One month’s rent
 $2000 Pay for our building's signage

Together, we can significantly decrease the number of unwanted animals born each year in Georgia, and reduce the suffering and euthanasia of healthy, adoptable dogs and cats at our local shelters.
It’s easy to donate – you can use Paypal, or mail a check – just contact us for a mailing address.

I hope you’re as excited as we are to be this close to providing a real solution to pet overpopulation in our area!

p.s. We have received IRS approval of our 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Your donation is tax-deductible!

One Score you Want to be Below Average

If you’re a Georgia resident, you’ve probably heard of Rockdale County. It’s located on the East side of metro Atlanta, with I-20 running right through its middle. Conyers is its county seat, and it boasts lots of outdoor recreational areas, as well as the Georgia International Horse Park, site of the 1996 Olympic Equestrian events. It also has an Animal Control facility that kills 54% of the animals that come through its doors. That’s right, out of every 100 lost puppies or stray cats, you can pick 54 of them that won’t leave the shelter alive.

Are you shocked? Horrified at this statistic? Angry with the Rockdale officials who kill all these innocent creatures? Don’t be. 54% is the AVERAGE percentage among all Animal Control shelters in the 28 counties that make up “Metro Atlanta.” It could be worse. Those animals could end up in Lamar County, which put down an astonishing 97% in 2007. The LUCKIEST animals in our metro area are in Heard County, where only 14% don’t make it out.

These numbers, from 2007, are found in a newly published report by the Georgia Voters for Animal Welfare (GVAW), a small group of volunteers who took it upon themselves to compile these statistics for every Georgia county. The state doesn’t keep track, so it’s up to every county to keep their own numbers and disclose them – or not. Four of the 28 metro counties would just rather not say how many dogs and cats are surrendered or picked up, or euthanized.

Now, I’m not going to get on a rant about our government not making this information public, or even lament the untold millions of tax dollars that keep these shelters in operation. What bothers me the most is that it’s considered “necessary” by anyone, anywhere, to kill dogs and cats in order to control their population. It is NOT necessary. What’s necessary is for people to wake up and understand that we are ALL contributing to this tragedy, and the solution is simple: SPAY OR NEUTER YOUR PET. Heck, don’t stop there, spay or neuter someone else’s pet. Trap that stray cat that’s been hanging around your office and get him neutered. Talk to that person down the street whose “mama dog” keeps getting out of the fence. Educate acquaintances who are considering buying a new puppy about rescue options, and the horrors of puppy mills. Show your purebred-loving friends pictures of your wonderful mixed-breed cat. DO SOMETHING to stop this senseless pattern of killing.

If you’re a Rockdale County resident or official reading this, I’m sorry I picked on you. You just happened to land in the middle of the numbers. Now, get out there and move your county to the bottom of the next list. This is one score that you should really want to be “below average.”

(Here is a link to the complete report by GVAW, which gives the results of their polling of 159 county shelters and 88 other local/city shelters. The reference to 28 counties in the blog above refers to the area designated as “metro Atlanta” by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.)