March
28
The thing is, my excitement over "Town Haul" was more for the national publicity it would generate than for the improvements to the shelter. (Except the toilet. I know we won't ever get a toilet without "Town Haul." Oh well.) National publicity would have people lining up to adopt our pets. So is "Town Haul" the only vehicle to get us from the obscurity of Tiny Municipal Shelter four miles from Mexico with a paltry budget and no respect from the City government under which we operate? NO! It won't be quite as simple as having "Town Haul" do it, but we can get the publicity on the bases of merit and creativity. 1. Write an article about the shelter's 15-month-without-killing-anything-adoptable record. Mention how there were no records kept up to our starting there in November 2003 and what the rules were and how we changed them. Be sure to note that we are not one of those shelters that puts down all pit bulls, rottweilers, and chows--it is easy to have a perfect record if you kill half your dogs upon entry. Send the article to every animal publication. 2. Organize a Saint Dymphna's Day Parade and Fair for May 15. St. Dymphna is the patron saint of the mentally ill and since Bisbee refers to itself as The World's Largest Open Air Asylum we should play to that. The fair can be for the shelter's benefit. 3. Make a real booth for the Saturday Farmers Markets. Make a pen out of picket fencing for the puppies, get lots of flyers printed up, and make a wind-proof display board for the pictures of the pets that can't go to the market. 4. Finish painting the inside of the shelter. 5. Get storage shelving at Home Depot or Costco--just buy it myself if necessary. 6. Help Theo to fill out some maintenance requests so we can get a new load of gravel for the exercise yard, better cross-fencing, and better lighting. 7. Take better advantage of the opportunities that we already have for more publicity. Change the pictures more frequently on Channel 2. Make up new screens for Channel 5. Make up "Featured Pet" cards for businesses that have expressed an interest in helping us. 8. Have at least a small upbeat presentation for every City Council meeting telling what the no-kill record is currently and talking about upcoming shelter events. 9. Write the Nabisco company and ask for permission to paint the outside of the shelter to look exactly like their animal cracker box. Maybe they will do better than just give permission--maybe they will pay for it, too. I would do a little modification on the box design--I'd have the wild animals pictured on the box be dogs and cats in wild animal costumes. Is that gonna be cute or what? So whatever happens, I guess I'll survive. The shelter will survive. Bisbee will survive. But I still want us to win. And now that I have a plan, I might not be quite as sad if we lose, but I'm still going to be sad.
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If we had never heard from "Town Haul" after their first visit to Bisbee, I wasn't going to be all that disappointed. After all, we were competing with all of West Texas, New Mexico, and the rest of Arizona. Losing was almost a certainty, except Bisbee IS pretty special. Anyway, I wouldn't have been mopping the floor with my lower lip if we got bad news. 