Dennis, the Great & Wonderful

A Chance To Help Animals

As many of you know, my wife and I have an animal sanctuary where we take in abandoned, abused, and orphaned animals of all kinds. We’ve been doing this for 20 years, and for the past 10 years we’ve had between 35 and 50 animals. We currently have 45. We started with a few potbelly pigs, one who lost part of her ear as a baby, and from there it expanded to dogs, cats, a horse, wild pigs, and even a wild boar.

Taking care of this many animals requires a lot of work and time, but also a tremendous amount of money. We have always supported the sanctuary from our own pockets, but the cost of feed, veterinary services, repairs and shelter have become prohibitive. We spend about $50,000 per year and as many of our animals are reaching the end of their lives, vet bills and medical needs will only increase.

We are an IRS sanctioned charity, which means if anyone wants to make donations they are tax deductible. Dennis and the rest of the gang would sure appreciate it. I understand if people don’t have spare change to help, but…

There Is Another Way To Contribute

Amazon has started a new program called Amazon Smile. For every dollar you spend on the Amazon Smile website, they will donate .5%, (that’s a half a penny) to the charity of your choice. The best thing is it costs you nothing. A half a penny per dollar doesn’t seem like much, but if we can get a large enough group of people to sign up and select TuskanyFalls Org as the charity of their choice, it will help. I also can guarantee that unlike most charitable organizations, 100% of the money goes to the animals.

How Do You Do It?

It’s very simple. You follow this link, Amazon Smile and .5% of whatever you spend will go to TuskanyFalls. In order for it to work, though, you have to start out using that link every time you shop. So please save it, or bookmark it, and remember to use it when you do your shopping on Amazon. (When you follow that link, at the top left corner of the page it should say, “Supporting TuskanyFalls Org.”

And in case you’re wondering who you’ll be helping, let me introduce you to a few of them.

Dennis Day One

Cooling off

These pics can be categorized as “before and after” shots of a few of the animals. The ones on the left are first-day pictures and the right as they are now, or recently.

Dennis

Most of you probably know Dennis, the hero and only wild boar on the sanctuary. The picture on the left was taken the first day we saved Dennis, when the vets said he wouldn’t make it.

Joe

Joe Day One

The picture on the right is of him two years later, cooling off on a hot day.

You can read more about Dennis here and here. (and plenty of other posts)

Joe

This is Joe the day he arrived. Again, a vet suggested he was too far gone and should be put down. He was 28 when he got here, and was starving and malnourished. This is Joe today.

Hotshot, the cat

Hotshot

Hotshot

This is one of our greatest success stories—Hotshot. Mikki found this cat in the gutter off the side of the road with an arrow through his chest. The doctors had to cut his leg off because the bone had become infected, but he made it and has been with us six years now. You can read more about Hotshot’s story here.

Petey

Petey is also known as Sweet Pete. He was left on a small island in the swamps of East Texas, for alligator bait we assume, but a good-hearted fisherman got him into his boat and called animal rescue who called us. His jaw had been broken and he finds it difficult to eat, but he manages to never be late for a meal. He’s been here 11 years. You can read more about Petey here.

Gracie

Gracie suffers from diabetes and is completely blind. She’s been here 12 years. You can read about Gracie, the Coffee Dog, here.

Whiskers

Whiskers was one of my favorites. We lost her last year and I haven’t been able to write about her since, but you can read one of her stories here. It’s my favorite story.

Shinobi

And the last picture is of Shinobi, also known as Queen Shinobi. She’s the one who started it all. She turned 20 years old in July, and three different vets at various times have recommended she be put down, but she has resisted all attempts and refuses to go. She’s doing just fine. I did a story on Shinobi here.

There are 40 more “friends” at the sanctuary, and to us they’re all family. By the way, the sanctuary is called TuskanyFalls, so if you lose your link to this site, just go to Amazon Smile and choose TuskanyFalls Org as the charity of your choice. And please tell others how they can help save animals who need help. I have included a tweet below the pictures that you can send if you have time.

Queen Shinobi

Gracie with Napkin

Whiskers

Sweet Pete

When you shop @AmazonSmile, Amazon will make a donation to Tuskanyfalls Org Inc. http://smile.amazon.com/ch/20–2619053

Filed under: Animal Sanctuary, Pigs Who Write, Uncategorized by Giacomo