28 Apr Service Trip 2023: Day 1 Sheridan
Sheridan Animal Shelter
By: Maura Tutty
After four long years, some of our volunteers at Last Hope K9 Rescue returned to Arkansas to support our Southern Partners during our service trip! We have an amazing Planning Committee that spent 4 months working thoroughly and diligently to ensure that our 31 northern volunteers could make a large impact in 9 southern shelters. Thursday, April 28th was day one and the culmination of so much hard work!
We were able to start the day at transport. We got to see Last Hope pups get some last love and encouragement from their Southern Fosters and hop on the truck to make their way up to Massachusetts. It was great to see everyone and experience another part of a foster dog’s journey. But we didn’t have a lot of time because we had to head to our first shelter.
For my group, we made our way to Sheridan – a town nestled one hour south of Little Rock. We made our way back and were immediately greeted by Misty (shelter lead) and other dedicated volunteers. Misty let us know numerous times how grateful she was for our work that day.
To start, part of the group of LH volunteers quickly started to frame out a section right next to the indoor shelter. This would become the site of their next covered shelter! While that team was laying gravel, we had another team work on bathing the pups. This was a fun challenge to wash a wide range of dogs – from teeny puppies (all TWENTY-FIVE of them) all the way up to a svelte great dane. Many of the pups got vaccines and heartworm tests. And all the adult dogs got long walks around the grounds. This gave another team the opportunity to wash and sanitize the kennels. And we can’t forget our team who installed Dig Defence around the play yard fence. Dig Defence is installed into the ground at the fence line so a dog can’t dig his or her way out!
To finish out the day the team had over 5,000 lbs of concrete poured and leveled to finish off the next step of the new shelter area. It was a very productive and fun day with the whole team.
And, of course, I can’t forget to mention one of the shelter favorites that day – a sweet pup that is very pregnant. Our Southern Partner, Lauren, took Momma Sherri home with her so she could give birth in a comfortable environment and not in a shelter. We found out later that Momma Sherri is expecting at least 14 puppies! We are keeping our fingers crossed and sending all of our love (and maybe some comfort food??) to Lauren who has some fun times ahead of her!
Thank you again to everyone who donated to this Service Trip. It has made a huge impact on the shelters, the dogs, and the humans who pour their souls into rescue each and every day.
You can learn more about Last Hope K9 Rescue’s annual service trip, here. Please consider donating to our service trip fundraiser.
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