Buffalo Bills Tailgate Package – only 15 days left to purchase tickets!
We are so excited to be attending this amazing event to benefit the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter on October 1st & 2nd!
Come join us for an afternoon full of Pumpkins, Hayrides, games, vendors, food, fun and or course Dogs!
Our friends from the City of Buffalo animal shelter will be on-site with lots of dogs available for adoption. If you already have a furry family member they can come too, on a leash!
The event is free and open to the public, parking will be $5 per vehicle.
Save the Date! October 22, 2022
You can help – items we need
- New or gently used purses, wallets & piggy banks
- $10 and $20 Gift Cards or lottery tickets for our upcoming raffle
- Baked goods for our Oct 22nd event (see details below)
- Baskets for our December basket raffle
- Items for our Holiday Auction (also see below)
Calling All Bakers!
We need baked goods individually wrapped for our Halloween event on October 22nd.
- Rice Krispie Pumpkins
- Oreo Skeletons
- Jack O’ Lantern Brownies
- Peanut Butter Eyeball Cookies
- Other ideas…
Baked goods can be dropped off prior to noon on October 22nd at the Sikora Post at 950 Payne Ave. OR email whitewhiskerssocial@gmail.com to arrange for pickup.
3rd Annual Holiday Auction – donations requested!
Theme: Holiday gifts/Gift giving
- Handcrafted items- quilts, afghans, crocheted items, patch blankets
- Electronics- for adults and children
- Xmas dwhitewhiskerssocial@gmail.comecor– figurines, lenox, household items
- Themed items- wine, coffee, self care, cooking, baking, dog, cat, -make a “basket” with
- Kids- games, crafts, electronics
If you would like to donate, email whitewhiskerssocial@gmail.com or email Robyn at wwdsrobynstevens@gmail.com!
An Update from Our Founder …
First of all, as always, I want to thank everyone who has followed our progress, supported us, volunteered and hoped and prayed for the day when we open our doors and begin to really serve our community! Your patience will be rewarded; we are working as hard as we can to acquire a property while fundraising non-stop to obtain the money needed. Renovations and the funding to ensure we continue to thrive into the far future are also major considerations. The last thing we want to do is open our doors and have to shut them again due to financial woes.
Right now and since the beginning, we have had no salaries to pay out. Your donations have been carefully guarded and sparingly used. (I have actually been referred to as stingy!) All spending has been enacted to get us to our end goal – a comfy, secure home for homeless senior dogs and those who love them!
So here is where we stand. The sale on the Wheatfield property is closing within the next two weeks. That will bring us to just short of $400,000. (A BIG thank you!!!) The property on which we just placed a bid costs $210,000. We will pay this outright as we do not qualify for a mortgage, and now that interest rates are going up, that is probably just as well. This will leave us with $190,000 with which to renovate. But in the end, we estimate a cost of about $500,000 total which we will need to make everything secure and safe for dogs and volunteers and leave us a healthy startup of around $100,000 to operate. (Once again, all of us want to ensure we have a cushion for whatever comes our way. And don’t forget, senior dogs are expensive and just like humans, their maladies increase as they age.)
Our next step is to procure the plans from our architect. Then we will meet with the Town Board for their partial approval to proceed. We will then do a presentation for the neighbors and all interested to show how well we have performed our due diligence as far as soundproofing, waste management, control of our dogs, etc. We have been very busy researching and conferring with other like organizations and even individuals running their own sanctuaries. This time, unlike the debacle in Wheatfield, we will state our case first and educate our public. After the presentation, it is our understanding there will be a public hearing and then the board will vote on whether or not to grant the coveted special use permit.
As you can see, this will take still more time. You have all been extremely patient, and we ask you to find it in your hearts to continue to be. The eventual outcome will be well worth the wait. And all of us will, at some point, reap the benefits of the White Whiskers Senior Dog Sanctuary!!
Yours in dog love,
Polla Milligan
Founder
Senior Spotlight – Dusty & Enzo
In honor of Mick Trunzo, our realtor helping us find a home, and his GENEROUS donation on Give716 Day to match funds raised, we’re spotlighting the Trunzo’s Seniors, Dusty and Enzo who unfortunately are no longer with us.
Being a Senior Dog Sanctuary, we know every dog in our care will have a loved and peaceful end of life. Many thanks to Jessica Trunzo for sharing her family’s reality of living with senior dogs. Jessica, along with her mom, Bonnie, are very active volunteers with WWSDS, and we are so grateful for all they do for us.
How did your pups come into your lives?
For years as a child I begged my parents for a dog. My brother played a lot of travel soccer growing up so we were always going on trips. Once he settled down with that, my parents surprised me with Dusty. I was at a friend’s house after school one day and it was getting later and later and they hadn’t picked me up yet. I finally was picked up, and when I got home, I saw my father sitting on our living room floor filming with his camera. I was confused, asked why and when I walked closer I saw a small puppy on the ground. I was confused and immediately asked “Whose dog is that?” and he told me it was mine and I didn’t believe him. Finally when I realized he wasn’t joking I was over the moon with joy and spent all my time with her. We quickly decided we wanted to get her a friend and Enzo followed suit 1 year later, at 6 months old he joined us and he and Dusty became the best of friends rather quickly.
Describe their personalities…
Dusty was a tough cookie, she was territorial of the house and her humans and would bark at anybody or anything that set foot in the house or near us. She sounded so vicious but would come sniff you, and walk away. She wanted nothing to do with anyone that wasn’t a part of her house. She was very independent, she didn’t like to be held a ton, though I held her constantly and she would let me do whatever I wanted. She always wanted to play so she would sit at your feet and grumble at you until you got down on the floor with her. She loved car rides and sticking her head out the window. She also loved to lay in between your legs when you were sitting on the couch.
Enzo was a little ham and if he saw you giving Dusty attention, he would come parading over and shove her out of the way so he could get some. He loved to hip-check his sister in the face when they would run around and play. He LOVED stealing toys out of his sisters mouth with no shame, and he HATED his photo being taken. He would enjoy laying next to you on the couch, sometimes in your lap. He had a TON of anxiety. He was afraid of his own shadow and hated the car, he was just a big ball of nerves, inconsolable at times, but was the sweetest little boy you would meet.
How did you know it was time to say goodbye?
With Dusty’s cancer diagnosis, we knew there was a possibility of a recurrence, and about a year after her initial diagnosis, we had taken her in for a strange cough she had. Her cancer had returned and was in her lungs. With her diabetes came a whole slew of other issues, trouble with liver enzymes, enlarged gallbladder, just to name a few. Less than a week after her re-diagnosis, she decided to stop eating one night and she could not get comfortable. She was constantly up and down between sitting and lying down. She had had this issue previously, where we found her gallbladder was very large and caused her to have no appetite and she was uncomfortable. We knew this was the case again at this time and her prognosis had been 1 or 2 months, but her cancer had progressed quite a bit at that point. We knew at that moment there was no point in medicating her for a couple weeks, just to delay the inevitable and made the tough choice to take her in and let her go.
With Enzo, he had had a previous episode of Pancreatitis (which was par for the course with a diabetic dog) a couple months before the end of his time with us and we thought he was going through that again. He, similarly to Dusty, decided to stop eating one evening and we took him in thinking that was the culprit again. After running some labs, it was determined that his body was tired and starting to shut down. We had to make the choice to let him go pretty quickly as that was the last thing we could do for him. Both dogs never succumbed to their cancers, which was a blessing to not have to see them decline from that, but nevertheless, the decision was incredibly hard both times.
What do you hope our sanctuary will bring you?
I know the sanctuary will bring a source of light to our lives. We look forward to being involved and helping out, potentially helping to foster some of the dogs that come through. It’s important that these dogs get to live out their most important lives surrounded by friends and those that love them. I look forward to coming and volunteering and spending time with these dogs and letting them know that there is someone there to keep them company and make them happy. Adoption is always a potential happening, especially if you meet the right dog. I look forward to exploring all the channels the sanctuary has to offer, and being involved in helping move these dogs into loving homes, and spoiling those who end up spending the rest of their days with us at the sanctuary. This sanctuary is going to be a beautiful thing and it’s going to help so many people and bring such positivity into so many lives!
Thank you for doing this and allowing us to share our story!
Jessica Trunzo
