Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Success story - "Prince Romeo"

"Prince Romeo"














We received a call from the owner of a 9 year old Maltese named "Prince Romeo" (he goes by Prince). He was given to her 4 years ago by owners that kept him on a chain 24/7. She is on ODSP but feeds her dog sandwiches when she runs out of dog food. She'd rather give her dog her own food than see her dog hungry.

 Prince's owner asked me to come by around 1:00 today so that she'd have time to go to the people food bank in the morning. She and Prince were delighted with their food and liver treats. Prince's owner proudly showed me a photo album full of Prince photos. "He is your pride and joy, isn't he?" I asked. She nodded, smiled and said "He's my everything".

Friday, June 22, 2012

A very special request: Help war veteran keep his PTSD service dog Buddha




***UPDATE*** 
Buddha
June 25, 2012 - We have been in touch with Thames Centre Service Dogs and the amount required to finalize Buddha's adoption is now only $4,500!  So far we have raised $200 towards Buddha's food and the cost to transport it to Port Colborne.  This is a HUGE undertaking but one that can change the lives of an entire family - forever!  We CAN make it happen if we rally and work together!


Jeremy was deployed to the Middle East in 2007. During that time he witnessed and participated in many traumatizing incidents. He was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Severe Depression, along with an anxiety disorder. He has a wife and two children, William (age 4) and Wesley (age 2-1/2), and are expecting a third in August.

Fortunately Jeremy is in therapy and on medication but he still finds it difficult to participate in daily life. Most days, he finds it difficult to even leave his bedroom for more than a few minutes at a time. He experiences night terrors on a regular basis, making it difficult to sleep and be well rested enough to interact with the family. He can rarely leave his home even just to take out the trash.

Jeremy and his family are trying to raise funds to adopt a PTSD service dog through the Thames Centre. The dog - a Border Collie and Lab mix named Buddha - is trained to wake our veterans from night terrors and calm them down. Buddha provides Deep Pressure Therapy to help Jeremy stay grounded in the present, instead of flashing back to traumatizing experiences. Buddha will lead him out of stressful situations that would otherwise cause him to have severe panic attacks. 

Buddha is now with our Jeremy and his family, but they still need our help! Project Maddie's goal is to provide Buddha with several months worth of food (he is on a specific diet), toys and treats, and we will likely need to transport all of this from Oakville to Port Colborne. 

For those who are interested, Jeremy is still $5,000 short for Buddha's adoption fee which will allow him to stay with him permanently.

If you can help this veteran and his service dog Buddha in any way it will be most appreciated, and we will be bringing you status updates.No donation is too small.

e-mail interac transfers can be sent to projectmaddie@gmail.com

cheques payable to Project Maddie can be mailed to 105 Allan St, Box 503 Oakville  ON L6J 3N2 (please mention Buddha in the "memo section").

We do have paypal as well, simply click the "donate" button on the top right side of the screen. The only downside to Paypal is they keep part of your donation as a processing fee.


Our mission statement is "keeping people and pets together".  We believe in the human animal bond, and how beneficial it is for both humans and pets not to be separated.  In Jeremy and Buddha's case it is critical that they stay together.

Any help is very, very much appreciated!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

You can turn a $30 donation in to a $200 donation!

Hello friends

Shoppers Drug Mart is having a points event this weekend and they have a huge pet section!  They sell different kinds of dog food, cat food, and kitty litter! One of our amazing supporters has already donated enough points for Project Maddie to purchase $200 in pet food and kitty litter!

The only catch is there will be tax on the purchases. The taxes will probably be around $30.00. If a few wonderful people can donate $5, $10, $20 it would make a huge difference to Project Maddie.

We do have several families on our waiting list and I would love to be able to help them all.  This is an opportunity to bring many of them (if not all of them) off of the waiting list.

If you'd like to make a donation to help us redeem the full $200 thank you!  We accept donations through Paypal, Interac e-mail transfers (if you bank online it's very easy), and by cheque.  In this case we would prefer the interac e-mail transfer because it's the fastest way to transfer funds.   We love Paypal and personal cheques but it's unlikely the donation would be received by the time the points event starts on Saturday.

Thank you so much friends and supporters. None of what we do would be possible without you.