Commemorate Katrina with our Sula dogs on August 28th

This Saturday, August 28th, we'll be marking the anniversary of Katrina with an Open House at Just Dogs Bakery in the French Quarter. Join us for fancy dog treats, and meet our crew of foster dogs, all of whom are waiting to find their permanent homes.

11am-2pm, Saturday August 28th
Just Dogs Gourmet Bakery
813 Royal Street
New Orleans, LA

Help pay for Perry's knee surgery

Recently we told you about Perry, who was transferred from the Louisiana SPCA's adoption room and then diagnosed with a serious orthopedic problem in both knees. He's recooperating from the procedures, but now we're hoping to replace the funds that were used to pay the bill. If we reach our goal, we hope to be able to expand to two low-cost vaccination clinic events this fall.

Marisa, Sanjay and Perry hold a kissing contest at Gallery Rinard

July events, Gulf Coast Aid, and a New Pup

We have a number of great events coming up in the next two weeks--including a gallery event this weekend, the first No Fleas market on the 24th, a July 29th happy hour at Capdeville and a volunteer training session on the 31st. We'll get to that later, but first we have a few updates--and a new pup to introduce.

If you watched Anderson Cooper on CNN last night, you probably heard about the Louisiana SPCA's Gulf Coast Companion Animal Relief program. Next week, The Sula Foundation will be providing volunteer support to staff the program's locations in the outlying parishes. We also want to thank Ellen Gilmore at Best Friends. After The Sula Foundation contacted her at the end of May, Ellen began working on ways in which Best Friends could most effectively partner with the broad needs of those affected by the economic hardships of the oil spill. On July 1st, Best Friends delivered to the SPCA a 20 ton donation of dog food from Del Monte, which was immediately available for distribution to area shelters. You can read more about Best Friends' efforts, and their First Home Forever program, at their website.

Perry swims at Canine Connection.

Meanwhile, Perry, our recent transfer from the LA-SPCA, has run into some unexpected trouble. He's certainly been coming out of his shell, thanks to the attention of his foster parent and the staff at Canine Connection. But the more active he became, the more we began to notice periodic limping, which has been diagnosed as Medial Patellar Luxation. As you might imagine from the number of syllables, this is an expensive problem to solve, requiring surgery on both legs to correct the architecture of his knees.

About the same time that Perry was being diagnosed, little Sanjay dropped, almost literally, into our laps. We won't go into the details, except to say that we were faced with a choice that made it easy to bend the rules a bit to accept a dreaded puppy even as we were beyond capacity. And why did we name him Sanjay? Last month BAD RAP, in Oakland, asked us to judge a naming contest for a little of puppies they had just taken in. (They also donated 10% of the contest proceeds to the Sula Foundation. Thanks guys!) One of the winning names was Sanjay (you can read all about the pups and their names here), and it must be a lucky name, because within a week he'd found a home and shed his name to pass it on to our little guy. Sanjay is currently being treated for non-contagious mange, and playing with some of the best pit bulls we know.

With so many surgeries to pay for and dogs to help, we've kicked up our summer schedule:

Saturday July 17th, 11:00am-2:00pm
Open House at Gallery Rinard, 738 Royal Street
"Come meet the dogs"

Saturday July 24th, 10:00am-2:00pm
NO Fleas Market at Canine Connection
$10 Dog Wash, microchips, adoptable dogs and flea market

Thursday July 29th, 5:30-7:30pm
Happy Hour at Capdeville
2-for-1 Drinks; $2 off local draft beers

Saturday July 31st, 10:00am-1:00pm
Volunteer training--"Come learn more about The Sula Foundation, dog handling, and how you can help"
Location TBA

Meet Gladys, Perry and Marisa

In the past month or so, we've had several of our dogs go to wonderful new homes, including the ever-popular Blue, Ohio hoarding-case survivor Kianna, deaf Mississippi hoarding survivor Peggy, and, happily, the delightful Dusty, who has been with us for more than a year and now gets to share a home with two children. Of course, all of that means it is time to take in a few new dogs. Meet our newest trio:

Perry

Perry is a young male who is a bit shy around strangers. He was lucky enough to be chosen for the LA-SPCA's "All-Stars" program, funded by Animal Farm Foundation. The program provides six weeks of training while the dogs are included in the adoption program at the shelter; unfortunately, Perry didn't get much interest from the public, so we were happy to take him and give him more time to get socialized and ready for a home.

While we were evaluating Perry, we couldn't help

Gladys

noticing Gladys, a blue brindle girl who had been dropped at the shelter by someone who had offered to take her once the five-day hold was up. But they never came back. Gladys is heartworm positive, and will be treated in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, she is proving to be quite a charmer--and we suspect she may even enjoy the company of cats.

Marisa

Last, but certainly not least, we have Marisa, who was the victim of abuse in St. John Parish, where the shelter is not allowed to adopt out pit bulls. Once Marisa's court case was finished, the shelter employees contacted us to see if we could take another dog. Despite her abuse, Marisa LOVES people, does quite a happy dance, and provides more kisses than we've received (from anyone) in a long, long time.

If you find yourself doing a bit more of your shopping online in the heat of the summer, please remember that you can generate donations to The Sula Foundation just by shopping via www.iGive.com. Hundreds of shopping sites, including Barnes and Noble, Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma, Gap and common brands--will donate up to 10% of your purchase.
In our last newsletter, we showed off the special Sula collar designed by Paco Collars. Now, Paco Collars and Fetching Tags will donate 20% of any purchases of their collars, leads, leashes and tags. Just use the code LASU01. Thank you!

A few weeks ago, we joined LiteracyCorps/ Americorps to bring dogs to the Even Start program in Marrero. Among the dogs volunteering that day: our wonderful dogfight-bust survivor, Annie, who has been living with a family since January. Annie loves her own two kids, so having a bunch of strangers line up to read to her was a great way to spend the day.

It is hard to believe a month has passed since Sula's passing, and with that milestone comes...hurricane season.  The LA/SPCA has a great page of tips for hurricane preparation; in short: be sure you know several places that you can evacuate to with your pets; have crates ready for each animal; bring copies of vet records; have their favorite food and toys on hand (or pre-packed through the season); and be sure your animals have collars and tags as well as microchips for identification.  Speaking of collars, we're thrilled with the gorgeous Sula collar that was launched yesterday by Paco Collars.  Paco collars create exquisite, hand-crafted leather leads, collars and leashes.  "The Sula" features a diamond pattern modeled after our Sula's white diamond marking on the back of her neck.  A portion of all sales of the collar will be donated to The Sula Foundation, and through June 7th, 20% will be coming our way.  Check out "The Sula" and other collars at their website; they may be a little more than you are used to spending, but they are worth every penny.  Some additional uplifting news: two of our foster girls, Blue and Kianna, were adopted this week, and we have several more adoptions in progress.  Because we're slow careful with our adoption process, we've changed the name of our "adoption days" to "open houses," and we invite people to meet our available foster dogs, learn more about the breed, and share ideas about our ongoing work on behalf of the pit bull.  Our next Open House will be held: Saturday, June 5th Noon-2pm Freret Market Freret and Napoleon Avenue Another upcoming event: On Saturday June 12th, we'll be taking some of our foster dogs, as well as a few graduates, to team with Literacy Americorps to help a group of all-ages with their reading skills.  The dogs will sit and listen, without judgment, while students practice reading aloud.  We'll send out more information on this next week, but if you are interested in volunteering with us for this or other events, please be sure that we have your volunteer application on file by contacting volunteer@sulafoundation.org.  We're also working on a program to assist the pets and families of fishermen (and fisherwomen) affected by the Gulf Oil spill.  And...be sure to check out the website for the soon-to-open NO FLEAS market, where you can clean out your closets and earmark the proceeds to go your favorite local rescue organization.  (May we suggest The Sula Foundation?) That's it for now.  We hope to see you soon.

In the French Quarter today!

Stop by and see us (and a few dogs)

We'll be at Gallery Rinard,
723 Royal Street

from 11-2, with Monday, Kiana, Peggy and other special guests.