Today I spent a pleasant afternoon with Patty Stanton, a board member of a nonprofit organization called Muttville. Muttville does the impossible, it receives senior dogs (usually seven years and up) from many different shelters and from people who can no longer care for the dog for whatever reason, and places the dogs into loving homes. The headquarters are stationed at founder's, Sherri Franklin's, home in San Francisco. There are at times up to ten dogs at Sherri's house and many more at foster homes. The organization has about 50 foster homes at their disposal, some more experienced than others. Typically a dog will go to headquarters first for observation and if they dog needs any medical work done, but with the more experienced foster families the dog may go straight there. As of right now, there are about 70 under the care of Muttville, and Muttville receives about 500 inquiries a month about bringing in a senior dog. Each dog costs Muttville $800, due to medical costs, food, and other supplies. In a good weekend at an adoption event, four to five dogs will be adopted, which adds up to about twenty adopted dogs a month. To support the organization, there are about 200 people who volunteer their time. And to keep Muttville functioning and to keep senior dogs adopted, Muttville puts on a lot of fundraising, adoption and awareness events.

While visiting the headquarters and meeting Patty, it was heartbreaking. The dogs at Sherri's home, as Patty put it, were so worthy. These senior dogs still had a lot of years left to live and be loved. And these dogs, as I often see at the Peninsula Humane Society, get easily overlooked due to their age, their appearance and because they are not pure bred. Because California has a law that states if a dog is not adoptable, it must be euthanized within three to six days, which subsequently means that many of these senior dogs are killed for no valid reason. Muttville is imperative in spreading the message about senior dogs, that they are worthy dogs and that they need homes.

I also volunteered at the Peninsula Humane Society today, but my time there was cut short due to the rain. Therefore, I only spent time with one dog today. His name was Tido, and he was four and half year old, black chihuahua mix; and poor Tido had been at the Humane Society since October 14th. I felt so awful for Tido, it is so unfair for a dog to be in a kennel for that long. He was a very pleasant dog, although I could see how he had been overlooked by potential adopters; he was small, black, a chihuahua, a little older, and not particularly cute or endearing at first glance. But once I got him out in the play yard, he really came to life. We worked on his basic commands as well as going through some of the obstacle course-like items in the yard. He really just wanted some attention, which I happily gave him. After visiting Muttville, I could see that the Bay Area, as well as most of the country, has a large problem with older mutts stuck in shelters, while people only want to buy pure bred puppies. It causes pet overpopulation and miserable lives for many of the mutts.

Tido's video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/peninsulaspca#p/search/0/GJxTkMxuj3U