Victor is just one of those dogs that Connie saved. Please read.http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080603_11_A9_hPETPR677017 :hail::hail::hail:
Group aims to save strays
David and Connie Guthrie of Save Our Strays Inc. meet with community members in Turley about how to handle the area’s overwhelming number ofstray animals. SHANE BEVEL/Tulsa World
By MICHAEL OVERALL World Staff Writer
6/3/2008
Last Modified: 6/3/2008 2:49 AM
The Turley area is filled with unowned animals, but animal lovers are out to change that.
TURLEY — Cars stopped in the middle of the street. Trucks swerved. And David Guthrie called the Sheriff's Office.
"You'd better get out here," he said, sounding urgent, "or you're going to have more than just stray dogs to worry about."
A whole pack was chasing one helpless puppy down the middle of Peoria Avenue, and Guthrie's wife was chasing the pack — all of them dodging cars and zigzagging between lanes.
"I was scared to death," David Guthrie remembers.
But Connie Guthrie shrugs.
"I couldn't just sit there and do nothing," she says.
Actually, that was precisely the plan — doing nothing — when the Guthries retired to Oklahoma a couple of years ago.
Since the mid-1990s, they had been running a no-kill animal shelter in Missouri, where they found new homes for 200 stray dogs a year, mostly in the Kansas City area.
"We thought we were done with that," Connie Guthrie declares. "It was too much work and too much money."
Then she rescued that little puppy off Peoria Avenue a few months ago, finding a friend Blocked Adin Collinsville to take care of it.
"It would be different," she says, "if it was just that one puppy."
"Meant to be": About the time the Guthries were opening their animal shelter in Missouri, the population of strays was exploding in Turley.
Pillaging trash cans behind the supermarket, resting under bushes near the bank, fighting in the alley around the corner from the feed store — packs of stray dogs roam all over the area.
Locals blame a 1996 Tulsa ordinance that limits a household's number of pets to no more than five, with a maximum of three dogs.
An unincorporated community just north of Tulsa, Turley has been a dumping ground ever since.
"People bring their extra animals up here and just turn them loose," says Cherie Waggie, who has lived in Turley since 1992.
"I guess they think we're country people, and they have this idea — you know, this stereotype — that country people will take care of any animal that comes along."
In fact, Waggie has been taking care of the animals. At least some of them.
She and her mother have been running a kind of unofficial animal shelter for several years, taking in strays and trying to find adoptive homes for them.
"If I could get back all the money I've spent on dog food," Waggie says, "well, I'd be out of debt."
With Turley's small size — its population is fewer than 3,000 people — it was inevitable that Waggie and her mother would meet up with the Guthries.
"Our goals and our ambitions were so similar; it was like it was meant to be," Waggie says.
They have launched Save Our Strays Inc.
"The first step": Eventually, they hope to open a no-kill shelter and take all the strays off Turley's streets. But for now, the group wants to focus on preventing strays from appearing in the first place.
SOS plans a "Spay and Neuter Blitz," offering free spaying and neutering for Turley pet owners, from June through August.
Writing grant proposals and even going door to door to seek donations, Connie Guthrie has raised thousands of dollars, but SOS remains far short of its $15,000 goal.
A yard sale scheduled for this weekend should help close the gap, but for Guthrie and Waggie, it is invigorating just to have a plan.
And a partner.
"This is just the first step — the first small baby step," Waggie says. "But we are going to solve this problem.
"Together, we can do this."
*********************************************************
if anyone wishes to donate in Victor's name..pm me and i will send you her e-mail address. She knows how to get it done. Bless her heart.
Group aims to save strays
David and Connie Guthrie of Save Our Strays Inc. meet with community members in Turley about how to handle the area’s overwhelming number ofstray animals. SHANE BEVEL/Tulsa World
By MICHAEL OVERALL World Staff Writer
6/3/2008
Last Modified: 6/3/2008 2:49 AM
The Turley area is filled with unowned animals, but animal lovers are out to change that.
TURLEY — Cars stopped in the middle of the street. Trucks swerved. And David Guthrie called the Sheriff's Office.
"You'd better get out here," he said, sounding urgent, "or you're going to have more than just stray dogs to worry about."
A whole pack was chasing one helpless puppy down the middle of Peoria Avenue, and Guthrie's wife was chasing the pack — all of them dodging cars and zigzagging between lanes.
"I was scared to death," David Guthrie remembers.
But Connie Guthrie shrugs.
"I couldn't just sit there and do nothing," she says.
Actually, that was precisely the plan — doing nothing — when the Guthries retired to Oklahoma a couple of years ago.
Since the mid-1990s, they had been running a no-kill animal shelter in Missouri, where they found new homes for 200 stray dogs a year, mostly in the Kansas City area.
"We thought we were done with that," Connie Guthrie declares. "It was too much work and too much money."
Then she rescued that little puppy off Peoria Avenue a few months ago, finding a friend Blocked Adin Collinsville to take care of it.
"It would be different," she says, "if it was just that one puppy."
"Meant to be": About the time the Guthries were opening their animal shelter in Missouri, the population of strays was exploding in Turley.
Pillaging trash cans behind the supermarket, resting under bushes near the bank, fighting in the alley around the corner from the feed store — packs of stray dogs roam all over the area.
Locals blame a 1996 Tulsa ordinance that limits a household's number of pets to no more than five, with a maximum of three dogs.
An unincorporated community just north of Tulsa, Turley has been a dumping ground ever since.
"People bring their extra animals up here and just turn them loose," says Cherie Waggie, who has lived in Turley since 1992.
"I guess they think we're country people, and they have this idea — you know, this stereotype — that country people will take care of any animal that comes along."
In fact, Waggie has been taking care of the animals. At least some of them.
She and her mother have been running a kind of unofficial animal shelter for several years, taking in strays and trying to find adoptive homes for them.
"If I could get back all the money I've spent on dog food," Waggie says, "well, I'd be out of debt."
With Turley's small size — its population is fewer than 3,000 people — it was inevitable that Waggie and her mother would meet up with the Guthries.
"Our goals and our ambitions were so similar; it was like it was meant to be," Waggie says.
They have launched Save Our Strays Inc.
"The first step": Eventually, they hope to open a no-kill shelter and take all the strays off Turley's streets. But for now, the group wants to focus on preventing strays from appearing in the first place.
SOS plans a "Spay and Neuter Blitz," offering free spaying and neutering for Turley pet owners, from June through August.
Writing grant proposals and even going door to door to seek donations, Connie Guthrie has raised thousands of dollars, but SOS remains far short of its $15,000 goal.
A yard sale scheduled for this weekend should help close the gap, but for Guthrie and Waggie, it is invigorating just to have a plan.
And a partner.
"This is just the first step — the first small baby step," Waggie says. "But we are going to solve this problem.
"Together, we can do this."
*********************************************************
if anyone wishes to donate in Victor's name..pm me and i will send you her e-mail address. She knows how to get it done. Bless her heart.
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