SPRING 2014

T H E M E R C E D

THE QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF THE MERCED SPCA - A NO KILL SHELTER

SPECIAL NEEDS DOG FINDS

PERFECT HOME! For Canela, a nine year old poodle almost completely blind from cataracts, home for nearly a year had been an indoor kennel at the Merced SPCA. But his life changed forever when his new owner-to-be, Margaret Sigarroa, saw him listed as one of the Pets of the Week and decided to investigate. That day Canela went home. Given his vision loss, there were adjust-ments Canela had to make. Margaret re-ports that the first things he did were to explore his new terri-tory and then share a heated lunch with her. “He’s very smart,” Margaret continues. “Right away he discovered how to use the cat door and he quickly learned the layout of the place so he doesn’t bump into things.” Just a week after the adoption, Canela and Margaret had totally bonded. He sleeps on her bed, they watch TV together and he sits with her as she reads. She states that he’s good about being bathed, loves to be brushed and walks on a leash with ease. When asked why she chose to adopt an older dog with a disability she stated, “Well, I’ve had poodles before, with Canela I wouldn’t have to go through the puppy chewing stage and he just brings me such peace.”

ELECTIONS ARE COMING!

On Monday, April 7, 2014, elections for three SPCA board positions will be held at our 7 p.m. General Meeting at the First Baptist Church, 500 Buena Vista, Merced. The positions up for election are Vice President, Publicity Director and Fund Raising Director. Nominations will be taken from the floor and the positions will be determined by secret bal-lot. Please make every attempt to come and vote for the nominee of your choice!

MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

Please spread the word! In April 2014, the SPCA will be starting our membership drive. If any current members know of individu-als, families, seniors, juniors, organization/commercial groups or professionals that have a heart and passion to help the dogs and cats in our county, we would love to send them a flyer and appli-cation. Please contact the SPCA at (209) 384-7722 or myself at (209) 357-4217. Thank you in advance. Rhonda Darby, Membership Chair

SPCA

First Baptist Church of Merced 500 Buena Vista Drive

MEETING DAY & HOURS

BOARD OF DIRECTORS President - Open Vice President - Josephine Pulido (Acting President) Secretary - Cathy Benner Treasurer - Karyn Johnson Fund Raiser - Lorraine Melgoza Membership - Rhonda Darby Publicity - Carole Steinhauer

Board Meeting: 5:45 PM Membership Meeting: 7:00 PM - First Monday of Each Month - If a holiday, then the following Monday.

Just hanging out

No one will ever find us in here

On the first day of 2014, five-year-old Sydney cele-brated her birthday with a party and a charitable do-nation to the animals at the Merced SPCA. Having cho-sen the organization as the beneficiary, she used her birthday money to shop for toys, food and snacks and deliv-ered them to the shelter at 1021 E. Childs. “Sydney has always been an animal lover”, stated her mother, “and as an infant she would nap on the family’s yellow lab. So this birthday she wanted to provide things for the doggies and kitties.” The Merced SPCA wishes to commend and thank Syd-ney for her thoughtfulness and caring concern.

Young animal lover benefits the

Merced SPCA Pictured are the five kittens who have been adopted at Petco since we started in De-cember. Vista is enjoying her perch atop the fan in her room, Tux lolls on a pillow, Jane sits at attention in a round kitty bed, Scrapper lounges on a cat scratcher, and Mango is up a tree. Our Petco involvement has been very posi-tive so far. Please consider donating some time to come clean their cages. Normally each person only does it once a week. Petco also expects us to do dog adoptions at least once a month. We need people who are committed to the idea that we must do everything we can to promote adoptions. That means the animals must be transported to the event and back, and people need to stay there to greet potential adopters and, hopefully, complete adop-tions. This is directly for the benefit of our animals. Please find it within your heart to help them. Contact Jo- sie at 384-7722 if you want to become involved.

YOU CAN SPONSOR A PET!

This is exciting! In an effort to enhance our adoptions already occurring in the shelter and Petco, we've decided to publish a flier which will be inserted into a Saturday edition of the Merced Sun-Star. The 2-sided insert will be in color and will contain a picture and biography of each of 20 pets. Underneath the picture and bio will be the name of the business or person(s) who sponsored the pet. For a mere $20.00, you or your business can be a sponsor. You can let us choose the pet, or If you would like you can make certain specifications like dog or cat, male or female, color-whatever-and we'll match your request as best we can. We're planning to do this quarterly. You can sign up for one issue or contribute for four pets for the year for $80.00. If interested, please call Carole at 723-8953 so she can discuss the pet with you and the way you want your name or business to be listed. Your check will be your receipt-please write "Adoption Insert" in the memo line. Be an "adoption buddy" to one of our fabulous critters!

Thank

You

37 VOLUNTEERS

Gillian Bowler

Zara Bhatti

Jan Dorn

Jesus Estrada

Mary Gomes

Debbie Gray

Susan Hicks

Cathie Huhn

Mike Huhn

Francisco Jimenez

Nikolas Joyner

Alice Joyner

Michelle Joyner

Joan Kelley

Alexa Lua

Pamela McClellan

Chloe Magneson

Kim McGuire

Alexandria Moreno

Mary Nickles

Allison Phillips

Jocelyn Perry

Elizabeth Palafox

Laura Rutherford

Tiffany Ruezfem

Noelia Ramirez

Josh Reddin

Kylie Salazar

Jordan Schleth

Leslie Schleth

Chelsea Sommerfeld

Marissa Servantes

Tristan Welch

Jennifer Welch

Stacey Whitley

Holly Zacharias

Pictured are the five pets that were adopted in our "Free Over Three" event held last No-vember 2. "Free Over Three" is an adoption event in which any of our dogs and cats over the age of three can be adopted, on the day of the event, for free. Requirements in-clude the filling out of rather extensive forms, discussing the forms with an adoption coun-selor and agreeing to two home visits. The five homes these lucky pets were adopted into were nothing short of wonderful!

Because completion of forms and counselor meetings must be held outside in the shelter parking lot, we plan to hold these events in the spring and fall only when the weather is suitable. This spring's event will be on May 17 and will run from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. We'll be needing people who know the animals to serve as "guides" who will show the animals to potential adopters and be available to answer questions about them. We'll also need people who would be willing to check the homes before the animal is tak-en. We hadn't planned to do this last time but we discovered that checking the homes that day was very successful! After the check, they returned to the shelter and retrieved their pets. It was a happy ending to a wonderful day!

HIPPITY HOP!

Easter is rather late this year but make sure you're on time to take a picture with the East-er Bunny! The bunny will be posing for photos with children, pets and adults at Walmart in Merced on Saturday, April 19 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. There will also be raffle tick-ets, Easter gifts and Easter baskets for sale. It's E-g-g-g-gsactly where you'll want to be on April 19th. See you there!

OUR 21ST ANNUAL HOME TOUR

Leopard print motifs, a majestic hearth, a collection of ceramic horses, caroling at the pi-ano and a home with 21 trees were all a part of the eclectic fare at our 21st annual home tour. A new addition to the tour, which was WELL received, was a for-purchase luncheon held at the Vista Ranch and Cellars. The salad, three types of soup, warm breads and deli-cious dessert bars were perfect for a cold winter's day. Plus there was lots of room for our many raffle prizes. We're thinking we might like to make the Vista a tradition! Our sincere appreciation goes out to our business and home owners, Sandra Westfall and Luc Noel, Randi and Ann Jones, Lana Harding, Renae De Jager, Stephanie Marchini and Rich-ard Westfall. Also many thanks to Stratford Evans Funeral Home for providing our gorgeous tickets free of charge and DeAngelo's, Taste of Little India, Branding Iron, DiCicco's, Apple-bee's and Nagami's restaurants for contributing dinner certificates for our homeowners. A special thank you goes to Darrel Lingenfelter for the donation of his talents at the keyboard that day. Traditionally the home tour has been held on the second Sunday in December. This year that day is REALLY late! But mark your calendars for December 14 when we'll be at it again for the twenty-second time!

List of Donors: AT&T

BloodSource

Chevron Humankind

Judy Brown

Paul C. Carroll

Fuji & Peggy Collins

Debra Conner / Floor mats & doggie bed

Abigail Cross

Dr.&Mrs. Kenneth Crow

Janet & John Devine

Matthew Divird

Janet Dorn

Lucille Eastman

Mrs. Josephine Ellis

Donna Foley

Jennifer L. Foster

Marie R. Fowler

Mr. Thomas C. Grave

Lonnie & Lola Hendricks

Jennifer Hondeville

Evelyn Hurlbut / In Memory of Shiela Flanni-gan Drake

Ms. Gayle E. King

Terrilee Lang

Le Grand High School Humane Society

Darrel Lingenfelter / Piano for Home Tour

Sharon Lohman

Mr. & Mrs. John Lucich / In Memory of Shiela Flannigan Drake

Diane Machado

Danny Milnik

Mr. & Mrs. Miller

Lori Motko / In Memory of Teddy

Jacqueline Mueller

Lynn Pages

Allison Phillips

Pat O’Rourk

Mun & Derold Perry

Charlene Pimentel / In Memory of Marilynn Thornhill

Mrs. Elsa V. Reid

Rita Redondo

Dona Robertson / In honor of the Benner Family

Barbara Shaw

Ms. Shirley G. Sharpe

Ms. Kim Smiley

Robert Stemple / In Honor of Marc Wein-stock

Helen Wajdak

Elizabeth Wallace

Holly & David Zacharias

It is with deep regret that I have submitted my letter of resignation as President of the Merced SPCA to the Board of Directors. This resignation, which was for personal and medical reasons, was effective January 8, 2014. To all the members who have supported me since my election, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve as your President . I will continue to work for the animals, to work at the shelter at least once a week and, when possible, to help out with fundraisers. Looking forward to seeing you in the future. Sincerely, Ginny Nurenberg

To all MSPCA Members

18th ANNUAL DOG WALK COMING SOON!

It’s “Hoofers With Woofers” time again! Come on out to the Apple-gate Zoo entrance of Applegate Park May 3. Registration will be held from 9:00 am to 10:00 am. The registration fee is very affordable (none) but we would like to encourage everyone to set a goal of collecting at least $100.00 from their contribu-tors. The walk along Bear Creek from the zoo to the G Street bridge and back is about 2 miles but that can be tai-lored to suit animal and owner energy! At the end, walkers and their fur-friends will receive a certificate of completion and a photo. Prizes are also awarded to walkers with the greatest amount of donations. Come on out! This is an important fundraiser for us. For more infor-mation call the shelter at 384-7722

Ginny was born and raised in New York City and lived there 20 years before moving to Nebraska with her husband. Together with their four children Tere, Greg, Karyn and Bill, they resided in various midwestern cities in the states of Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. Before moving to Cali-fornia in 1973, Ginny and her children lived in New Jersey where she worked part time and spent many hours doing volunteer work including driving an ambulance and training as an EMT. Once in Merced, she joined Toastmasters, where she won several awards in public speaking competitions, volun-teered with the Probation Department's Youth Accounta-bility Board and served as a 4H Leader. Her first job here was with Farmer's Insurance. Next came 20 years with the U.C. Cooperative Extension, and finally Mercy Hospital as Administrative Assistant to the Director of Nursing, from which she retired in 1994. In 2004 her involvement with the Merced SPCA began with cleaning and working the desk at the shelter. She soon became our membership director and held that po-sition for five years. In 2012 she was elected president of our organization. As president her duties were many. As she had done in the past she has manned the desk three days a week answering the phone, completing adoptions, processing in-take of new animals, greeting the public and answering their questions. In her view a president has the responsibility of being very visible. As such she has seen to it that she works most fund-raisers and attends all publicity events such as the information booths at Atwater festivals. Other duties have included working with the membership secretary on keeping the backup member-ship card file up to date, writing articles for the newsletter and heading up the bylaws revision committee. Recently, she coordinated with Petco, setting up the partnership agreements and enlisting volunteers to fill their required daily cat enclosure cleaning schedule. The agreement also calls for us to have dog adoptions at least once a month. In her spare time Ginny enjoys reading and is a fan of anything written by Dean Koontz. She also enjoys going to casinos (where she is often a winner!) traveling, live theater and family gather-ings. Her passion is the animals and she rejoices whenever an adoption occurs. Her special wish for the Merced SPCA is that more people would become involved, keep alive the various pro-grams that have been started during her term and assist in the implementation of new ones. Ginny has been a very busy lady all her life and we thank her for all her involvement with the SPCA. "Kudos to you, Ginny!"

This month's kudos go to Ginny Nurenberg

To the businesses, people and places that support the Merced SPCA and the ones that are kind enough to al-low us to place SPCA banks with them. Please try to patronize these businesses. They are helping our goals to save lives.

Merced SPCA 1021 East Childs Avenue Merced, CA 94110 Merced.spca@yahoo.com www.mercedspca.com

Bleach

Laundry soap

Kirkland 13-gallon trash bags

Advantage Plus flea treatment

Kirkland (Costco) Maintenance Cat Food (dry)

Kirkland 13 gallon drawstring kitchen trash bags

Libman Wonder Mop refills

Feathery cat toys

Nylabones

Gift cards from Amazon, Costco, Pet Smart, PETCO, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Tractor Supply, Armstrong’s Pet Store

Select-a Size paper towels

Brown paper towels from Costco--bi-fold wall dispenser type

Printer ink—Hp56 Black

Printer ink—Hp 564 (4-pack with black, cyan, magenta, yellow)

Copy paper

Inflatable e-collars (available at pet stores) for me-dium-sized dogs

Clumping Litter

Thinking about a material donation? Here are some needed items: