Wednesday, March 28, 2012

When Mostly Mutts Loses a Pet

Sadly, not all rescue dogs find loving homes.  Some come to us too late to save, too old to handle the stress of being abandoned, too diseased to survive and some are just taken too soon.  When a Mostly Mutts dog passes away, we have a few options as to what to do with the bodies.  One option is to leave them at the vet clinic for the county to pick up and incinerate.  Mostly Mutts believes this is not how a homeless dog should be treated.  Another choice is to take them to a place where they cremate the bodies, however the cost is too expensive for a rescue group.  This is where we feel extremely blessed to have the love and support of Dreamland Pet Memorial and Cremation Services.  Dreamland has allowed MM to forever keep our dog’s spirit with us.   

Kevin Marcy and family started Dream Land Pet Memorial and Cremation Services five years ago because of a passion Kevin’s family had for pets.  Being a licensed funeral director, he wanted a business that duplicated the human death care services for pets.  “After some research, I found out that there wasn’t a pet crematory in the state of Georgia that cared for pet parents after the loss of a pet nor was there a pet crematory in the State that cared for pets like they were human.   Every pet crematory requires the vet clinics to place the pets into a freezer until their driver comes around to pick up all the pets.   Dreamland tries hard to arrive the same day as called to pick up a pet, so they do not have to be placed in a freezer.  We saw the need for compassionate, same day service, where the families are cared for like they have lost a child, Because that is what it is like”. 

Mostly Mutts founder, Paige O’Neill, called Kevin a few years ago to ask if they would handle the cremation of one of the rescue dogs.   Because MM is local and Dreamland wanted to help as much as possible, Kevin graciously agreed to handle all the MM cremations then and in the future as a way of giving back and helping our cause.  “After meeting with Paige, Dreamland has been passionately supporting MM, due primarily to Paige’s fresh energy and a passion I hadn’t seen duplicated in many rescue group founders and that’s what it takes to make any rescue effort successful.”  Dreamland has taken care of over 50 dogs to date.  

Dreamland Pet Cremations and Mostly Mutts have one huge thing in common.  They love and support the homeless animals in the community and when it’s time to say good bye, they deserve the same care and respect as dog’s in loving homes.  Paige states:  “It’s a great feeling to know that when we lose a dog in our program we have Dreamland to take care of their bodies, while we take care of their souls.  Their ashes are spread on to our scatter garden that was designed by a Girl Scout a few years ago.  Our dogs can now rest in peace in a beautiful area near the shelter and are visited by deer, rabbits and lots of squirrels. “

We want to give a special thanks to Kevin Marcy for taking time to answer our questions about his work with Mostly Mutts as well as the services his company offers to pet owners when they lose a beloved pet. 
   
Mostly Mutts lovingly remembers all the animals who have passed through our shelter and spent their last days being loved by our volunteers.  We wish them peace and joy as the play on the other side. 


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Volunteer of the Week-Tammy Turley

The Turley family is deeply involved with Mostly Mutts.  They foster dogs in their homes (including our special needs dogs), they close the shelter every Tuesday night and Tammy comes to adoptions to approve applications, etc.  Tammy also helps with interviewing applicants during the week, she runs our BFF (best friend finder) program and she coordinates the shelter committee. Without volunteers like Tammy and her family, Mostly Mutts would just be an average rescue group. She makes MM exceptional.