#ntgivingday

GALTx eNews: Attention! Tune In To Help The Hounds!

Between hurricanes, news from Afghanistan, and a raging pandemic, we know you have a lot competing for your attention. But this is a special time for the GALT hounds and we really need you to tune in. North Texas Giving Day is coming up on September 23rd, 2021, and early giving is already open. During this special time, we have available $25,000 in matching funds to make your gift to the hounds go twice as far. Please don’t let this opportunity slip by with money still on the table.

Despite all of the turmoil in the world, GALT’s intake team remains busy. On August 9th, 2021, we welcomed 18 retired racers from Greyhound farms in Kansas and the next day we welcomed three more hounds who were abandoned in Amarillo. A couple of weeks later, we welcomed four more hounds (Joey, Jeff, Willa, and Christy) including both retired racers and rescues. This week, we have welcomed Maggie and Iris, from difficult situations discussed below. That’s 27 new hounds in just a few weeks. Our kennel remains full with more than 40 hounds awaiting foster homes and, ultimately, adoption.

GALTx eNews: Help Us Put The Future In Focus! 

Our "houndsight" might still be 20/20, but a clear vision of the future in this pandemic world is even harder than usual. One thing that we know for sure, we are going to need your financial support more than ever. This North Texas Giving Day is a greyt opportunity to help the hounds with a matched donation, large or small. Scheduled giving is already open, so your donation will go twice as far until September 17th!

On Wednesday, we welcomed 15 retiring racers. Typically, a healthy retiring racer requires about $750 in vet bills to be ready for adoption. We anticipate that this group alone will cost GALT over $10,000. Additionally, we currently have nine hounds on our injured reserve roster receiving veterinary care for broken legs, tick borne disease and heartworm. Their vet bills tend to be thousands more than the average hound. And of course, we have Peggy, her seven puppies, and young Nick and Nora from an Oklahoma seizure who all recently joined us. As always, more retiring racers and more strays with serious health injuries will be joining our family going forward. It's critical that we remain well positioned to help them all so that we can bring you more great success stories like that of recently adopted Leia and Penny.

Our generous team of GALT 2020 All-Stars provided $25,000 in matching funds to help us make the most of North Texas Giving Day. Please help us ensure that we don't leave a dollar of these matching funds behind by scheduling your gift today. Donations to Jennifer Lueken and Kim Wyatt's North Texas Giving Day FUNdraisers are also matched. Thank you for helping the hounds!

GALTx eNews:  Give For Gumdrop On North Texas Giving Day!

In the last few weeks, GALT has welcomed 32 new hounds to the GALT family. Thirty-one of them are retiring racers coming from greyhound farms. The thirty-second hound, Gumdrop, joined us on Friday, September 11th, as a stray from the Giddings Animal Shelter. She suffered from an old, chronic injury to her shoulder and right front leg and has significant intestinal parasites. On examination, our vets said that her injury was terribly atrophied, appeared at least 8 weeks old and was consistent with being thrown from a car. Gumdrop's leg caused her much more pain than it could ever do her good again, so Dr. Douglas Lange of the Dallas Veterinary Surgical Center amputated her right front leg on Tuesday. Gumdrop is doing okay in recovery and is expected to move to a foster home on Friday. We are hopeful that she will fully recover and go on to be one of our Injured Reserve success stories like Leia and Penny, who both recently celebrated their adoptions.

We don't yet know how much Gumdrop's vet bills will be but expect her amputation surgery to be close to $6,000. To prepare them for adoption, the 31 retiring racers will cost GALT at least $750 each in veterinary care, which comes out to over $20,000. So we really need your help today, North Texas Giving Day, to pay our current vet bills and remain ready for the additional hounds that will come our way. With thanks to the GALT 2020 All-Stars, we have $25,000 available in matching funds to double your donation, whether it be large or small. Additionally, North Texas Giving Day donations of $25 or more qualify us to win various monetary prizes from the Communities Foundation of Texas.

GALTx eNews:  Meet Our Injured Reserve Line Up!

GALT's Injured Reserve greyhounds live in foster homes while they rehabilitate from an injury or illness such as a broken leg, heartworm, tick-borne disease, or even cancer. Because these hounds are not yet available for adoption, they don't meet folks at meet and greets and we tend to not talk about them as much. This week, we want to make sure they get the attention they deserve! 

Currently, we have five hounds on Injured Reserve. Elsa and Elise are both receiving treatment for heartworm. Elsa is an eight year old Great Dane/Greyhound mix who was surrendered by her owner. We anticipate that her treatment will take at least six months. Elise appears to be full greyhound but she is not tattooed. Her owner surrendered her to GALT a few months after acquiring her from a coyote hunter. Elise's initial heartworm test was only borderline positive, so she will be retested in about a month. Each heartworm treatment typically costs over $600 and each dog usually requires two or three treatments to fully recover. Esther is recovering from Ehrlichia Canis, a tick-borne disease. She is a fuzzy greyhound mix who came to us as a stray. She looks like she has been through a lot but sure is a cuddle bug now! We anticipate that her treatment for Ehrlichia Canis will cost nearly $700. 

Oscar is a complicated boy. You may remember he ran stray for a long time from the recent story we shared about his capture. He is undergoing treatment for heartworm, Ehrlichia Canis and parasites! In addition to his routine medical expenses, we anticipate that these conditions will cost around $2,000 to treat.

Finally, our super trooper, Fanny, is recovering from a connective tissue cancer called myxcosarcoma in her rear leg. Fanny retired from racing and went on to be a brood mommy to 13 pups. Unfortunately, Fanny's cancer treatments haven't gone as smoothly as we hoped and we recently made the difficult decision to amputate her leg. Her medical expenses raced by our initial estimate of $3,800, but she is so worth it!

GALTx eNews: Celebrate #NTGivingDay By Helping The Hounds!

On Thursday, September 20, 2018, from 6:00 am to midnight central time, GALT is participating in Communities Foundation of Texas' 10th annual North Texas Giving Day, a day of online giving for all of North Texas. Last year, this on line event brought together more than 2,700 organizations to raise $39 million to do good in North Texas. We invite you to join the movement and help GALT reach our goal of $15,000 on September 20th. If you are unavailable on September 20th, don't worry! You can schedule your donation on GALT's donation page at any time starting next Monday, September 10th and ending September 19th! So please mark your calendars and book mark GALT's donation page today!

GALT's expenses average about $1,000 per day - that's nearly $365,000 per year we need to help the hounds and maintain our promise of "No Grey Turned Away!" One of our single largest expenses is the medical cost for our hounds on Injured Reserve who are recovering from illnesses such as cancer, heartworm, and tick borne disease as well as racing injuries such as broken legs. We need your help every day, but especially on North Texas Giving Day, to pay the vet bills for these hounds. We also need your help to cover the vet bills required to give healthy incoming hounds their vaccinations, spay/neuter, blood tests, and dentals. Each incoming hound costs GALT approximately $700 just for this routine veterinary care!

We greatly appreciate every donation! But if you would like to help by doing even more, North Texas Giving Day is providing our super fans with personal peer-to-peer fundraising pages! Using your personal North Texas Giving Day fundraising page, you can make the day bigger, help raise more money and touch more greyhound lives! It's easy - just click here and follow the directions. To see an example of a personal fundraising page already created by one of our super fans, click here. You can see all of the personal fundraising pages and make donations to them under the "View All Fundraising Pages" tab on GALT's North Texas Giving Day page and you'll be able to follow along with our progress on September 20th!

GALTx eNews: North Texas Giving Day 2022!

September 22nd is North Texas Giving Day! It’s the last day to make a donation that can be matched (up to $15k) and that will go twice as far helping our new arrivals! Please give just a little or just a little more before time runs out!

A few weeks ago, we welcomed Zeke, Ethan, Elliot, and Emma from the Ellis County landfill. Within days, we also welcomed Snow, Blondie (pictured), and Jeanie from their owner who could no longer care for them. Then, along came Palmer, who was also found stray in Ellis County. These dogs came to us with a host of medical problems including six cases of the tick borne disease Ehrlichia Canis and four cases of heartworm. Emma came to us with wounds on her body and tail and Blondie came to us with severely infected wounds on her ears that required a stay at the ER vet. Elliot had a skin condition and an ear infection. Palmer arrived underweight, with open wounds, and with an ear infection so extreme he stayed at the vet for two weeks for daily ear treatments. Our initial cost estimate for treating these hounds came out to over $25,000! And then we learned our Bernadette would need surgery to remove suspicious masses, pushing our immediate need up to around $30,000. 

Your North Texas Giving Day donations are helping these hounds get better. Zeke is just a few pounds short of his ideal weight now and is playful, happy, enjoying toys, and getting to know his foster home’s routine. Watch a slideshow of his progress here. Ethan has also gained weight and is learning to play. Emma is challenging her foster family by evading her “cone of shame.” Her wounds are healing and she has gained weight. Her tail could not be saved though and has been amputated. See a slideshow of her progress here. She will feel much better without it soon. Blondie’s infection is gone, her ears are nearly healed, and she is feeling so much better! Watch a slideshow of her progress here. Treatments for the tick borne disease will take some time still and heartworm treatments will start when the hounds are strong enough. We are optimistic that all will eventually be well and move on to forever homes thanks to your support. 

Please help us make sure we meet our North Texas Giving Day goal with a donation today!