We Felt the Love!

By Greta Hansen Begg

Our board of directors sends a heartfelt thank you to our community for making our inaugural Feel the Love event a smashing success on February 8. From our volunteers who helped our animals shine, to Robin, who led our glass painting activity, and Liz, our raffle saleswoman extraordinaire who created our gorgeous Valentines for Veterans designs—we appreciate you all. Special thanks to those who played small roles, those who did big things, everyone who donated baked goods, and of course, John and Marianne for providing the T or C Brewery venue. To our wonderful community members who bought raffle tickets, wrote valentines for local veterans, and donated to our cause—thank you. We truly felt the love!

Our Valentines for Veterans idea blossomed into something we are very proud of. Community members came in droves to handwrite notes of gratitude to veterans on the backs of our homemade valentines, each featuring our little rescues as love muses. Board members Connie and Alan then gathered these personalized valentines and delivered them to veterans at the VA Home right here in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. The visit was filled with smiles, love, community, and heartfelt moments of gratitude.

We also received an overwhelming response from local bakers who generously provided sweet treats for our raffle. Thank you to every person who baked for the good of our animals! Finally, we are thrilled to share some adoption news! Thanks to our amazing volunteers, our dogs Oliver and Molly, puppies Kiwi and Mochi, and cats Judy, Hawk, and Gunther attended Feel the Love.

Out of the seven adoptable pets at the event, two found their forever homes—Gunther and Hawk were adopted after winning the hearts of a loving family. Thank you again to everyone who contributed to making this event a success!

Tabby Palooza!

By Greta Hansen Begg

We recently completed intake procedures with five felines that were strays being looked after by a local family. We took in an adult tabby mama named Sundae, her one-year-old daughter Parfait (also tabby), plus Sundae's three 3-month-old tabby kittens named Sprinkles (female tabby), Chip (male tabby), and Caramel (male tabby). Our Kitty Corner quarantine room is overflowing with tabbilicious sweetness! We are happy to welcome them to safety and security at Desert Haven Animal Rescue.

We receive no government funding either locally or nationally. We rely on donations from animal-loving folks and businesses to help us get pets off the streets or out of the overcrowded T or C Animal Shelter. To help our readers understand why we fundraise, I am going to share our veterinary expenses associated with rescuing these five deserving kitty-cats. 

We do our best to send our rescues to their adoptive families in healthy tip-top shape. For an adult cat our standard care is veterinary exam, FIV/FELV test, deworming, flea/tick/ear mite prevention, Rabies and FRCP vaccinations, and sterilization which amounts to $218 (times two). One of the adults was healthy and the other was diagnosed with severe dermatitis related to allergies requiring medication at $40. A kitten requires additional vaccinations so the standard care for kittens is more costly. Standard care for a female kitten is $280 and a male is $245 (times two). One of the kittens arrived at Desert Haven very ill with eye and upper respiratory infections requiring medicines at $75. At vet exam time, the other two kittens were healthy. Knock wood!

Adding up the veterinary costs for all five rescued felines brings us to a total of $1,321 to get them vaccinated, fixed, healthy and ready for adoption. We set our adoption fees so Sierra County residents can afford to adopt from the Haven. Our fee is $75 per adoption so when all five of these felines get adopted we'll recoup a whopping $375 of our $1321 spent on vetting. You can see why we need your donations! Sundae, Parfait, Caramel, Sprinkles, and Chip: no longer on the streets, no longer suffering as strays do. Please join us and help us create more outcomes just like this.

Bullocks leads the way!

By Greta Hansen Begg

Our neighborhood grocery, Bullocks, continues to be a stalwart in supporting local non-profits with their Cash for Clubs program. Bullocks receipts can be exchanged for much-needed and much-appreciated cash for local organizations. Bullocks receipts dated 2024 and 2025 can be used in this program. Please do not submit any receipts to us from 2023 or earlier as Bullocks will not accept them. Carla is our very generous volunteer who gives her time to manage the Bullocks Receipts program.

Carla collects, tallies, and turns in our Bullocks receipts. It's tedious work and we're so grateful that she continues to manage this program for the Sierra County Humane Society which operates Desert Haven Animal Rescue. Receipts can be dropped off at the Williamsburg Post Office, T or C Public Library, Heart-to-Hand shop in the Martha's Building, and at the entrance of Desert Haven in the donation box. A few of you out there mail in your Bullocks receipts which is also an option. They can be mailed to us at SCHS, PO Box 638, Williamsburg, NM 87942. And please remember that the receipts should be smoothed out and must be dated 2024 or 2025. We use the Cash for Clubs monies to purchase supplies for our rescues so we thank you all for saving your receipts for us. Grateful!

Members of our board of directors and some of our volunteers will be on hand for our Feel the Love event at the Truth or Consequences Brewery on Saturday, February 8 from 4:00-7:00. Mark your calendar! From 4:00-5:00 come to the Brewery to meet our adoptable pets. At 5:00 you will have an opportunity to make a Valentine which we will drop off to our local veterans; making Valentines for Veterans is free to all. At Feel the Love we also are hosting a glass painting Valentine craft which costs $10. In addition, we'll have sweet treats and raffle them off at 6:30. Come Feel the Love with our animals and us on February 8!

Straw for the win!

By Greta Hansen Begg

It's cold! The recent chilly temps have kept us busy asking for help in our efforts to keep our Desert Haven animals warm. Our calls for help have been answered. We are grateful to the fabulous Lorie and Mark who donated two bales of straw for our dogs in Dogtown. Their generous donation created a surplus of loose straw so we in turn were able to offer free straw to local residents for use by their outdoor pets and/or stray animals. Many local families came to Desert Haven to load up bags of our surplus of loose straw. Our straw pile is now empty.

I wonder if "free straw" will be an ongoing need for Sierra County each winter. Is a free straw program warranted? It would be helpful to hear from our readers about the need for straw. Please reach out at 575-740-0643 and let us know if free straw is a need in our community. Or drop-in to chat on a Tuesday from 9:00-4:00.

Our cats needed warmth too. Two wonderful women, Rhonda and Karen, donated heated cat houses to help us keep our cats warm. Our inadequate electrical situation at Desert Haven precludes us from running a great heating system but we found a workaround by offering our beloved cats heated cat houses. The heated cat houses only draw electricity when a cat enters the house so we've reduced the pull on electricity enough to stop tripping fuses. Please forgive me if I'm using incorrect terminology here; the ins and outs of heating and cooling is not in my wheelhouse but I think you get the drift.



Suffice it to say that our electricity at Desert Haven is outdated, insufficient, and nerve-wracking so when you see us fundraising, know that electrical is at the top of the list of infrastructure problems to solve. And if I hear from enough of you, perhaps a free straw program will need funding as well. Those with resources, time to get out your checkbooks!

A Very Frosty Week!

By Greta Hansen Begg

While the frigid weather has given the shivers to many of our animals living at Desert Haven, a few of them have enjoyed frolicking on the snowy days. Our pup Bonnie would make the perfect Colorado girl as she leapt and played with glee on the snow day. Being short-haired, we initially put a jacket on Bonnie to help her stay warm, but she spun in circles trying to get it off, so that was that! Bonnie likes it cold! Our dog Molly, on the other hand, has strong opinions in the opposite direction. Molly abhors the cold, loves her jacket, and has told us she’s just fine waiting until spring to go for another walk.

The frosty snap sure has kept us working hard to keep access to heat for our dogs and cats. We are all, animals and human caretakers alike, eager for the building of infrastructure that allows safe and proper climate control at Desert Haven Animal Rescue. Speaking of frosty, it’s also the name of one of our darling cats!

A four-year-old long-haired gray cat named Frosty was our very first adoption of the New Year. His applicant hailed from Denver and fell in love with Frosty from afar. When all the parts of our adoption process had been completed (application, interview, home visit with video/photos), there was nothing left for his applicant to do besides get to the airport and board an airplane! One flight and then a rental car ride from ABQ to TorC later, and it was love at first sight! Frosty is her first-ever pet, and we couldn’t imagine a better buddy to teach her the intricacies and magical ways of being owned by a cat. Frosty is home!

We often think of Desert Haven as being “almost home.” We do our best to give our sweet babies the safety and compassion they deserve, and we are elated when their new families give them their forever homes. Ready to be owned by a cat? All of our adoptable pets can be found on our website at DesertHavenAnimalRescue.org.

Reflections on 2024

By Greta Hansen Begg

I am looking ahead at the New Year while reflecting on some of Desert Haven's accomplishments in 2024. First and foremost, it was a year marked by new leadership and a passing of the torch. The director of operations restructured Desert Haven and kept busy writing policy. Some aspects of operations were renewed while others were discarded. She brought order to the chaos by orchestrating an enormous de-cluttering project and producing clear procedures, both of which helped everyone involved see a light at the end of the tunnel.

It's well known that we have Kitty Cuddlers and Dog Walkers who spend a few hours a week enriching the lives of our animals, but we also have other types of volunteers who give their time to Desert Haven. The board of directors felt it was high time we show our appreciation, so the inaugural Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon was held in August. While there is no amount of "Thank You" sufficient to show our unending gratitude to all of our volunteers, we hope we made a dent in 2024. We invite you to volunteer with us in 2025!

This past year was the first in recent memory in which we received invitations to participate in our community. In fact, we received so many invitations we had to create an Event Kit to be ready at the drop of a hat to say, "Yes, we'll be there!" This year, our animals and their needs were able to shine at (just to name a few): Vic's on Broadway, Easter Egg Hunt, Hot Summer Nights at Marina Del Sur, Butte Cannabis, Cat Cuddle Day at Black Cat Books and Coffee, and the Benefit Art Sale by Sue Soaring Sun and Barbara Bennett, who donated all proceeds from a high-end art sale to Desert Haven.

In order to help our community, we will need its ongoing support. There are lots of ways to help: donate, become a member, adopt, volunteer, foster, and more. Involvement starts with a call or text to 575-740-0643 or a visit to our brand-new website: DesertHavenAnimalRescue.org.