Rudozem Street Dog Rescue

Just shows you what fate brings.......I bought some tablets off ebay for Zeus, Diane and Tony's old German Shepherd dog to try and ease his arthritis. Being cheeky, and as I always do when buying for RSDR, I emailed the seller to see if they could give me some discount or reduce the postage. The lady, Sally and I exchanged a few long emails after this. She was touched by the plight of the dogs in Bulgaria and having seen the work Diane and Tony are doing (I also sent her the website link!) said that not only would she do a discount that she would pay the postage costs as her donation.

We continued to share emails and phone calls and she told me more about the work she does with another dog charity who had been offered to share a stand at this year's Crufts dog show. For those of you not familiar with Crufts, it is the worlds biggest dog show, hosted by the Kennel Club and which has been running since 1891 in the UK.

To cut a long(ish) story shorter the other charity decided that they would not attend Crufts but by this time, Sally had mentioned to Marc another deserving charity she supports, and they too had to contemplate if they could go or not????? Sally spoke again to Marc and it was thought that possibly Marc might let RSDR have the stand. For a few days, I had to wait to hear if they were going to attend....and luckily for RSDR, they couldn't rally enough troops. Sally gave Marc all our information, he then contacted me, we chatted for ages, as Marc wanted to find out more about RSDR and he had clearly been through the RSDR web site with a fine tooth comb. Yes, we were offered the stand for the day! and on the busiest day - the Sunday!!

So, on Sunday March 14th 2010, you will be able to see RSDR sharing a stand with Marc Abraham, a fantastic vet who has been on TV and who campaigns against puppy farming and animal cruelty. He supports many charities, not just in the UK but around the world and is excited about having RSDR along on the final day of the show.

You can find out more about Marc and see the link to RSDR on his blog by clicking on this link http://www.marcthevet.com/2010/02/dfs-crufts-vip-guests-line-up-announced/

If you are in the UK and can make the trip to Birmingham NEC, please come along to the stand and say Hello; it will be great to meet fellow supporters of RSDR.  We will be selling some of the items on sale in the webstore, T shirts, wristbands, greetings cards etc and my (small) team of volunteers are going to be shaking tins to try and raise funds for the cause.  We will also spend the day visiting other stands to raise awareness amongst exhibitors and suppliers taking whatever 'freebies' we can get to send on to Diane and Tony.

I am so excited about this fantastic opportunity who would have thought that RSDR would ever receive such a chance to reach so many people in just one day. Our stand is right opposite the main entrance so we're hoping to attract lots of attention - you won't be able to miss us I'm sure!

Anyone who would like to help on the day can contact me for more details by emailing julie.lewis65@yahoo.co.uk  but please, only definite offers of help please as I don't have time to sift through the maybe's.  I'm sure you can all appreciate, we have a lot of work to do from now until the big day!!

So to finish, I would like to say a HUGE thank you to Sally for arranging all of this and to Marc for welcoming us to his stand. Also big thanks to Anita, RSDR's Fundraising and Media Co-ordinator for offers of help with posters etc and of course to our founders, Diane and Tony, without them RSDR would not be in existence.

Julie Lewis

Joint UK Fundraising & Shop Co-Ordinator

Rudozem Street Dog Rescue

Registered Foundation No: 175647065

Email:  julie.lewis65@yahoo.co.uk 

http://www.streetdogrescue.com