You are making a difference!
With your help, we’ve rescued 2413 animals from the Lake Traverse Reservation since we started in November 2010. And, although the majority have been dogs and cats, there have also been rabbits, horses, guinea pigs, mice a ferret and a donkey. We’re just missing the partridge in a pear tree to make things complete!
But your biggest contribution, has been to spay/neuter and vaccinate 1400 animals during that same time. When you donate, or participate in one of our fundraisers, you’re helping us provide this desperately needed service on the reservation. In 2016, at one single clinic, we tied our record and vetted 120 animals in three days! Although we provide the vetting services free of charge for animals that live on the reservation, vetting that many animals’ runs up a bill of just over $9,000!
Together, we are making a difference. When I first went to the Lake Traverse Reservation in July 2009, there were animals running loose everywhere. We were driving down a highway, and there was a little scruffy terrier type dog, running along in the ditch. There were two German Shepherds living at a playground, under the slide. There were dogs walking around neighborhoods, and we weren’t sure if they had homes or were strays.
LTAR started in November 2010 with a round up. My team pulled in to the largest housing area on the reservation, and within half a block, we had 6 dogs that were roaming loose, without collars. We went to another housing site, but we got there too late. The stray population was so out of control, that one of the residents had taken it upon himself to shoot the strays in the area. That was both a happy and sad day. Happy that we saved a lot of animals, but sad that there were others that we didn’t get to in time. Thankfully, we’ve gotten control of the animal population, through spay/neuter and removing unwanted animals. Today if you drive around the reservation, you’d notice a huge improvement. We’ve been able to keep the stray population down, preventing some of the devastating incidents that have happened on other reservations.
Help us keep the rezcue open!
In order to continue to provide the level of services we provide today, we really need support from the reservation community. Today, we have only one person that is doing animal intake. We have a few great foster homes and transporters, but not enough. Help is needed with animal intake. It could be a week per month, where you’d assist with picking up strays, sending cell phone photos and basic info about the animal, so we can post him/her on Facebook to find rescue, and taking the pet to a foster home. Being a foster home means that you’d take an animal in and care for it until it can go to another rescue for rehoming. We provide the food, supplies and any necessary vetting, and you keep the animal safe and loved. Sometimes you’ll only have an animal for a couple days, but it could be two months if our rescue partners are full. We also need assistance with animal transport. It may be to get an animal to a vet appointment, or to drive the first leg of our transport to get animals to their rescue groups. Animal transports happen on Saturday or Sunday mornings, and go from Sisseton to Alexandria, and we provide the crates. Once in Alex, you’d meet up with another driver to take the animals the next section of the trip.
Even if you don’t live on the reservation, we still need your help! We always need drivers for all legs of the transports. It would be great if we could occasionally have a driver that would drive from Herman to Alexandria to shorten the first leg of transport. We also frequently need help with our other legs, so if you live anywhere along I-94 between Alex and Maple Grove, we need you! Want to make a day of it? Offer to drive to the reservation and back to the cities! We can load you up with donated food and supplies to haul to the reservation, and then you’d haul animals back. You can also offer to foster LTAR animals for your Twin Cities rescue group, so they can get to rescue faster. And, of course, donations to keep us going are imperative. We are a 100% volunteer based animal rescue. Since we don’t do adoptions, we run completely on donations and fundraisers.
Tis the season to get in those last minute tax deductions!