Furry Fall Festival winner

Congratulations to Carolyn Deutsch, she was the winner of our 50/50 split-the-pot drawing held Sunday, November 13th at the Furry Fall Festival.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Michelle Thomas for winning the gift bag we raffled off during the Million Mutt March on October 16th at Cherokee Park.
Michelle also won a gift card we raffled off in September at Bark in the Park. This is one lucky lady!!!

Bark-In-The-Park 2011

This past Saturday (9/17) was the Bark-in-the-Park event at Seneca Park. We had a booth at the event to raise money and awareness of our services.

Emma & Willy

Olivia, Emma & Willy

Thanks for your donations!

Pet Love members: foreground/Susan & Nevada Bell, background/ Mindy Mae & Donna, and Kristin

Susan & Nevada

Donna & Mindy

Olivia was blowing bubbles...

She didn't quite understand what all the fuss was about...

and then it popped!

Bark in the Park event raffle winners

Congratulations to the winners of our raffles....

The $50 gift card to Pet Smart was won by Michele Thomas

The gift bag full of dog goodies was won by Debbie Goldstein

and the 50/50 (split-the-pot) raffle was won by Monica Turner. Monica generously donated her winnings back to Pet Love!

Thanks to everyone that stopped by our booth this past Saturday.
We will also be having a booth at the upcoming Million-Mutt-March, Sunday, October 16th at Cherokee Park. Stop by and see us if you're in the area and don't forget to buy your raffle ticket(s)!!

Howl at the Moon!

We took Phoebe, our therapy-pet-in-training pup, out to the Howl at the Moon hike at Jefferson Memorial Forest this past Friday and had a blast! If you ever get the chance to go, we highly recommend it!!

Future member: Phoebe

Meet future Pet Love member, Phoebe.

Phoebe, like her "sister" Olivia, is a Great Dane. She too is deaf and is blind in her left eye.

Phoebe was rescued from the Kentucky Humane Society when she was approx. 9 months old.

She started training to become a therapy pet right away. She is a very affectionate pup that loves to cuddle up to anyone that will take the time to pet her. Once she is old enough and settled enough (still got a lot of puppiness to outgrow before she's ready), she will make a wonderful therapy pet.

Sitting pretty with her siblings, Eliott and Olivia.

More Pet Love Members...

This is Pet Love's president, Emma, and her therapy-kitty: Blitz

This is the newest member of Emma's family: Kaylee.

Kaylee will soon be joining us on therapy visits, she just has to pass her evaluation first.

And the family portrait: Blitz, Willy & Kaylee

Meet some of our members

This is Emma, our fearless leader and Pet Love President, along with her toy poodle, Willy.

This is Julie and her Sheltie, Smoke

Sue and her Great Pyranese, Nevada Belle

Kristin and her all-American, Bonnie

Michelle and her Shih tzu, Herbie

Kay and one of her Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Gracie

The graduating class of Nov. 2010

This is Emma and Kim, working with Olivia before she took her final exam to become a therapy pet. One of the qualities of a good therapy pet is to accept petting from stranger, often in a heavy-handed, clumsy manner.

Bonnie & Kristin

Meet Bonnie & Kristin! They are two of Pet Love's newest members, having passed their certification test in March.


Bonnie's story, as told by her owner/handler, Kristin:

Bonnie and her brother Clyde, were dumped at a highway rest stop in the winter of 2005. A nice person picked them up and took them to Metro Animal Services here in Louisville. Bonnie spent several months in foster care before my husband and I fell in love with her after an impromptu visit to Barkstown Doggie Daycare. Now closed, Barkstown fostered and found permanent homes for many Metro dogs.
My husband and I were walking by there one day when we noticed a big sign in the window "Dogs for Adoption". It never hurts to look, right? We officially adopted Bonnie in the spring of 2006 (and yes, Clyde got a home too!).





I have no idea what Bonnie is mixed with, but I can tell you that she definitely has lots of herding characteristics (just ask our three cats)! I would guess Bonnie is an Aussie or German Shepard mix, but she may have some chow with those black spots on her tongue. Her brother has a square head... does anyone see Rottweiler?? Regardless of her muttness, Bonnie is one of the smartest dogs I have ever known. She would be happy to perform one of her many tricks for you. Bonnie also loves to swim and would be a great lifeguard. If you are in the water, she will jump in and bring you to safety.
To keep busy, Bonnie and I have taken classes in agility and obedience. Having worked with animals for over 10 years, I have always been interested in pet therapy. Bonnie has a great disposition with people and I thought she might enjoy working as a therapy dog. I came across Emma's name and signed her up for prep classes. Needless to say, Bonnie passed her test, although she is still in training. I look forward to watching her blossom as a therapy dog.

How Liv & I got involved in pet therapy

Several years ago, long before Olivia was born, I had our first Great Dane, Smokey, at a fire department function. He was very well behaved and was a gentle soul, especially with children and other dogs. A woman had approached us and was petting him finally asked if I had ever considered doing therapy work with him. I hadn't considered it because I'd never heard of it, and had absolutely no idea how to go about getting involved in such a thing.

I'm sorry to say that I never looked into getting Smokey into such a program, but the idea was always there in the back of my mind that perhaps one day...

Fast forward about 5 or 6 years, Smokey was no longer with us and we had two other danes. A friend of ours had recently had a litter of puppies and had one she felt was either deaf &/or blind and would have no quality of life. While we had no interest in getting a third dog, I was so moved by the bleak future that little white pup had,

that I begged for an opportunity to give her a chance at a "normal" life, even tossing out the long buried idea that I could perhaps use her as a therapy pet.

I still had no idea how to go about getting involved with pet therapy, but knew that much obedience school was first on our list.

After a years worth of obedience school she passed her Canine Good Citizens test on the first attempt. Days later, a severe back injury left me unable to work with her very much and her training fell to the way-side. Once I was back on my feet, Olivia and I started walking in 5k events and charity walks, where she would quickly become the center of attention. The scores of people that would approach and pet her, walk, run or roll by on bikes or wheel chairs went a long way towards getting her ready to become a therapy pet.

Then, in the summer of 2009 I was working a booth at the MS health fair and had a chance meeting with a lady working another booth. She was involved with therapy pets and referred me to Emma who is the president of Pet Love, Inc.

A few lessons with Emma and Olivia passed her test in the spring of 2010 and became an official therapy dog. It only took about 10 years (on my part) to get to this point, but it's been worth the wait.

Olivia and I very much enjoy going to visit nursing homes and getting involved with other events in our community.