Fundraiser generates $24K for Delaware Humane Society

An Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity stu­dent walks Humane Soci­ety of Delaware County canine Phoenix down the cat­walk dur­ing the fash­ion show at Saturday’s Fur­Ball hosted at The Medal­lion Club in West­er­ville. (Gazette | Melissa Mackey)

MELISSA MACKEY

Staff Writer

The Humane Soci­ety of Delaware County had a night of exceed­ing goals at its 11th annual Fur­Ball Auc­tion and Valentine’s Celebration.

The soci­ety sur­passed its $20,000 fundrais­ing goal, pulling in $24,810 to help its mis­sion of find­ing homes for abused or neglected pets. Two-hundred peo­ple attended, which was more than the Humane Society’s expected 170 guests.

“We sur­passed all our goals,” said Kim White, soci­ety pres­i­dent. “We’re very happy with the gen­er­ous peo­ple here.”

Pro­ceeds from the event will go toward pur­chas­ing a commercial-load washer and dryer for the shel­ter. Cur­rently, the humane soci­ety uses a washer and dryer sim­i­lar to those in homes, which, given the amount of use it gets, is not suf­fi­cient, White said.

“We’ve got a lit­tle more fundrais­ing to do,” White said. “We got a good start tonight. The new washer and dryer is def­i­nitely needed. Our cur­rent washer and dryer get taxed every day.”

Prior to the live auc­tion, two Humane Soci­ety of Delaware County staff mem­bers pre­sented updates on the shelter’s work.

Misty Bay, the shelter’s cru­elty and mar­ket­ing man­ager, shared a story about a horse named Billy and a pony named Tri­bles. The two came to the humane soci­ety through its horse res­cue pro­gram. Fur­Ball atten­dees saw pic­tures of Billy as he looked when he was brought to the facility.

Bay said that Billy was so sick the vet­eri­nary team at Ohio State Uni­ver­sity had to come to the soci­ety to treat him. The horse was mal­nour­ished and was eat­ing only gravel.

Billy even­tu­ally stayed two weeks in the hos­pi­tal. Billy and Tri­bles’ reunion was the “most mag­i­cal moment,” Bay said. Know­ing that the two horses could never be sep­a­rated like that again, Bay adopted them.

“It was the best deci­sion of my life,” she said.

Heidi Ora­hood, a long­time staff mem­ber of the humane soci­ety and the shel­ter man­ager, gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on some of the ani­mals that require a lit­tle more atten­tion than vac­ci­na­tions and spay­ing or neutering.

One such ani­mal is the cat Spar­row, who came into the shel­ter with an arrow in her side. After a four-hour surgery and a long recov­ery, she was adopted to a fam­ily and is now liv­ing in Chicago, Ora­hood said. Another is Hero, a golden retriever who was brought into the soci­ety after a com­plaint that he was cov­ered in mud. Fur­ther test­ing showed that Hero has hip dys­pla­sia. He is cur­rently reha­bil­i­tat­ing, she said.

“With­out your dona­tions, we wouldn’t be able to fix any of these ani­mals,” Ora­hood said.

Mindy Drayer, a news reporter with NBC4, served as the event’s celebrity host and announcer for the Humane Soci­ety of Delaware County’s Dogs on the Cat­walk fash­ion show. The adopt­able dogs all sported col­ored ban­danas and were escorted by Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity Pet Pals han­dlers. Four of the dogs were adopted on the spot by Fur­Ball atten­dees Sat­ur­day night.

Posted by Melissa Mackey on Feb 6 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.