Our YouTube channel is spare, I’ll grant you that, but it’s a work in progress. Tell all your friends you subscribed when we were just getting started and they’ll be jealous when we’re the biggest hit on the Internet. Or something like that.
UPDATE (5/29/10): We will not be having a booth at Whisker Walk, but encourage any animal lovers in the neighborhood to stop by and enjoy the fun without us!
We’re so excited for June 6! We’ll be at Whisker Walk and would love to have you stop by. The focus is on dogs and cats, but we’ll be there to point out the simple fact that bunnies have whiskers, too! And need help from rescue organizations to live in wonderful, forever homes.
Whisker Walk will be held on Sunday June 6th 2010 in Lancaster, MA.
A fun outdoor educational day for dogs and the humans that care for them (PLUS a human/dog walk-a-thon fundraiser for rescue/shelters). The 2009 Whisker Walk brought 100+ animal rescue groups and pet related vendors, manufacturers and pet related service companies. In addition, pet owners and animal lovers can WALK to lend a paw for YOUR organization they love — see exhibits, demonstrations, educational programs, special attractions, product giveaways, entertainment, food, fun and things for adults and kids to see, do and buy — both human- and pet-related!
Date: Sunday, June 6th 2010
Event hrs: 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
There’s a mile-long fundraising walk at noon! If you’d like to walk and get sponsors, let us know!
Where: Lancaster Fairground – Home of the Bolton Fair, Rt. 117 in Lancaster, MA. Centrally located —minutes from Rt. 2, Rt. 190, 495 only 20 minutes from Worcester and 30 miles from Boston! Click here for door to door directions. VIEW MAP
50+ acres of flat, shaded paths (handicapped accessible) the grounds are enormous and the day promises to be so much fun! Come join us!
The HRC Annual Meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. on June 26, 2010 at the Enfield Public Library in Enfield, CT. And we are proud to welcome this year Dr. Amy Matthews, who will discuss how holistic medicine techniques such as acupuncture and chiropractic methods can help heal rabbits.
Dr. Amy Matthews
Dr. Amy Matthews completed the rigorous dual degree program at the University of Pennsylvania, through which she obtained her veterinary degree (VMD) and her PhD in Immunology, completing both in 2001. After graduation, Dr. Matthews completed a small animal medicine and surgery internship at Carolina Veterinary Specialists. She received her certificate in veterinary acupuncture from Colorado State University and her certificate in animal chiropractic from the Healing
Oasis Wellness Center in Sturtevant, WI.
Proficient in reading, writing, and speaking Chinese, Dr. Matthews has studied Traditional Chinese Medicine in Harbin, China. Her additional clinical interests include herbal medicine, Nambudriprad’s Allergy Elimination Technique, and homeopathy.
She enjoys treating exotic species such as rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, and birds as well as treating dogs and cats. Her experiences include working with wildlife rehabilitation and externships at the Bronx Zoo and at MarineWorld. After practicing for 3 years as a staff veterinarian at the Banfield Pet Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, she relocated to Connecticut where she has devoted her work primarily to veterinary acupuncture and chiropractic care with herbal support and Western diagnostics as indicated. She currently works at the holistic medical practice Frontier Medicine in East Granby.
Marlene Wilhelm and Dana Gillin visited Scot Haney on WFSB’s Better Connecticut on April 1, 2010 and discussed why parents should not include rabbits in Easter baskets. Rabbits can live 14 years and potential owners should be prepared for taking care of the entire lifespan of the pet.
Beckett was a frisky bunny with his new stuffed animal bunny, but this is exactly why you should fix your bunnies! HRC spays and neuters every rabbit before we adopt them out.
On Thursday, April 1, 2010, HRC board members Marlene Wilhelm and Dana Gillin will appear LIVE on WFSB Channel 3 (out of Hartford, CT) for their Better Connecticut show between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. to discuss how bunnies are not good ideas for Easter gifts. If you live in the area, be sure to tune in! We’ll also try to post a video of the interview on this blog after we air.
From MakeMineChocolate.org: Rabbits are a familiar symbol of the Easter holiday. In the days leading up to it, they appear on television commercials and packages of candy, and stores are filled with stuffed rabbits. It is no surprise that children beg their parents for a bunny of their own. Ill-prepared to care for these unique creatures, their “owners” often quickly tire of them. In the months following Easter, local humane societies and rabbit rescues are flooded with rabbits, former Easter gifts whose “owners” no longer want them. The unlucky ones are dumped outside where predators, cars, illness, and injury virtually guarantee an early death.
Where It All Began
In 2002, in an attempt to address the problem, the Columbus House Rabbit Society began a campaign to educate the public on the realities of living with a rabbit, and to discourage giving live rabbits as Easter gifts. Using ceramic pins in the form of chocolate bunnies as the symbol, the campaign’s goal is to spread the message that rabbits should not be casually acquired and to educate the public about the special needs of these often-fragile creatures. The pins serve as conversation starters. Comments about the pin provide the wearer the opportunity to share our message with the general public. These informal conversations are supported by a card that is distributed with each pin, and by business cards that can be handed out to interested parties.
Both the pin card and the business card list important facts that should be considered before bringing a rabbit into the home. Our goal is to educate the public of the challenges of properly caring for rabbits and to encourage them to purchase chocolate Easter bunnies (or stuffed toy animals) rather than live rabbits. The “Make Mine Chocolate!™” campaign discourages the purchase of rabbits as Easter gifts faces the unique challenge of educating potential rabbit purchasers before the purchase is made. In order for this campaign to succeed, we must take our message to the American public. We offer attractive, high-quality products that can be worn or displayed as a means to spread our message and to encourage dialogue with curious friends and acquaintances. Our prices have been competitively set in order to encourage purchase by as many people as possible.
One of our favorite sites on the Internet is The Animal Rescue Site, where you can go and click a bit purple button every day to donate .6 bowls of food (the monetary equivalent, of course) to shelter animals at no cost to you. So we click and click and click. The site will even send you an email every day to remind you. It’s a win-win.
The page after you click has an inconspicuous “Vote Today” button above the “Thank you — your click has been counted” message. If you click that Vote button, you get to vote for your favorite shelter (must be listed on Petfinder) and the shelters with the most votes each week (2 per week) win $1,000 towards helping animals. Shelters big and small are winning dough for their charges.
So go click and donate those bowls of food, then don’t forget to vote for House Rabbit Connection (you must select MA as the state in which we’re located). Each subsequent day you click and vote, HRC will show up as an option for one-click voting.
Tell all your friends! Repost this blog post, tweet about it, repost to your Facebook Wall, whatever. We could save a lot of bunnies with $1,000 and the publicity would help us spread the word that rabbits belong inside homes, not in hutches in back yards.
worst time of her life. Ruby Sue is now in foster care, hopefully to be reunited with her owner, but safe and warm and well-fed in the meantime.
Do you have a special cause that you donate time and attention to? Comment on this post and let us know about the ways you make a difference in the world.
December brings us the holiday season, which means showing people how much we like them by giving them presents. HRC would like to announce the following events, where you can come and let us wrap your presents for you for a small donation.
If you’d like to sign up to volunteer for any of these events, please contact Marlene Wilhelm. We need wrappers!
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Sat., December 5
6pm to 11pm
Barnes & Noble
Shoppers World
Framingham, MA View Map
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Sat., December 12
4pm to 10pm
Borders
Holyoke Mall at Ingleside
Holyoke, MA View Map
Posting a flyer is one of the easiest ways you can help house rabbits and the House Rabbit Connection. Community bulletin boards are still a great resource for education and interest. In this episode of Hopline, we share the story of how Jean Beckley, Advertising Director for the Willimantic Chronicle, got her graphic artists to help us create an educational and eye-catching flyer and how you can get a flyer pack to spread the word about house rabbits in your neighborhood.
Thanks to Jean Beckley for helping HRC. Thanks to Marlene Wilhelm for sharing this story with us. Thanks to Sarah Seger for putting together the flyer packs, so posting them is as easy as possible. Thanks for Deb Young for coming up with the flyer concept.
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