Big Green Friend - February Sanctuary Update - Our Companions Animal Rescue

Hi Everyone!

There are lots of players involved in making the magic of the sanctuary happen. There’s the staff, the volunteers, the donors, and all of our other supporters. There is one partner in our work that we don’t talk about much, and we are recently learning about some new ways to care for this special relationship. I’m talking about our land. These 48 acres of perfection. A great deal of our work depends on our forest trails, our walking paths, our cultivated areas, and our brush lands. I’d like to take some time to lay out some plans and some work you’ll be seeing around the sanctuary this spring.

Thanks to a long time volunteer connecting me with some expert advice from Connecticut’s DEEP, I got an extensive lesson in land management this past fall. For many years we’ve tended to let the land that is not in direct use by the team grow as it will, with little intervention. This had led to some mixed results. In some areas, great trees for shade or dense growth to border walking paths have developed. In other areas, aggressive thorn bushes, invasives, and problematic brush and vines have come up. My first lesson was that the results can be managed with a relatively small investment in equipment and time, and with the right guidance, of course.

Master hunter Juno is always on the lookout for critters

The two most valuable gifts our natural partners give us are shade and visual barriers. As anyone who has spent time in our play yards and open areas can attest to, walking around in July and August is often a game of “how fast can we get to the next shady spot?” Similarly, at this time of year when the foliage has receded and the ice and snow is pressing down the brushy areas, finding space to go unnoticed by our more vocal dogs can be quite the challenge. As I’ve recently learned, there are some meaningful actions we can take to promote trees where we need shade, and thick meadow growth where we want hiding spots. There’s also some vital maintenance that we’ve been missing to keep our valuable trees from being damaged by aggressive vines and other competing growth. Who knew taking care of the land could be as intentional as taking care of our furry guests?

Former guest Wiley loved to use fallen trees as a natural step to explore his environment

Hank dons his handsome fleece to head out and enjoy the great outdoors

Our forest provides endless entertainment for our pups who love to explore

Missy and Wiley on the green trail by the pond

Neo always makes a stop at his favorite see-saw stick on the pink trail

Gidget is all smiles with our beautiful pond as a backdrop

So, come this spring, we’ll be inviting back our expert from DEEP (who loved seeing the sanctuary and all we do, by the way!) to help us identify some young trees that we want to nurture and remove some of the surrounding threats and competition. He’ll also help us create a seasonal mowing plan to promote thick meadow areas without having them fall into neglect. One critical piece of this plan will be timing. In order to support the non-domestic critters who call the sanctuary home, we’ll be doing our best to time our mowing for right after we stop experiencing deep freezes. That way, the fauna that survive winter in the brushy areas will be ready to transition to their spring activities before we start mowing. Then, you’ll be seeing some big areas of the sanctuary being cut down, in preparation to let the flora we want to flourish grow up again. Depending on the details of how the plan comes together, it may be a striking sight in some areas. We’re very excited to see how we can support the land that supports us in our work over the coming years and even decades.

Captain Crunch so looks forward to summer days in the grass in Serenity play yard

Shazam enjoys a sunny summer day checking out each blade of grass

Patches’ Purr-spective

You guys sure know how to spread the love!! The first and most impressive thing to mention is that, in spite of how miserable the weather has been this month (and ever February!), you sanctuary volunteers have been as dedicated as ever to spend your time here keeping us fur kids active, snuggled, and loved. I can’t tell you how much that means to all of us. As the winter steals away all of our favorite activities little by little, we really rely on your company to help us make it through. And if that weren’t enough, we just completed our Not-So-Secret Admirer wish list supply drive. The results were incredible! We received $1,460 worth of food and treats for our furry friends. You must admire us all quite a bit, and we so appreciate it!

Can’t wait to see you again!

Patches

Frank and Aggie love playing with their new squeaky snake toys

We had quite the haul after Valentine’s Day!

Goodbye, Jaxon

We lost a big presence at the sanctuary this month. Jaxon was a bit of a celebrity and, as a senior suffering health challenges, he was a great example of the work we do at the sanctuary and what makes this place so special. I’ll let Sarah’s words say more:

This is so hard to write, but we had to say goodbye to our beloved Jaxon yesterday. He was 19, had stopped eating more than a few bites over the past few days and nothing we or the vet had tried worked.

He came to us after his owner was unable to care for him any longer and he immediately started jumping on laps and purring. He was always SOOOO happy to see people and would yell at his door for you to go in and visit him. We quickly realized how smart he was and started clicker training with him teaching him paw touches and nail trims. This moved on to him ringing the bell, playing the piano and walking on a beam! He adored laps, playing, walking around the living room with his fancy runway walk, jumping on the couches, going on to his catio to watch the birds and, did I mention, laps?! We are so grateful to have had this past year to get to know and cuddle him. You will be missed Jaxon! ❤

And of Course…Adoptions!!

With the short month, we have a shorter intake and adoption update. In cats, Stewart went home and we welcomed in Neptune and Squeak. In dogs, our happy guy Frank went home. And in small animals, mice Cecil and Patches, guinea pig Cowboy, and bunny Elvis all went home, while we welcomed guinea pig Charlotte to the crew.