by Carolyn Cothran

Last year, we sent more than 400 dogs to forever homes North of the Border. This is always exciting and a little bittersweet.

We have been very fortunate to have Nicky Francesca volunteering at The Ranch for the past few months while she was making an exploratory trip to Lakeside. When I first talked with Nicky about volunteering, she told me quite a bit about herself. She’s very active and loves to hike. I felt certain that our dogs would be enjoying a lot of long, happy walks while Nicky was volunteering. Boy was I surprised.

Some Ranch days are just perfect! We all are thrilled when one of our most loved dogs find a forever home. That happened six years ago when Bill and Melanie Wolski came to The Ranch looking for a companion. One of our long time Ranch residents was our sweet Maggie Mae. Maggie had a bum rear leg because she jumped off a roof when she was a young pup and the limp may have turned many potential adopters away.

We have remarkable support from our staff, our volunteers and our community. I am forever amazed and surprised by the love, commitment and support all of these groups give to our dogs every single day.

A few months ago, we sent Manuel off to look for a dog we thought needed to be rescued. He came back with five! One poor baby had a leg fractured in three places. Another in the group, was this gorgeous 5-year old yellow lab we named Ursula. This girl is the absolute sweetest thing in the world. She loves belly rubs and hugs more than probably any dog in recent history.

Oh Simba, you are a beautiful dog! He has the most dramatic brindle markings and the biggest doggy smile! He is a nice largish dog who weighs 45 pounds. He's about 18-months old. He is always happy and full of excitement when it's his time for a walk. He can initially appear to be a little over active in his run, but it's just because he is so happy that it's walk time! Once he's out on leash, he's amazing.

It was with great sadness that we recently learned that our long time Ranch volunteer, Jerry Smith, passed away on December 31st.

This month we are featuring our handsome Reed as Ranch dog of the month. He’s a one-year-old lab mix and weighs 30 pounds.

Meet our volunteer Cindylee Rimmer. She and her husband have been coming to Ajijic for the past seven years. They love spending the winter in our beautiful area and escaping the cold Ontario winters.

Juna is doing great, adjusted very well and without any difficulty. One of her sisters (April) was adopted and is about 30 minutes outside Edmonton (an 8-hour drive from me). I may plan a road trip in the summer for a reunion, covid permitting.

I just wanted to share a few photos with you. Trudy is lovely. She has her own yard and two humans to spoil her. Thank you for looking after her.

Four years ago or so, we took in 5 puppies. They were super timid and shy and despite all of our wonderful volunteers working with them, they took a very long time to warm up. In particular, the biggest problem was with the only female, who was white so we named her Snow. She had constant diarrhea and we were pretty sure was also deaf.

It was a great 2021 for our Ranch dogs! We transferred a total of 437 dogs to No-Kill shelters in the U.S. and Canada for adoptions and 71 dogs were adopted locally. Our total for the year is 508 happy dogs.

I just wanted to let you guys know that we adopted Dill Pickle (formerly known as Jacaranda)! We were asked by Just Four Paws to foster her since she had no adopter, but within the first week we knew we wanted her.

Now that Christmas is over and you have even more things that you don't really need, please consider making a donation. Go through your home and donate any unwanted items to Todo Bueno resale store located.

On October 1st, our Assistant Manager Manuel and his wife Sara became parents to this beautiful baby girl, Nathalia Alexandra. Mom and baby did fine and Manuel was beside himself with joy.

For all of you who have been involved with The Ranch for many years, you will remember Leigh Sheardown. Leigh began volunteering at The Ranch in our early years and was always very active in our operations.

So our Miss Trudy…..she is an overlooked treasure at The Ranch! She arrived in June as a young pup, but was just a bit shy and introverted and didn’t immediately draw the attention of an adopter or a rescue group. Now that she’s been with us for six months, she’s totally good with people, good with other dogs and just really good in general.

We have a lot of really great volunteers come out and work with our  equally great dogs.  One recently, is Michelle Read.  She has an amazing approach with dogs and we are really lucky to have him.

This fall, we were able to see our wonderful women who work at The Ranch, Areli and Dulce, get married. It was truly a joyous event.