Dogs Deserve Better Delivers Valentines to 10,435 Dogs in it's 6th Annual Have a Heart for Chained Dogs Week, February 7-14, 2008, Exceeding our Goal!

The good news: We did it! Last year we missed our goal of 8,000 by almost 800 dogs...but this year, we came right back and exceeded our goal of 10,000 by over 400 Valentines! Give yourselves a pat on the back...without EVERYONE doing their share, this would never have been possible. We sent 3,203 more than last year, for a total of 10,435.

We attribute much of our campaign success to your efforts and the efforts of our area reps, as well as the Best Friend's Network, which embraced the campaign and put it out to the main network as well as many of the state pages. HSUS also put the word out for us, and we received letters from classes who participated as a result of seeing the campaign in HSUS Kind News. Many, many of our valentine contributors came from near the Atlanta, Georgia area as a result of an Atlanta Journal Constitution article by Sandy Eckstein. The value of a good newspaper article can really go a long way!

States in which Valentines were created: 36
Contributors per state:
Georgia 36, Pennsylvania 29, California 17, New York 13, Illinois 12, Tennessee 11, Texas 7, Nevada 2, Indiana 3, Ohio 7, Utah 2, North Carolina 5, Washington 3, Nebraska 5, Michigan 7, Florida 9, Maryland 2, Wisconsin 4, New Jersey 5, Kentucky 3, Virginia 3, New Mexico 1, Arizona 2, Colorado 1, Oklahoma 2, Kansas 1, Alabama 1, Massachusetts 3, South Carolina 2, Missouri 2, Maine 1, Minnesota 2, Oregon 1, West Virginia 1, New Hampshire 1, Louisiana 1, and Ontario, Canada

Volunteers who stuffed Valentines: 33

Valentines sent/delivered total: 10,435
Broken down by state/country

Canada 51

United States
Alaska: 2
Alabama: 87
Arkansas: 141
Arizona: 71
California: 165
Colorado: 40
Connecticut: 32
Delaware: 68
Florida: 310
Georgia: 673
Hawaii: 2
Iowa: 47
Idaho: 64
Illinois: 417
Indiana: 546
Kansas: 64
Kentucky: 106
Louisiana: 49
Massachusetts: 70
Maryland: 262
Maine: 34
Michigan: 234
Minnesota: 49
Mississippi: 52
Missouri: 279
Montana: 6
North Carolina: 928
Nebraska: 37
Nevada: 20
New Hampshire: 20
New Jersey: 89
New Mexico: 83
New York: 482
Ohio: 1004
Oklahoma: 34
Oregon: 172
Pennsylvania: 1659
Rhode Island: 10
South Carolina: 215
South Dakota: 11
Tennessee: 466
Texas: 504
Utah: 24
Virginia: 336
Vermont: 23
Washington: 85
Wisconsin: 175
West Virginia: 129
Wyoming: 6

This year the only state that didn't have a Valentine sent to it was North Dakota.

If you are in a state where you know there are a lot of chained or penned dogs, but you see hardly any Valentines mailed there, please get addresses right now, and we will mail them letters and brochures. It's important to start the educational process as soon as possible.

Thanks so much to all who participated, we are making a difference in those dogs lives!