A fundraising evening for Islay dog rescue.

Lorraine, our hostess for the evening. 

We saw a beetle drive advertised locally to raise funds for Islay dog rescue. Their motto is "bringing dogs into the light". 

None of us have even been to a beetle drive before but we decided as it was for a good cause and it was local we would go along and support them. Lorraine was our hostess for the evening, Lorraine is one of the founding members of the company. She explained this was the first beetle drive that the charity had tried, so it was as new to her as the rest of us. 

my beetle sheet

The beetle drive was a noisy boisterous affair, with a lot of encouraging shouts going on. This game is great because the children stand the same chance as the adults. 

Sadly none of us managed to compete any of our beetles first, this honour went mainly to a table of three girls of approx 10-11 years old.  We had eight games of beetle in total. After the games we had to total our scores, and I won first prize for the highest overall score. We had a buffet, followed by three games of bingo, and all of this for £5 per adult and £3 per child. 

some of the raffle prizes. 

After the bingo we had a raffle, raffle tickets were extra. We took along a couple of prizes to add to the

raffle, a few small competition prizes that I won earlier in the year.

the parent of the children gave her permission for this picture. 

The raffle was brilliant, one of the young boys picked the winning tickets out, and some of the younger children distributed the prizes to the winners, well apart from the alcohol in glass bottles. Some of the prizes were dog related, a microchip voucher, and some dog training. as well as a voucher for a pole dancing lesson. 

I won a bottle of brandy in the raffle. 

A fab evening for a great cause. Need to look out for more beetle drives as that was good fun

the charity's van. 

Islay dog rescue work specifically with "death row" dogs.  These are dogs who have served their seven days in dog pounds and are due to be put to sleep.  We thought if we could rescue, assess, veterinary health check, de'flea, worm and neuter/spay them then perhaps we could find them suitable homes.
We made links with an organisation in Lancashire called Homeless Hounds....... Since then we have rescued many dogs from both Homeless Hounds and All Dogs Matter (based in London).  Although we try to make it a principle that we don't take on rehomes (ie. people who no longer want their dogs or can't cope with them) we have done this on several occasions.

The Story So Far!
Our first, official rehome was on 19th September 2011 (Oscar).
By 31st December 2012 we had received 158 dogs through the doors.  Most of these dogs have been "death row" dogs, therefore their lives have been saved.  These dogs would not be alive if not for the continual support of you!!  From the bottom of our hearts, and on behalf of the dogs, we thank you.By 30th April 2013 we had rehomed 193 dogs