Sunny Saints St. Bernard Rescue

March has come and gone and once again Sunny Saints is gearing up for the great weather. 

It's time to get out and meet our new followers and reintroduce ourselves to our many friends and family.  We are looking forward to seeing you at both the San Diego Pet Expo and the Orange County Pet Expo.  Be sure to check out our Events page to find our other stops along the way.  We look forward to seeing you again.

We have not been quiet during the past three months.  We have had many of our Saints lucky enough to find their forever homes.  The happy families are posted on our Success Stories page. 

And for those of you have donated both monies and time to Crash, our deaf Saint,  thank you so much.  You will be as happy as we are to know that he has been declared free of cancer and amazingly healthy now at over 150 pounds, all of it filled with love.  Best of all, he has found his new family and will live the life he so deserves.  Congratulations, Crash!!!

If you too want to feed your pet USA made dog treats, be sure to check out the San Diego Pet Expo.  And don't forget to visit Sunny Saints Booth April 14 and 15, 2012

Treat your pets like family.  They too deserve healthy, nutritious treats.  You can make a quick batch of Peanut Butter Dog Cakes for your Best Friend.

1 c. White or wheat flour                1 c. shredded carrots
1 tsp. baking soda                            1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 c. Peanut butter                        1/3 c. honey
1/4 c. vegetable oil                          1 Large egg

Mix all ingredients together and bake at 350 degrees.  Makes 6 cupcakes or  8" cake.   Bake cupcakes for 12-15 minutes, cake for about 25-30 minutes. 

Did you know there are 800 million Facebook users? 800 million! We may be stating the obvious here, but as a non-profit organization we count on people like YOU to support us on Facebook (FB) so that we can ALL help to get the word out about those dogs in need of rescue & forever homes. For years our FB “Welcome” page has educated visitors about our organization and with Facebook’s new changes, our “Timeline” is now our permanent Facebook landing page…  That means, marketing our Sunny Saints on Facebook just got harder, thanks to the new Timeline layout the social media giant is forcing on company pages March 30th.

We imagine that most of you (like us at Sunny Saints) are unaware that in its preparations for going public, Facebook quietly introduced a new algorithm that chokes our updates so that no more than 16% of our fans see our messages in an attempt to make us pay for its “Reach Generator” (a new service available with premium managed accounts). Seem unfair?  Why should Facebook screen or otherwise filter messages users have requested? Answer: increased profits. How can you help? Visit our FB page frequently and push the “Share” link beneath our posts to help us to spread the word about dogs in need of rescue/homes!

The general consensus among the media is that you’re either going to love or hate your new profile and most of us already recognize that the more information that Facebook users share, the more valuable the site is for advertisers, which can then target ads to users with laser precision (even if you aren’t looking to buy anything while using the site).  You have until March 30, 2012 to “voluntarily” implement the new Facebook Timeline and if you don’t make the changes yourself before then, your old Facebook page will automatically be converted into the new layout (and you might not like what you see). Better to plan for it and manage it now (while there’s still some time left) and whatever you do, don’t fall prey to scams that claim to be able to “remove” Timeline from your profile!

Love it or hate it, for the sake of our Sunny Saints who are counting on all of us, we hope that you will continue to support us on Facebook by navigating your way through the chaos & clutter (the heavy emphasis on visuals in this redesign is not lost on us as the cover photo and personal information alone consumes half the length of a maximized browser) to ensure that you not only see “our” posts, but the important posts made by “others” (our Supporters) .

We encourage comments below… Reminder: This blog is intended to be “family friendly” and comments which include offensive or inappropriate language will be edited or deleted.

Thanks to one and all for turning out at our 2nd Annual Sunny Saints picnic.  Once again we were able to welcome many new families to our growing ranks.   We missed some faces we had hoped to meet again and will look forward to seeing them next year. 

There was a variety of games as well as good food for human and dogs and great picnic weather.  All of our family  and volunteers have begun posting their pictures on our Facebook page.  If you have photos, please share them.  If you were unable to attend, please enjoy the photos.

Saintly Tip:  Several members asked about hot spots on their saints.  We have used a natural product called Aloe Comfree to soothe our saints.  It can be found at feed stores or online.  The product is food safe.