Holiday Arts and Crafts Faire! Shopping Galore!

By Stephanie Ladeira - the return of "The Shopper"

I can't WAIT for the Humane Society Silicon Valley Holiday Arts and Crafts Faire this weekend! I was perusing the site to look at all of the vendors who are coming and found about a million things I "needed" to get. There's a great little website with links to all of the vendors and info on the day.

1) First, there's the cute, hand-knit turtleneck sweaters for Rocky and Lucy, my rescued German Shorthairs. Rachel Deichman, who makes these totally hip sweaters (see Bach modeling to the right), has been knitting up a storm. I am going to purchase a pink and grey wide stripe sweater for Lucy and will ask Rachel to custom make a brown and black one for Rocky. The best part? When Lucy rolls in cow manure in her sweater, I can just pop it into the washing machine. The felted-wool coats she makes for the little dogs are so cute, I'll have to get one of those for Ruby, my little terrier mix.

2) Sonya Paz, acclaimed artist and animal lover, will be selling her awesome art, including "wearable" art such as wristwatches and necklaces that have her paintings on them. A portion of the proceeds from the sales of her wearable art and artwork with animals in them goes to HSSV. Sonya is so generous AND she has great stuff!

3) "Pawfectionz", jewelry and crafts by Alexis Grenzer, inspired by her little muse, the darling chihuahua named Frida (adopted from HSSV) is next on my list. I simply must purchase a pair of silver earrings with little beagles on them for my friend who has a little beagle/basset mix. Alexis' wares are beautiful and creative. She also does jewelry in resin and many other types of materials.

4) Handknitted scarves by Homa Adelkhani will be the perfect gift for my friend Cassie. She has a little dog who won't wear sweaters, but will wear scarves, and I'm going to get a matching one for her to wear when she and her pup go out together. The scarves are gorgeous and not like anything I've ever seen - silky strands intermingled with boiled wool. Amazing, delicate and one-of-a-kind.

5) For my friend Judith, who amazingly has managed to get a foxhound, rabbit and chihuahua to all live together peaceably together (how on earth did she figure that out?).... a pair of "More Rabbit Pottery Mugs" from Gray Rabbit - great handpainted mugs with a whimsical feel.

I could go on and on...but I want to leave you with a little nugget of info. The prized raffle item of the day? Some lucky shopper will win the ultimate gift - to keep for him or herself, or to give away - a bronze-plated brick that will be permanently displayed at the new Animal Community Center where all sorts of amazing life-saving goes on.

Make sure to join us this Saturday, December 5th, for HSSV's first Animal Arts and Crafts Faire. Holiday Shopping that helps to save lives is the coolest.

P.S. For Delilah's new people: Rachel is knitting a beautiful little dress for your sweet girl. It's going to be mostly pink and Rachel is using recycled silk from saris. It's gorgeous, delicate and perfect for your little girl!

An Event for Everyone – HSSV’s First Annual Summer Music, Wine & Adoption Festival

By Lauren Gallagher, Controller & Event attendee

When I heard that HSSV was going to host its First Annual Summer Music, Wine & Adoption Festival on August 22nd, I knew that is was going to be my kind of event - dog friendly, outdoor, sunshine, live music, appetizers, and wine tasting, all to support HSSV. What more could a girl ask for! I was so excited to attend the event. Later on I realized that I had promised to baby-sit my niece, Riley, that weekend. I asked her if she wanted to attend the event, and of course, she was so thrilled and eager to go.

Just like her mom and me, Riley is a big animal lover. She LOVES
coming to HSSV’s Animal Community Center, and likes to visit each
cat, dog and bunny in the animal habitats, to pick out her favorites.
She was asking me all morning how much longer until we go to the
Humane Society. When she arrived, she immediately wanted to look for her favorite cat from her last visit. She kept loudly repeating, “Where’s that cute fat cat?” which resulted in giggles from those around us. Did I mention that she is five? That handsome plus-sized cat, Binky (see picture), had happily been adopted, so Riley looked for a new favorite.

We wandered into the Education Classrooms,
and Riley (see picture on left) participated in all the activities that
were set up, at no cost, for the children (see picture on right). She made toys for my two cats, and for the HSSV cats, got her face painted, and played games where she learned about supplies needed for each type of pet. She loved it, and as her babysitter, I really appreciated the organized activities.

We wandered outside, and Riley joined the small crowd of people and dogs dancing to the live band, Ruthie and the Gents.

Many of the adults were tasting the local wines, and sampling beer from Los Gatos Brewing Company while enjoying the music and the appetizers. We saw people lounging with their dogs in the dog parks. In Riley’s words, “This is the best party!”







As we walked around inside, we noticed that the Animal Community Center was packed, and we could feel that magical energy in the air, as there were many families that were going through the adoption interviews, and hopefully meeting their 4-legged match.


Riley noticed that the type of dog that she longs to adopt, a small poodle mix, was adopted earlier in the week, because we saw his picture on the adoption board.

She has been trying to persuade her parents to adopt a second dog; therefore she closely studied each of the dogs in the canine habitats. During the event weekend, there were 20 adoptions of dogs, puppies, cats, kittens and rabbits.

The purpose of the event was to bring more people to the ACC, show them some fun, and to hopefully find new homes for our adoptable dogs, cats, and rabbits. The event was definitely a success for HSSV, for the hundreds of attendees, including Riley and me, and most important, for the animals that went home with their new families to their forever homes.