And now for the really fun part of the Walk with The Herd Contest for Sarge’s Animal Rescue Foundation – announcing the winners.

The grand prize winners are obvious – the dogs and cats that will be saved from euthanasia and will find forever homes because of the fantastic work that Sarge’s does.  They are driving down the euthanasia rates at our local shelter in a dramatic way and we are incredibly proud of their work (especially Cheoah, Qannik and Ruby – all of whom came to us via Sarge’s).

The whole story is that Sarge’s lost one of their $5,000 sponsors and they were very afraid that they would fall short of last year’s accomplishment.  Coupled with a tight economy, they needed the many “smaller” donors to come through.  And did they.  Despite losing that key sponsor, Sarge’s was still able nearly to raise the same amount as last year’s Dog Walk – almost $25,000.  As the single largest fundraiser every year, the success of this walk fundraiser is critical to their goals.

And The Herd is very proud – VERY PROUD – of their readers who stepped up.  Ready for this?  Thanks to your terrific generosity, The Herd was $1,110 of that total number.  When we started the contest, we told the people at Sarge’s that we might only raise a few dollars, but we would do it anyway.  $1,110.  We are very humbled and thank you.

Ok – and to the winners.  A twist – we have TWO runner-up prizes we are adding to the drawings.  We received these beautiful duffle bags as prizes for being the team that raised the second most amount of money (yep – a team beat us AND an individual raised more money and was the top fund raiser – what awesome people they all are).  We thought it only fitting to put these prizes into the drawing.

Perfect for carrying all of your canine supplies!

With a cool embroidered patch on the side!

The TWO runners-up are – Becky of Merritt Island, Florida and Carolyn of Brevard, NC ( http://ncmountainwoman.blogspot.com/ – a terrific blog with two awesome Golden Retrievers, Ellie and Lucy, and lots of stories of our beautiful mountains).  Check your mail in the next few days for your package.

The picture of the Grand Prize will come shortly, since it will need to be created.  As promised, we are taking a picture of The Herd walking with the banner and, through the magic of PhotoShop (which the hu-dad now must learn how to do – chuckle), the winner will be walking with us.  That picture will be placed on a t-shirt and mailed to the winner.  Cool, huh?  The winner is – Daniela and Shawnee the Shepherd of Rahway, NJ (  http://shawneetheshep.blogspot.com/ – another trail hiking canine!).

Again, thanks to everyone for making this event so much fun.  We had a blast with it and look forward to next year.