Who We Are
and What We Do
CCCI Welfare is an annually appointed
committee of the Chow Chow Club, Inc., the AKC-recognized national
parent club of the Chow Chow breed in the U.S. The committee is
focused on the well-being of the purebred Chow Chow as a pet in
today's society. The 2004 committee members are chair Vicki
DeGruy, Ginny Atkinson, Karen Privitello, and Kathy Welsh.
The committee is small but its scope
is large. Some of our functions are:
- to provide information about the
Chow Chow breed to Chow owners, the public, animal shelters and
veterinarians.
- to provide a central contact point
for people seeking placement for abandoned or unwanted Chows and
those who would like to adopt them
- to maintain a directory of Chow
rescue volunteers
- to provide information, resources
and support to Chow rescue volunteers and other individuals aiding
homeless Chow Chows.
The
Welfare Fund
The CCCI Welfare Fund provides
financial assistance to rescue volunteers to help offset the costs of
basic medical services needed to make homeless purebred Chow Chows
healthy and ready for placement. These services include spaying
or neutering, vaccinations, heartworm testing, heartworm treatment and
entropion correction.
The Fund is made up entirely of your
donations, sales of merchandise and the proceeds of our fund-raising
events. It has no corporate sponsors nor receives any government
support.
The Fund has provided several
thousand dollars a year in financial assistance to volunteers since it
began in 1994. However, it has never had anywhere near enough
money to cover all the qualified requests we receive. Most
volunteers must wait months while we raise the money they need.
We desperately need your support to help us help more
Chows!
How You
Can Help
Donate to the CCCI Welfare Fund! No donation is too small and every little bit
helps!
Checks or money orders (U.S. funds)
should be made out to the Chow Chow Club, Inc.'s Welfare Committee and
sent to:
CCCI Welfare
9828 E County Road A
Janesville WI 53546
Donations may be made online via
PayPal using
your credit card.
All donations will be
acknowledged.
Watch our Gift
Shop for special Chow items whose proceeds go to the Welfare
Fund. We also auction donated Chow collectibles on Ebay.
CCCI
Welfare Committee History
In 1990, then Chow Chow Club, Inc. President Cody
Milligan appointed the first CCCI Welfare committee. The first members of this committee
were myself, chair Vicki DeGruy,
Christine Cameron, Dr. J. Albert deBlois and Barbara Malone. Intended to address the needs
of a Chow Chow population that had grown far beyond anyone's imagination, the
committee joined the efforts of several other parent breed clubs working to achieve a
greater influence on the owners of dogs outside the circles of the show ring. Today's
committee consists of myself, Ginny Atkinson, Karen Privitello and Joan Dunsire.
Our focus has remained the same throughout these years: the
well-being of the Chow Chow as a pet in our society. If our primary function could be
described in only one word, that word would be education. We
teach people how to understand, appreciate and properly care for this
unique and intriguing breed of dog.
Our next priority concerns the needs
of thousands of abandoned Chow Chows. When the Welfare committee was
first appointed, the Chow Chow was the sixth most popular
breed in the U.S. with AKC registration figures of mind-boggling proportions: 49,096 in
1987, 50,782 in 1988, 50,150 in 1989, 45,267 in 1990. (We can only guess how many Chows
were born during that time but not registered.) The Chow was the
"in" breed to have and there were Chows everywhere, especially
where we didn't want them to be - in petstores, puppymills, animal
shelters and in the hands of owners who weren't committed to caring
for them responsibly.
Prior to 1990, these issues
weren't being addressed adequately by the Chow Chow Club,
Inc. A few individual members and
regional Chow clubs, Pru Baxter and the Greater Houston Chow Chow Club, to name only one of
each, had "Chow Rescue" programs but without the support of the CCCI.
One of the initial goals of the Welfare committee was to find ways for the CCCI to
encourage and support Chow rescue efforts.
Barbara Malone surveyed national breed clubs, gathering information on their welfare,
rescue and education programs. Some clubs were very active and organized in their welfare
projects while others had never considered the concept. Barbara sorted through the information,
choosing the best or most practical ideas, many of which make up the committee's
procedures today.
Christine Cameron put together and published the first
rescue directory, a
listing of Chow rescue volunteers and their services. Until then, few volunteers were
aware of each other. The directory was a first step in rescue networking and mutual
support. Combined with a "how to rescue" manual written by myself, Christine
distributed the first CCCI rescue resources to regional clubs and interested individuals.
The CCCI Welfare Hotline was also established in 1990 and continues today.
The Hotline functions as a central information source for Chow owners seeking help for
their dogs' problems and animal shelters seeking placement help for the Chows in their
care. Callers are counseled, sent educational material and/or referred to rescue services
or regional clubs and CCCI members in their home areas for further help and information.
The CCCI's Welfare Fund began in 1991. Intended originally to cover the cost of
the committee's printing, postage and office supplies, the purpose of the fund was
expanded in 1995, by action of the CCCI Board, to
help with medical expenses of eligible rescued Chows by providing
grants to Chow rescue volunteers and other individuals.
The committee has always believed
that educational material should be made available free to the public and your generous
donations to the fund have enabled us to do that. The committee's telephone expenses,
including the Welfare Hotline, have always been donated by the committee members
themselves, an expense that now reaches several thousand dollars a year.
Although the committee doesn't
operate a shelter or rescue Chows in the name of the Chow Chow Club,
Inc., our grant program has supported many rescue groups and
individual volunteers by providing them with financial grants and
resources like our rescue manual and adoption website. Your
donations make it possible for us to continue these critical
services.
Gratefully,
Vicki DeGruy, chair
The Chow Chow Club, Inc.'s Welfare Committee
