HoundsGood: Chronicles of a Virtual Volunteer

I was talking to a friend of mine that lived over in the UK for awhile for business. The family was relocated there for a couple of years. They are a bit older than me and were there in the 1980s. The subject actually turned to music as far as what was popular in the US versus the UK. I remembered a few years ago that someone tried to auction off their cell phone number because it was the same number mentioned in the song Jenny, Jenny (867-5309). She said that ported cell phone numbers were not the thing that was selling in the United Kingdom, it was license plate numbers.

It is apparently desirable for some people to have an ageless number. More recently, license plates numbers contain a code that tells you what year it was issued. In ageless, older plates, there is no indicator and people find them desirable. They are willing to pay sometimes great sums for them.  Northumbrian Numbers has a wide selection of ageless plates and cherished plates. Some of them are going for over a thousand pounds!  A Cherished plate is a vanity plate.   In fact, one of the highest sums paid was one that read K1 NGS .  It was purchased by the Sultan of Brunei for  231,000 pounds in the 1990s.

Of course, the Secretary of State in my home state would never let this go on.  I bet they would say that the license numbers are not personal property, and in the United Kingdom it is the same way, but you buy the rights to register it unless revoked, and the transfer is handled by a company such as Northumbrian that acts as the broker.  Because British plates have fewer characters in some cases than US plates, and you have a set sequence of letters and numbers, it is harder to spell a word on a plate, so that is perhaps why the ones that do say something are more precious.

If I had a thousand dollars I probably wouldn’t buy a license plate, but it still gives me some ideas to consider.  I wonder if someone could sell one and donate the proceeds to charity of the plate spelled something related to the cause.

This sweet, sweet lady is formerly an expectant momma. She is at Heard County Animal Control, and has given birth, so far, to nine adorable puppies on the cold shelter floor. She has a rescue that has said YES to her. Only one problem. They are all the way in South Carolina, all the way almost to the North Carolina border. We need a volunteer or two!

Can you:

- Drive from Franklin, in South West Georgia (an hour and a half west of Atlanta) to northern South Carolina.
- Bring a passenger with you to look in on the pups, and periodically make sure no one is rolled on or no one gets crushed, etc. They are only a day old!
- Have an SUV or station wagon, where you can lay blankets down. A crate is not appropriate for them, as the pups could pressed against the sides, and there is so man of them.
- Provide water for mom, and a little dog food just in case she cares to eat.

Alternately, we can break this up into two different “teams” to each drive halfway, though it would be best for momma and the new family not to have to be moved.

If you can do something like this, you can save a life! Actually, about a dozen lives! Wouldn’t that be a great feeling to know that those little tiny puppies whose eyes aren’t even open yet won’t contract a disease in the shelter, but will be able to grow up in a loving foster home. They will be raised up and then adopted into loving homes. Mom will get a second chance to.

It is an unfortunate result of many people still not getting the spay and neuter message. If mom had been spayed, her people wouldn’t have felt overwhelmed with the idea of little mouths to feed and may not have dumped her at the shelter.

If you can help mom, please comment on this blog and I will get in touch! Also, if you cannot, but may be able to drive a different route sometime, please let me know. There are plenty of opportunities available!

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