We are delighted to advertise Retrobelia for Ann and Les who are kindly helping Grande Daze with Beady’s Bargains.
Ann Taylor is launching a new enterprise called Retrobelia. Based in Brécé, Ann has a wonderful shop full of vintage items from the 50s, 60s and 70s. She has dedicated a corner to her cat Beady, where there are all kinds of bargains to be found. Proceeds from the sale of Beady’s Bargains go to Grande Daze. There is also a collection box for people to add a few centimes! We wish Ann and Les every success in their new venture and thank them for their support. Anita
Another busy and interesting month. We have articles about 3 of our rescues, Gloria, Mrs. Miggs and Malcolm for you to read NEW ARTICLES
We have good news on the AGILITY page. We are very happy.
I have also, sadly, posted a notice to alert you to possible scam fundraising. You can read this here RESCUE CENTRE or on our HOME page at the bottom of the Rescue Centre column.
We have good news to say that we will be having a Christmas Fair and Bric-a-Brac sale on Sunday, 14th November, 2021. Adverts will be on this Website, our Facebook pages, Posters around the area and flyers will be distributed to let everyone know about this event which will be held in the Salle de Fete at La Bigottière.
There are no special items on the website this month. We are very grateful to everyone for so many lovely donations and it is difficult to choose things to advertise. Please visit our shop for a browse around. We’re sure that you will find something you didn’t know you needed!
Thank you for reading my news and for supporting us. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Holidays, events, competitions and returning to as near to normal as possible has delayed our monthly blog and news for the past few months.
THE PHEONIX RISING FROM THE ASHES
Since before the pandemic began our van has needed attention. We felt ashamed driving around in a shabby vehicle that was advertising a caring, respectable, responsible and professional charity assisting needy animals. Seemed to us that it showed if we can’t look after our essential ‘tools of our trade’ how can we look after the animals. Then one of those spooky coincidences happened and Mark Tinworth drove through the gate bringing a donation of no longer needed dog bed and assorted things. It is Mark’s enterprise MT Graphiques of Gorron who achieved a marvellous transformation of our worn out looking van. So, same trusty work horse of a van but new colour and graphics. We now show the world what we are made of and our rescues are groomed and transported in a smart vehicle we are all proud of. We’re really happy with this!
Our shop is open all week and we have lots of new stock for you to see. On our ITEMS FOR SALE at page we have some lovely antique pictures for sale.
VIDE GRENIER
In July we had a wonderful response to our sale at the Salle de Fete in La Bigottiere. Thank you to all our benevoles and a special thank you to everyone who bought our goods and supported us so generously.
Whoops! We lost the photos! Sorry!
Your generosity has helped us to pay some vets bills and provide special dietary needs for 2 of our rescues.
CLUB PROJECT
We go back as far as June when 2 of the Grande Daze benevoles and myself gained our Moniteur Educateur Canin Niveau 1 (Canine Educator/Instructor Level1) and Puppy Instructor Certificates. I’m sure that you will all congratulate us on the achievement.
All 3 of us spent months learning to adapt our expertise to be compatible with the expectations of the French canine training. In fact, to some extent it was a sharing of ideas. Our dogs performed wonderfully and we are all proud of their response to our commands – they were exemplary!
Now we have the official French qualifications and are recognised, our project for this year is to build our Canine Club and to be affiliated at Centrale Canine next year. We are excited and proud to say that once we are affiliated we will be able to organise official agility competitions.
Our aim in the Club is to offer different classes: Puppy Class, Obedience Training, Agility Class and Hooper Class (look out for more information about this). We have operated such classes for some time but new things are being added. We look forward to seeing you at these new training sessions and hope that you will find them as interesting and exciting as we do ourselves.
FUN TUNNELS
We participated in a non-official competition which consisted of tunnels only without any other agility equipment. The dogs taking part were Reboot, Kaos, Okinawa, Fleur and Lucky Luke and what alot of fun we all had. It was interesting to see how the dogs responded in a new ring with people they had never met before and a totally new environment. None of us had ever worked with just tunnels but our dogs performed like it was routine and they almost seemed to be showing off and didn’t need humans to tell them what to do in this ‘game’; they already knew the rules! Some of us were quite surprised at our canine friends abilities! How could we doubt them?
AGILITY RESULTS
We managed to get to compete in the Agility Competitions and increased our standing:
Hera is now Grade 2 Agility Level along with Finn and Pip; who all performed beyond our expectations and made us very proud. These Grande Daze rescued friends showed how wonderful it is to give a dog a new go at life.
These 3 dogs have gained the necessary points to participate at the Selectif of Grand Prix de France. at the end of this month (September). The winners at this event will go through to compete in the Final in a few months time – we are hopeful and working hard to achieve the best possible outcome. We’ll keep you posted.
Izzy and Kodie have the 1st part of Brevet and Fleur is not far behind. Part of the Brevet is a clear round in the agility run and it is necessary to have 3 clear rounds to be upgraded.
29TH AUGUST – SEGRÉ DOG SHOW
Five of our pedigree dogs competed in the above dog show and we were pleased to have really good results for everybody. We all gained a heap of experience and were excited to be in the honours ring.
We had:
2 – Champion of the Breed – Griffon Bruxellois
1 – Excellent and Best in Breed class – Young Jack Russell (made it into the Honours Ring)
1 – 3rd Excellent – English Bull Terrier
and
1 – Prometeur for our youngest participant who was too young to be considered the winner
THANK YOU FOR READING MY BLOG. HOPE TO SEE YOU AT GRANDE DAZE.
Oh, we’ve been so busy for the last couple of months. We’ve had new arrivals and kind people have adopted our rescues. There are training sessions to report on and success at Agility Competitions. I hope to give details in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, our ITEMS FOR SALE at page has been updated and we hope that there is something you would like to buy. Our site shop is open and all of our services are operating as usual.
For the time being a quick note to say a HUGE thank you for the tremendous effort made by our benevoles and supporters to raise funds in recent weeks. Also, a big thank you to those benevoles who have sold items on line throughtout lockdowns and during the restrictions caused by the pandemic. Their efforts have been invaluable and helped us keep going. We are extremely grateful to everyone and relieved that funds have now begun to arrive to pay our bills more easily. The past 18 months have been the most difficult in all the time we have been a rescue charity. A more detailed update will be posted as soon as we have gathered ourselves after the flurry of activity following changes of the restrictions.
We have decided to do a series of stories about certain aspects of the work at Grande Daze. The articles might be about donations, benevoles and what they do or about the work in and around the Centre. We will continue to do short pieces about the adopted animals whenever possible. We have a piece about RESCUED BRIC-A-BRAC and a lovely story of The Crazy Cat Lady.
Oh, what a month of mixed weather. As our usual followers will know we had to cancel our long planned and much needed fundraising Vide Grenier. Needless to say, everyone was very disappointed. We worked hard to get the event advertised and to get the tables set out in our sand-school but at the very last minute the weather defeated us. Well, our shop is now open all week and the bargains are still available here and at our shop at Sept Forges. Our next event will be in July and we will do our usual advertising.
We are pleased to report that training and agility sessions are now taking place on a regular basis – weather permitting, of course!
We are also pleased to have two more , AMATEUR ARTISTS Catherine and Roger, join Jenny and you can view their work at our fundraising events when all proceeds of their sales are donated to Grande Daze Rescue. Our other benevoles are working hard using their talents to sell and make things for Grande Daze Rescue. See the previous Blog for information.
A fortunate stroke of serendipity occurred this month. Kind people arrived wishing to adopt a dog. As many of you very well know we don’t advertise the animals as individuals. Our policy is to matchmake. In May, as on many occasions, that policy paid off, with a wonderful meeting between Harley and 2 people he had never met before. It was love at first sight. Harley has now found his forever home and a week after this first magical encounter he left happily to join his new family.
We are happy to say that the adoptions for our canine companions are going well. However, we are sad that finding a home for our barn cats is proving more difficult. It’s now the season when barns and outbuildings are a hive of activity for all of the other little creatures around us. Our belief is that the cats have a place in a natural environment and actually serve a good purpose in the balance of nature. Many of you will know that cats like to be pampered but equally they enjoy the hunt and therefore do us a service. They keep down some of the creatures that would otherwise cause us humans a problem. The idea of control using traps and a toxic solution is not to our liking and can, of course, be dangerous overall. Many of the feline arrivals at Grande Daze are very independent but friendly animals who have experience of fending for themselves. With that in mind, if any of you friends of Grande Daze need a companion who is happy to stay in an outbuilding or barn with the occasional yummy dish of food we would love to hear from you. We would be pleased to discuss with you the adoption of one of our cats. You can email us at grande_daze@orange.fr or telephone 0243 90 75 83.
We have an unusual item in our Browse and Reserve section this month – a collection of Ephemera, BROWSE AND RESERVE (previously CLICK AND COLLECT)Over the years we have had some unusual and interesting donations and have decided to do a series of articles about them. LINK Receiving special items is appreciated and we wish to show that we look carefully at the donations and treat them with respect. In a sense they are our other rescues and have provided us with much needed funding.
A couple of amateur artists have joined our band of fundraisers.
A couple of beautiful landscapes
These 2 people kindly donate their paintings and every cent they make comes to the animals. They work in acrylics on canvas or wood making lovely images of landscapes and animals. You will be able to see and buy their work at our Vide Grens and other events in the area.
Our Poster and a landscape with a delightful pet portrait
They show their work in venues in and around Gorron where you can also purchase their lovely pictures.
PLEASE NOTE Our Vide Grenière scheduled for today, 24th May, has been cancelled because of weather conditions. We apologise for the short notice. Our plan is to set another date in the summer. We hope that you have a pleasant day. We are disappointed that we will not be able to see all our supporters after such a long time of not having events. Best wishes for better times to come. Anita Edwards
