Good morning all,

I just added some new meet-ups and events to our calendar, so remember to check our group out to see what is going on for animals in Maine!

The Maine Animal Welfare Meetup Group

Also, here are a couple items of interest:

ADOPT Specialty License Plate: Effective October 1, 2009, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles will begin issuing the new Animal Welfare specialty license plate.
The Animal Welfare specialty plate purchase and renewal contributes $10.00 to animal welfare in Maine- $5.00 goes towards cruelty investigations and $5.00 to the Help Fix ME low-cost spay/neuter fund! They will be available wherever you register your car, so get yours beginning in October!!


Frasca/J?aime Kennel Update- On Wednesday, August 12th in Biddeford District Court, John and Heidi Frasca, the owners of the J?aime Kennel, which was raided in August of 2007, were arraigned on 25 counts each of animal cruelty. Both pled Not Guilty. According to the District Attorney for York County, the trial has been tentatively scheduled for October 15th, but that is likely to change. I will be posting current changes that I hear about on my Facebook page, so feel free to check there for updates.


Pet Friendly Pet Store Campaign: Interested in joining my "Puppy Friendly Pet Store" SWAT team?
The HSUS has launched a Puppy Friendly Pet Store initiative and I'm looking for folks who would be interested in working with me to reach out to pet stores (e.g., any non-chain retailer that sells pet supplies) that don't sell puppies to get them involved.

Since we'd be approaching stores that already have decided not to sell puppies, this is a very positive outreach effort. I would love to create a volunteer SWAT team to fan out across Maine so we can help put pressure on stores selling puppies.

Remember to thank the stores for their decision and tell them that we will be sending them a sign for their window that says, ?We love puppies, that?s why we don?t sell them,? to display in the store, as well as materials about adopting a dog or finding a responsible breeder.

If you are interested in signing up, please contact the Puppy Mills campaign Intern, James Rosenthal, to get started! There are many folks across the country already signing up stores, so we want to make sure we aren?t duplicating efforts. He can be contacted at [address removed] or[masked].

For the animals,
Katie L.