Welcome to the Corgi Corner! This is a series that’s posted on the first Saturday of every month! These posts will help spread education and awareness on topics like general dog care, corgi specific things, medical care, health facts, etc. This month’s Corgi Corner post will be all about our Senior Sanctuary Program! November is National Senior Pet month! This month is a time to raise awareness about adopting older pets and to focus on the health needs of senior animals. It’s a month to celebrate the wisdom and companionship of older pets and to encourage people to adopt them, while also highlighting the importance of special care for senior pets, such as regular vet check ups and adapted living environments. Dogs typically are considered a senior starting at age 7. As dogs age, they require more care and lifestyle changes. More regular vet visits are usually needed as dogs age. It’s important to be aware of common senior pet conditions like arthritis, dental disease, cancer, kidney disease, and liver disease. Doing routine lab work, like senior blood panels and urinalysis, will help catch any issues as early as possible. As mobility can be an issue with age as well, you may need to make changes in your home to allow things to be easier for your pet. This may require adding non-slick surfaces, using ramps, or adding more accessible dog beds. It’s also imperative that older dogs stay a healthy weight to take extra stress off their joints and maintain good muscle mass to assist them as they age. We get more senior corgis and corgi mixes into the rescue than we do young dogs. Unfortunately, a lot of people are not open to adopting senior pets and taking on their needs. This led to us creating our Senior Sanctuary Program back in 2018. Our Senior Sanctuary Program gives our older dogs, typically with medical and/or behavioral issues, a loving caring home to live out their golden years. They live out the rest of their lives in one of our approved foster homes, where they are treated like a member of the family. Their fosters give them all the love and care they can provide while we cover all of their medical bills. Since the start of our Senior Sanctuary Program we have had 21 Sanctuary dogs. They all came to us with some kind of medical or behavioral issue, or both. This made them extremely difficult to adopt out. Thanks to our amazing fosters, these dogs all got to live out their lives extremely loved. We provided them with the best medical care that we could, and when the time came, their fosters helped them across the rainbow bridge.  We current have 2 Sanctuary dogs in our rescue right now, Baby and Hattie. They are both 15 years old now! Baby came to us in November 2023 and Hattie came to us in January 2025. Baby came to us from a shelter in New Hampshire. She was surrendered to the shelter due to her family losing their housing. She was very nervous and scared at the shelter, and the shelter contacted us to pull her. Since New Hampshire is so far outside our boundaries, we tried to connect the shelter with some of our rescue contacts up north. Unfortunately, no one was able to help. So, with the help of the shelter and some of our transport volunteers, we pulled her from the shelter and transported her down to us and into a foster home. Hattie came to us as an owner surrender. Her owner had to be moved into a long term care facility and the family was not able to keep her. They wanted to make sure she landed in a safe place to live out her golden years. So they made the decision to surrender her over to us. Even though these girls are 15 years old now, they’re doing fairly well. They’re both on special prescription diets, which we cover the costs of. They also get daily medication to help with mobility, pain, and anxiety. They are very loved by their fosters and they have had a much better life since coming to us. We wouldn’t be able to have our Senior Sanctuary Program without our amazing fosters and those who donate to us. All of the money we receive goes directly towards the care of the dogs in the rescue, including in our Sanctuary Members. Without all of the help and support, we wouldn’t be able to have this program and help all these dogs.