Clifford's Animal Rescue Transportation

We hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday season!

Taking precautions, we were able to see family and spend some time together, which was a nice change from 2020.

Given our last update, we were hoping things would have returned much closer to normal by now, but within 2 weeks of our November update, the Omicron variant was discovered and has quickly spread all over the United States.

Given the predominance of Omicron spread and the lack of thorough information about the variant, we will unfortunately have to continue to sit out to begin 2022.

We have continued to see vaccinations rates increase a bit at a time, and more treatments and vaccines becoming approved to help control this virus.

We'll do our best to keep everyone updated as we learn more about the severity of the Omicron variant, and hope to see transmission drop.

Please pray for those who are currently unable to get vaccines and treatments in underserved countries, and that we all can do our part to help push for the same access to vaccines for others that we have here in the US.

We wish you all a Happy New Year and a good start to 2022, and we'll update as we learn more to hopefully get back on the road this year.

Clifford celebrated a little bit, but also remembered the talk we had about having to wait to see how the Omicron wave happens, and when it will likely be considered safe to travel again, as you can see in the photos below.

As many of you likely know and understand, the United States as a whole is beginning to feel effects of Covid-19, a highly contagious and deadly virus.

Part of our mission with this ministry is to provide safe, reliable, and visible transportation to animals in need. We interact with many individuals during a trip, as well as countless fuel pumps, and other stops which can harbor this illness on its surface(s) for up to three (3) days.

In our service to the community, we do believe we have a moral obligation to do what is right, regardless of what may be "legal" or "allowed" in any circumstances. We feel many of you who follow us know our incredibly high standards for doing the right thing, no matter what.

Keeping with that standard, we will be opting to remain idle during this time and practicing social distancing to the best of our ability, save for essential trips for food or other necessary supplies in our personal lives. We know many of our followers and friends in the rescue community could be drastically affected by this illness should it be passed onto you, and it is our duty as part of the community to prevent that as much as possible.

We will resume transporting as soon as it is safe to do so, but for the time being, we do not feel we are an "essential business" that "must" remain open in order to assist medical personnel or their suppliers in taking care of those who have fallen ill.

We advise all of our followers, friends, donors, and colleagues to do the same, as painful as it may be. You are all important to the animal community, and we want to see the rescue community come back and provide that same love and care we know is all there once this event passes. Please take care of yourselves, and remember to wash your hands, practice social distancing, don't go out if you're sick, and don't hoard the necessary goods to make sure your neighbors are able to continue their lives in this delicate time.

We hope you're able to practice social distancing with your furry family members during this difficult time. Clifford, Misty, and the kitties have been enjoying us being home much more, including more outside time for the pups. Feel free to share some of your photos of how you're practicing social distancing with your animals!

Did you know, in an effort to keep costs down, we do as much maintenance and repair work on Lola as possible? This includes simple things like oil changes, as well as things like coolant lines for our spare heater that are a little more labor intensive (photos from 2018 included below). This is all in an effort to keep our costs down, so that donations we receive are able to go further than they otherwise would. Lola's oil changes can range in price from $100-200 if taken somewhere, but doing them ourselves gets the cost down to $60 or so. That's $40-140 we free up for transporting animals where they need to go, just on one oil change!

The donations we receive go directly toward transportation costs of the animals we transport. No paid staff, no paid drivers, just covering the expenses necessary to get the animals safely where they need to go, while knowing they are part of our family while with us.

We have transported lots of animals to rescues, adopting families, foster homes, and other places of safety to do what we can to help them along the way on their journey to a forever home.

One of the most important aspects of this is the ministry of spreading the love of these animals. Once I (Michael) got to experience the unconditional love of a dog, I realized it was the closest thing to the unconditional love of God that we can feel here on Earth. Much of this relates to my personal story, which some of you know. I like to go back to the verse that I feel describes the ministry best:

Proverbs 11:8 (NLT) - "The godly are rescued from trouble, and it falls on the wicked instead."

That verse has always stuck with me, and Clifford and I hope to help many more pups in their life's journey, to show others that unconditional love that I received in my time of need.

If you feel called to and are financially able, we would greatly appreciate any donation amount you would like to contribute to our mission. If you have a card or PayPal, you can visit this link:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=xVL2QrRS7aFtqy1oFCe6B-3tkJU6yNVBrGGkL0IcCDrLrUXH9O1lueZgfXzn51CQo9dZAG&country.x=US&locale.x=US

If you'd like to donate via check, please send it to:
Clifford's Animal Rescue Transportation
PO Box 590024
Houston, TX 77259

Thank you for taking the time to get to know us a little bit better, and happy Wednesday!

"Hi friends! Dad and I made it home safely, and the weather hasn't started yet. It's definitely windy, I felt Lola getting blown all over and Dad was hanging onto the steering wheel tight!

I fixed the PayPal link too! Please click the link below if you would like to donate toward the trip with PayPal or a credit card. We appreciate it so much!

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ZPXN2Y6TKPDV2&source=url

Dad said we went a whole 802 miles on this trip! That sounds like too long of a walk for me. Lola can do that instead.

Thanks for following us on this trip, and we hope to be back on the road soon.

P.S.: Dinner was yummy, and I'm glad to be back home with Mom, Misty, and the kitties!"

-Clifford

Bean has arrived! He did very well on the trip, and has a lot of energy for a supposed 9 year old! He'll be getting lots of care to help him start feeling better. We've beat the weather so far, so let's hope we can beat it home!