Local rescue dogs will arrive at the Hampshire House senior living community in Oneonta at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 25 to distribute stockings filled with goodies to residents.
Jill Guy said this will be the fifth year of the annual tradition, which she does with her husband, Marc Guy. Last year, she said she brought four dogs to distribute gifts — which were small fleece throw blankets — in two cars with trailers behind them.
This year, she said she plans to bring two dogs, one of which will be Santa, named Kelsey Clause, and the other of which will be the reindeer, named Lucky. They typically stay at the Hampshire House for about an hour, giving out the gifts and engaging with seniors in the facility.
The dogs will ride in a Santa sleigh that Guy said she helped to build using a wagon. She said she made a cover for the wagon and decorated it to make it look like a sleigh. The sleigh will carry a stocking for each resident at Hampshire House. Guy added that the stockings will contain a coffee cup, a packet of hot cocoa, a packet of microwave popcorn, peppermints and cheese and cracker snack packs.
“I thought the residents don’t have anybody to come visit them, a lot of them, and it’s nice they get to visit with the dogs and get a little gift from us and the dogs,” Guy said.
More than 40 stockings will be delivered on Christmas, Guy said. The items included in the stockings are largely self-funded, she added, but she gets a lot of her items from the Otsego ReUse Center in Oneonta for good deals.
A stocking is personal, Guy said, and she received a list of names from the Hampshire House to put a tag with everybody’s name on their own stockings.
All of her dogs, Guy said, have been rescued. She said for the past ten years, she has adopted senior and special needs dogs with her husband, and as of now, the couple has 17 dogs.
“We get the ones that nobody else wants,” Guy said.
She said she has a couple of blind dogs, one that is deaf and a handicapped Cavalier with front paws that do not work very well, causing him to struggle with walking.
“He looks like a little teddy bear,” she added.
The dogs have their own cars built from toddler cars and built-in pools in the backyard, Guy said, and she refurbishes old furniture to make into dog beds or houses. According to Daily Star archives, the Guy decorates the dog cars with a personalized license plate indicating the state where the dog was from.
She said she can take an old dresser and turn it into a dog house. Anything she does “is for the dogs,” Guy said. She additionally has a large dog clothing collection.
She added that she and Marc Guy are trying to get registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to be an official dog sanctuary, which takes in dogs. This would allow her to accept donations, Guy said.
The seniors enjoy holding and petting the dogs while visiting with them, Guy said. It always has been rewarding to see “the look on their faces and knowing that I made their day,” Guy said.