150 Ways to Save the World: #1 - Spring Cleaning

From farmsanctuary.org

 It's that time of year when we throw open the windows and let the fresh spring air flood into our homes that have been in hibernation mode for the past several months. I love seeing the bright flowers peeking from the earth, all the adorable little baby animals playing at Farm Sanctuary and all the birds singing as though they are heralding the arrival of warm winds. Max and Bella especially love it because this is when the ponds thaw, mud pits abound and squirrels start emerging from their homes for romps around the neighborhood. Spring is like my New Year's celebration, a fresh start wrapped in tulips and farmers markets and what better way to begin anew than clearing all the clutter from your home and life.

What you may not have realized is that this cleansing can help out a lot of little critters in your area. This year when you are making that pile of clothes (why did I buy pants that are obviously too short and not in a good capri way?), extra dish racks (seriously, how many does 1 person need?) and dog toys (we could open our own Pet Smart with this amount of inventory!) why not use it all to hold a good ole garage sale with all the proceeds going to your favorite shelter or rescue. Even better invite friends and neighbors to participate to make it an even bigger affair. When you are sorting through everything, remember to clean all the items prior to your sale (who wants to buy a shirt covered in dog hair?) and throw away items that are ripped or damaged. Also, if you have any sheets, towels or pet items like beds, bowls, leashes, collars (all in good condition of course) that you were looking to get rid of, save them for the shelter, they are always in desperate need of extra ones.

Another good idea is to let your charity of choice know that you are having a sale in their honor. They will help spread the word and may also have items they wish to donate or volunteers that want to help out. Have brochures and information about your charity where people pay and also on a nice display at the front so everyone attending the sale can learn about the cause. You could even put a donation jar at your cash area for those that want to help even more. For even more fun, see if the shelter is willing to send some volunteers with a couple of little ones looking for homes. Who knows, maybe someone might fall in love with your New Kids on the Block cd and that beautiful 8 yr old shepherd looking for a home. Now, that would be a great day! Just remember to have shade and lots of water bowls around for your furry guests and patrons.

Happy cleaning!

A New Leash on Life

If your family is anything like ours, you probably found more presents under the tree for the four-legged family members than the two! :) We love to give presents to our furry kids and often that includes new leashes and collars. Their old ones are still in great condition but it's just nice to have a little change - something new to start the year with. So what to do with the old ones? Any gently used collars and leashes will eagerly be snatched up by any rescue, but there is one in particular that I am boxing up mine to send to this year.

Save A Sato is an incredible organization in Puerto Rico that rescues satos (street dogs) from their very rough and often cruelty filled lives on the streets and finds homes for them through partner shelters along the east coast of the United States. This is truly a group filled with love, who make a huge difference in their country. Did you know that in 10 years, this no-kill shelter has saved over 16,287 dogs! As I mentioned before, this group is important to me. The reason, you ask? Well, it's 47 lbs of pure love and ears! My little Max!

Check out those ears!

I am so grateful every day for the work they do! So if you are looking for a way to help them out, gather up those gently used collars and leashes and send them to Save A Sato at one of the following addresses.

Save A Sato Foundation
P.O. Box 37694
San Juan, Puerto Rico
00937-0694

Yvette Pina
P.O. Box 0737
Chicago, IL
60690

If you want to help gather even more gently used leashes and collars check with co-workers to see if they have any they were planning on getting rid of, check out thrift/second hand stores, or go to Dollar stores (if you live in Canada like we do, Dollarama is truly mind blowing in the amount of leashes and collars they have).

Speak Up of the Week: Palm Springs Animal Shelter

While I sign hundreds of petitions each week including animal testing, endangered species, animal welfare laws and court case sentencings the ones that truly hit me the hardest though are the ones focusing on animal shelters that are substandard (to put it politely). Despite the fact that I could have just read articles about horrible abuse of family pets or dogs who were used in painful research at universities my anger really gets going when I have to read about shelters (and I use this word loosely) that mistreat, starve, and abuse animals; withhold proper veterinary care, have horrid kennels and even more inhumane people that work there. Shelters, by definition are places where animals are supposed to be safe from the horrors of the street and people who might hurt them. They supposed to be treated with respect and care and given as much comfort as possible in what is already a stressful situation for them.

Today's Speak Up! deals with a shelter accused of failing to uphold state and local animal protection laws in addition to several other charges (and please don't think that they are the only ones....unfortunately there are many, many more out there that are just as bad and often much worse). Animal Legal Defense Fund and the citizens of Palm Springs, CA have filed a lawsuit against the City of Palm Springs, the Palm Springs Police and animal control officers and the Friends of Palm Springs Animal Shelter for "an ongoing pattern of abuses and failure to follow state and local laws protecting animals at the Palm Springs Animal Shelter, resulting in the extremely high euthanasia rates of adoptable animals, despite the shelter’s publicizing itself as a “no-kill” facility. In addition to the unnecessary and wrongful killing of scores of dogs and cats impounded annually, the shelter has failed to provide routine veterinary care to Palm Springs’ sick and injured homeless animals.

Photo credited to Animal Legal Defense Fund

The Palm Springs shelter is advertised as “the only municipal no-kill shelter in [California's] Coachella Valley.” However, a substantial proportion of the cats and dogs impounded there are in fact euthanized—more than 50% for live unclaimed dogs and over 80% for live unclaimed cats during certain periods for which requested records were made available. In addition to disseminating misleading statements about the “no-kill” nature of their shelter to the public, the shelter and other defendants in the case routinely violate local law with respect to euthanasia of shelter animals impounded at their shelter. The Palm Springs Municipal Code prescribes a 5-day mandatory holding period for animals impounded at its Shelter, but homeless animals are routinely killed prior to the expiration of the holding period. The shelter has also been violating the law by failing to keep accurate records and by discriminating against certain breeds of dogs, like chows and pit bulls, who are euthanized at an above-average rate."

Please join me this week in Speaking Up! for those animals at the shelter (past, present and future) who cannot speak up for themselves and urge Palm Springs to ensure proper protection of their shelter animals.
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5154/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6529

Wanted: A Forever Family

I want to start off this week’s installment of Wanted: A Forever Family with great news about one of our featured dogs from last week. Geisha, the Pet Pardons dog from the Orange County Animal Services in Orlando, FL was adopted! Congratulations to Geisha and her new family!

Geisha being lazy in her new forever home.

Hopefully we can get many more success stories starting with the four little ones that are featured today.

The first doggie today, is Charlie. Charlie is a 10 year old, black and tan dapple smooth haired dachshund who was found wandering the streets of a Florida city. With a sweet personality, but with horrible teeth that needed attention, FLDR (Florida Dachshund Rescue) was notified about this poor guy. Once in the care of FLDR, Charlie had a much needed dental and only lost a few teeth, so is feeling a whole lot better and has wonderful breath now too! It’s hard to believe this guy was turned out to the streets to fend for himself. Charlie is an absolutely wonderful dog! He likes people and gets attached to a primary caregiver quickly. He wants to know where his foster mom is at all times, following her around the house. He gets along very well with all the other dogs in the household, although would do very well as an only dog as he does not really play with them. Charlie loves to go for walks on a leash around the neighborhood and also travels well in the car, curling up and going to sleep or lying quietly on his bed. He sleeps in the big bed at night snuggled up beside his foster mom or makes a nest at the foot of the bed—-he sleeps quietly all night.
Charlie is 100% housetrained if taken outside on a regular basis. Because he has had no accidents in the house, he is not crated during the day when his foster parents are out and they don’t feel he would like being crated at all. Charlie’s ideal home would be with someone who is home most of the time as he likes his humans and will bark when left alone. He would be an ideal traveler and great companion to someone looking for a wonderful, people oriented dog. He is waiting patiently for his new forever home…..could it be you???

If you are interested in adding Charlie to your family, please follow this link.
http://fldr.org/2011/03/24/charlie/

Corvin is a beautiful and sweet boy! He is a young adult looking for his forever home. Corvin is an Am Staff/Pit mix but he is a medium size boy - about 40 lbs. He has passed the Pitbull Ambassador testing with flying colors and is a very friendly guy. If you are looking for a great dog, don’t miss Corvin! He is waiting to hear from you.

To learn more about Corvin, click here.

http://www.floridabigdogrescue.com/cgi-bin/search_fbdr.cgi?page_num=4&gender=&age=&shcas=

How can you resist this face? Meet sweet TAWNEY....this pretty little beagle/dachshund mix was born 10/10/10 and finds herself in need of a new home.  Tawney is such a cutie with her short legs and long torso!  She is very cuddly in your arms and full of 'zip' when on the ground....typical puppy.  She loves her toys and other dogs but people are the way to her heart.  Tawney is almost deaf and will need a doggie friend to be her ears for her and a fenced yard to keep her safe.  Tawney is spayed, current on all shots, on heartworm preventive and microchipped.

If you would like to be Tawney’s new family, click here for all the information.

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19401638

Levi is a 7-month-old Sheltie/Whippet mix. He is one sweet, gentle boy. He is timid and needs socialization and affection. Levi spent the last 4 months of his life, before we got him, in a backyard with little to no socialization. He is learning to trust new people and did amazingly well at his first adoption event. We believe this shows that the more he is taken out and about the better he will be. If you would like to meet Levi, please fill out an adoption application.

 If you can’t get enough of Levi’s amazing smile, please follow this link to fill out an adoption application and see more pictures.

http://www.smileydogrescue.org/blueweb/dogs_for_adoption/dogs_for_adoption_details.asp?id=4379

For those of you anxiously awaiting my dog transporter information I will have a post next week dedicated solely to this topic as there is A LOT to share. Have a great Friday everyone!

Wanted: A Forever Family

Every Friday Sit. Stay. Speak Up! will feature some wonderful little ones who are in search of their forever families. These dogs will be from around the country and come from rescues, shelters and animal control facilities. This also means that some of these animals unfortunately are up against a clock. Most of us don't like to think about this, but just over 5,500 dogs are put down EVERY DAY in the United States so every extra opportunity of exposure can help save a dog's life. All dogs will be listed with their picture and a link to the site where all their information is. If those puppy dog eyes draw you in and you would like to adopt but are hesitant about them being in another state, please do not let this detract you from adopting. Transportation is actually extremely easy and in some cases (such as on Pet Pardons) there are people willing to donate towards transportation and adoption fees. I am working on putting together a list of groups, volunteers and companies that assist in pet transportation and I will post that next Friday. If anyone has worked with any groups or has recommendations, please let me know so that I can make sure they get on the list.

Without further ado, here are the lovable adoptables for this week.

This is Libby, a 2 year and 3 month old lab mix, available for adoption from the Black Dog Animal Rescue. She is absolutely brimming full of love and energy. Her story and adoption information can be found here: http://bdar.org/adoptable_animals.html

This is Trucker (named this after being thrown from a semi-truck at a truck stop) and he is a 1 year old lab mix. He is very friendly and loves everyone. He can be found on Karma's Black Dog Rescue page at this link:
http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/17820219

Geisha is our Pet Pardons featured dog. At this time her PTS (put to sleep) date is unknown but it could be at any time). She is a 2 year old lab mix with one blue eye (so beautiful!) and all her information can be found here: http://apps.facebook.com/petpardons/pet-view/id/2920

Our final featured dog is Kira who is a 9 year old pure bred husky. She has had a hard past which consisted of spending her entire life up until now chained outside in the woods in New York state. She is very laid back and just enjoys watching everyone while snuggled in her bed. She is also a huge fan of anything remotely connected to bones. If you are interested in learning more about Kira, please follow this link:
http://www.blackdogsecondchance.org/animals/detail?AnimalID=3003785#animalOtherPictures

Thank you for taking the time to look at these little ones. If you have any friends or family that you know are looking for a new family member, please share these guys with them and always suggest that they adopt instead of buy.

If you know of any dogs that you would like to see featured, please send a picture, brief description and/or web link to bringhearttotheworld@gmail.com.