Now, in its third year, the Santa Paws Drive is like Toys for Tots, except the money and toys donated go to pets in selected shelters and rescue groups. That includes Black Dog Animal Rescue Inc. in Wyoming this year. Goodness knows everyone at Chez Champion of My Heart loves black (and mostly black) dogs.
Today is one of four annual Blog the Change Days, where pet bloggers promote their favorite people, organizations, and events that improve the lives of animals in communities all over. The girls of Champion of My Heart decided to promote Petfinder’s Big 15th Birthday Bash. The goal? To get 15,000 pets adopted this weekend. Whew!
Last Friday, Lilly and I created our very own foundation online so that we can better manage and accrue our charity donations for favs like Humane Society of Boulder Valley. Join too, and you might win one of the $1,000 per day prizes before GiveBack.org’s 100 Days of Giving ends July 16.
Prop B, a voter-approved law requiring baseline humane conditions in Missouri puppy mills, is in danger of being overturned. Even if you don’t live in Missouri, this post from my friend Kerri Fivecoat Campbell explains how you can support animal welfare crusaders in Missouri because as she has outlined before What Happens in Missouri Doesn’t Stay in Missouri.
Thanks to Kim Sporrer, media maven at Humane Society of Boulder Valley, a few newspapers have mentioned Never Shock a Puppy in articles about the humane society’s No-Choke Challenge. The most recent of which featured a mondo picture of me and Lilly. OMG.
Today, pet bloggers are banding together to raise awareness and MONEY to help search and rescue efforts and aid to the animals suffering from the big Japan earthquake, tsunami and everything else bad that has happened and continues to happen since. Please help in any way you can!
The BlogPaws Be the Change for Pets community is supporting World Vets, which already has teams on the ground helping animals in need in Japan.
In celebration of its 15th anniversary, Petfinder plans to Adopt the Internet (aka take it over) by swamping blogs, Facebook, and Twitter with adopt-a-pet enthusiasm on March 15, 2011. Want to take part? You’ll find all the details on the Petfinder.com site, but here are a few ideas.
Despite concerns it might be too much for her, we took Lilly with us to the awards event at Humane Society of Boulder Valley Thursday night. At times, she threw oh-hell-no looks me. Other times, she smiled and even wagged. A few strategies helped Lilly cope in the crowd.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a funny voice-mail message from Kim Sporrer, who handles communication stuff for the Humane Society of Boulder Valley (where we adopted Lilly in October 2004). She asked me to call her and, in the meantime, to keep the evening of February 24 open. She was a little cryptic.
As you may recall, I met the HelpJoey.com guys at BlogPaws West in Denver (September 2010). I still haven’t quite figured out the whole schtick, but their series of videos that take a whole new look at preventing pet overpopulation do crack me up. I think they are getting funnier as time goes on.
Thanks again to all of you who contributed money during our Never Shock a Puppy campaign last fall. The funds raised by the entire coalition actively supports the Humane Society of Boulder Valley‘s No-Choke Challenge, which launched January 15, 2011.
Because that’s where we adopted Lilly in October 2004 and because Boulder Humane is truly one of the most progressive animal welfare spots in the country, we could not be MORE thrilled to support their efforts … first by raising money through our Be the Change campaign and now by spreading the word about the No-Choke Challenge.
A while back, Stephanie Feldstein, the animals editor for Change.org, contacted me about our Never Shock a Puppy efforts. She asked a bunch of questions via email. I answered, and the result is this blog post. Many thanks to her for the interest and enthusiasm.
[Speaking of news ... Humane Society of Boulder Valley is launching its No-Choke Challenge today. The graphics are to die for. I promise we'll write more about it in the coming days. Stay tuned!]
Now, Back to Our Scheduled Topic!
Lilly and I are so pleased that we can return the favor to Stephanie by asking those of you who agree with our very public stance against shock collars to sign this petition, asking Petsmart to stop selling shock collars. Please.
We are so grateful for all the support we got during Never Shock a Puppy, so we’re paying it forward to the blogger elves behind the big, annual Santa Paws Drive. Think of it as “Toys for Tots,” where the tots are dogs and cats spending the holiday season in a shelter.
The $500 donation is one of the biggest reasons I hoped to win the DogTime Media Best Dog Blog Award. It took some doing to work out the details, but I had the chance to celebrate the donation that YOU made possible last Friday. Thanks, again, for your votes!!
This bonus $500 helped the Never Shock a Puppy coalition reach its goal of raising more than $2,500 for the Humane Society of Boulder Valley.
Many of the Never Shock a Puppy coalition members attended BlogPaws West in Denver, back in September. We even enjoyed a team dinner one night. I was so touched that Debbie Jacobs from FearfulDogs.com brought Lilly and Ginko a gift.
