1.24.2011

Shelter Awareness

My great friend Brian always does a wonderful job of reminding his readers to adopt pets, cause we deserve it. He asked that on the 24th we remind everyone about shelters. Of course we are happy to do so. I came from a shelter as a kitten so I know how important it is to support them.

Our economy has had more than a rough patch over the last few years and often shelters are hit hard. Shelters here have been filled to capacity due to people who have lost their homes and were forced to give up beloved pets. At a time when shelters could use more money to handle the load, donations can also suffer.

Of course cash is always appreciated, but we've seen some great ideas of things you can do to help animals in need:

  • Donate old blankets, or practice your knitting and make some blankies
  • Donate or make toys for the kitties to play with
  • Donate food or paper goods
  • Foster animals or volunteer your time to help where you can
  • Adopt from a shelter rather than buying at a pet store
So is there anything you can think of that you can do to help? Mom and I are going to put our heads together to do more. Thanks Brian for the idea!

20 comments:

  1. Mommy uses soft towels and sews towel blankets for cages, a lot of times you can get towels at the thrift stores for next to nothing.

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  2. We knit cat blankets for our local shelter...they are not fancy but they are warm :-)

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  3. Another way is to come to agreement with friends and family to donate rather than exchange presents at Christmas and birthdays.

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  4. These have been wonderful posts about helping shelters. We usually donate money to the ones out of town. The ones here we either take money, food, toys or supplies to them. Every penny helps them. The last time we took a bag of kitten food to them, they acted like they were thrilled to get it. We left there feeling very good too. Lots of love, Holly and mom

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  5. We agree completely with supporting shelters. We are rescued cats ourselves.

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  6. That was "T"errific Fin, thanks for purrticipating in ShelterAware24, I appreciate you!!!

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  7. A great post=we buy kitty beds and toys to donate to the shelters here every year (Mom watches for the kitty beds on sale at carealotpets.com)...BTW, we loved your book as well; Mittens is a precious kitty and we just adored the beautiful photos of you and Isabella Mousington together!...We hope you enjoy a fun week ahead, gorgeous Finny...kisses...Calle, Halle, Sukki

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  8. Yep, Fin, there's lots of things the shelter can use and it doesn't involve spending green papers.

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  9. We absolutely agree! And we're all shelter kitties ourselves, so we know how important it is.

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  10. We are all rescue kitties so we know how welcome any gifts to the shelters are.

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  11. Alfie was a rescue kitten and we whole-heartedly agree wiv the need for support.

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  12. Great post Fin. It is so important to help the shelters any way that we can. Those are some great ideas. Have yourself a fun day.

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  13. thank you for this most important post!

    We donated blankets, toys, food, treats etc in December and we are going to try and donate at least quarterly!!! Whenever we can!

    xoxo Caren and Cody

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  14. Hey Fin, Ya'll can vote everyday for your favorite shelter in The Animal Rescue Site Shelter Challenge. If you don't have a favorite shelter than please vote for Almost Heaven Golden Retriever rescue and Sanctuary in Capon Bridge, WV. Just go to:
    http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=3&link=ctg_ars_home_from_ars_home_sitenav
    Or check out our blog for easy directions.
    - TBH&K

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  15. Those are all good things Finny. I will donate Teddy to any shelter that wants him!

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  16. So true. If everyone did one little thing...

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  17. Pawsome post, Fin! We volunteer at our shelter every Saturday and Sunday ... we love it. We also take all of our cans and bottles there. Oh, and of course, we have a blog dedicated to the cats at the shelter. :)

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  18. These are such great ideas, Fin!!

    Actually, the TNR fundraiser has been rescheduled for Feb 5th. We are having a silent auction, raffle and door prizes. Thanks so much for the offer of your book as a donation. We'd love to add it to our fundraiser items!!! That would be great!! We can send you a tax receipt as well. I'll message you the address.

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  19. Lovely blog Fin. We once did a bake sale sort of thing in front of the local shelter. It was partly for awareness and partly to raise funds. Things we generally $1-2 but we just asked people to give what they could. We got the baked goods from a local gocery. Basically you go in, tell management your a non-profit and they run through whatever section of the store you want and give you pretty much anything you need. I think the place we'd get our stuff from did it for free but some may want a tax ID # for tax purposes. Thanks for sharing this, very useful information :)

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