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Compassion in Action
Compassion in Action
The Best Friends campaigns to help the animals
Best Friends is working to bring about a time of No More Homeless Pets, a time when unwanted animals are no longer being destroyed in shelters, and when every healthy dog or cat can be guaranteed a good life in a caring home. You can help by participating in one of Best Friends' four campaigns, designed to address the biggest challenges currently facing companion animals:
Pit Bulls: Saving America's Dog - Restoring the image of pit bulls and challenging breed discrimination.
First Home Forever Home - Helping people provide a loving, forever home for their pets.
Focus on Felines - Keeping cats safe and out of shelters.
Puppies Aren't Products - Exposing the connection between puppy mills and pet stores, and encouraging adoption.
Saving America's Dog
Best Friends Unveils Pit-Bull Campaign Web Page
By Sandy Miller
Pit bulls are the most abused, neglected and unfairly persecuted dogs in this country. As a result, they are also the most often euthanized.
If we're ever going to reach the goal of No More Homeless Pets, we must address the issue of pit bulls. And Best Friends is doing just that through its campaign, Pit Bulls: Saving America's Dog.
"The goal of our campaign is to reduce the number of pit bulls coming into shelters, increase adoptions of pit bulls from shelters, and positively affect the image of these dogs," says Best Friends campaign specialist Ed Fritz.
Now the campaign has launched a new page on the Best Friends Network (network.bestfriends.org/campaigns/pitbulls) where people can find out more about these wonderful dogs and how to help them. The page is designed for the pit bull enthusiast and novice alike, says Amber Ayers, Best Friends' campaign marketing manager.
"We hope it will be a good information resource for people who care about pit bulls and know of their struggles and want to help them," Ayers says. "We also hope it will change the misperceptions some people might have about pit bulls." The campaign page has lots of valuable information about pit bulls and the challenges they face, as well as tips and resources to help you get involved in saving these dogs.
When it comes to saving America's dog, Best Friends is on the front lines, working with local officials to help them adopt ordinances that protect their communities from irresponsible owners and dangerous dogs (of any breed) instead of enacting breed bans.
In Chicago, Best Friends collaborates with Safe Humane Chicago, an unprecedented community-wide alliance dedicated to combating violence by promoting compassion for animals and people. And Best Friends is working with local community groups and elected officials across the country to see that dogfighting operations are reported and broken up, and that their participants are prosecuted. You can read more about these efforts on the Saving America's Dog page or on the Best Friends website at www.bestfriends.org.
First Home Forever Home
Stepping Up to the Pet-Food Plate
By Sandy Miller
Every community has homeless pets, and there are more of them in these tough times. "The economy has really done a lot of damage," says Ellen Gilmore, campaign specialist for Best Friends' First Home Forever Home campaign. "We're hearing from groups across the country that the relinquishment rate has increased. Some people are even going hungry to feed their animals."
To help keep pets from going hungry, First Home Forever Home, one of four Best Friends campaigns aimed at reaching the goal of No More Homeless Pets, launched its Four-Legged Food Drive in early July.
It's very much a grassroots effort, involving Best Friends No More Homeless Pets volunteers in almost a dozen cities across the nation. No More Homeless Pets teams are at work in cities in Florida, Nevada, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Washington.
"There's a great need out there, which is why this project was born," Gilmore says. "A lot of people are struggling financially, and one way to help them is to help them feed their pets. We want to support the food pantry work that's already happening in communities."
These volunteers know their own communities better than anyone, and they're stepping up to the plate to collect pet food for local food banks to distribute to families in need. "The volunteers are just amazing," Gilmore says. "They're bringing to the project a great deal of energy. The logistics of the project would not be possible without them."
Jackie Roach of Omaha, Nebraska, is one of these dedicated volunteers. She and her fellow volunteers collected pet food for the Omaha Food Bank. Her goal is to collect 4,000 pounds of dog food this summer for struggling families in Omaha.
Sherry Johnson of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is also committed to the food drive. With the help of other volunteers, including members of the local high-school football team, Johnson collected pet food at tables in front of local stores for Ellie's Pet Pantry, a local pet-food bank at the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society. People who have lost their jobs can go to Ellie's Pet Pantry and get food for their pets. Ellie's Pet Pantry also distributes pet food to local food banks.
Why did Johnson decide to get involved? "I want to help keep pets in their homes, with the families that love them," Johnson says. "If it keeps one family pet out of a shelter, I will consider this a success."
Focus on Felines
City in Utah Supports Community Cats
By Kris Neal
Letters sent to the mayor and city council of St. George, Utah, have paid off for community (a.k.a. feral) cats. Located 80 miles west of Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, St. George has a population of about 84,000 people, and is a fast-growing city.
The grassroots campaign inspired the city council to take another look at how money is spent when it comes to controlling the homeless cat population. The council decided to support trap/neuter/return (TNR), allocating $3,200 for that purpose in the 2009-10 budget.
Over the past two years, animal welfare groups, including Best Friends and No More Homeless Pets in Utah, have approached the St. George city council, asking them to consider TNR, a more effective and humane method of controlling stray cat populations. Many communities simply trap and kill free-roaming cats, which is not only ineffective but also costly. Now, the funds that were used to euthanize community cats will be used to trap and sterilize them, and then return them to their colonies.
Puppies Aren't Products
Amazing Margarita Wins Hearts at Best Friends
By Cathy Scott
Now that a small Chihuahua named Margarita - whose life was once spent having babies - is at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, she has just one thing on her mind, and that's spending time with people. She can't get enough of them: She wiggles, she waggles, she flirts, she bats her eyes, she stares, all in the hope that someone will notice her.
Margarita, along with 29 other small dogs, arrived at the sanctuary in May from Missouri puppy farms as part of a joint rescue effort between Best Friends and Colorado-based National Mill Dog Rescue.
On top of giving them much-needed medical treatment, Best Friends caregivers and trainers are helping the former mill dogs put their awful past behind them. One trainer, Whitney Jones, recently took Margarita into her office so she could spend a morning with her. While Margarita enjoyed the attention from people, Jones says, she was unimpressed with Simone, a Chihuahua/dachshund mix foster dog who tried her best to play with Margarita. "It was pretty funny, though, because she just kept rubbing against me and trying to lick me, but Simone kept trying to get her to play," Jones says.
Margarita let Simone know, using the best lip curl and growly barks she could muster, that she was not in the least bit interested. Still, Jones notes, "Margarita's tail didn't stop wagging the whole time she was in the office."
Caregiver Skip Hagerty has also been working one-on-one with Margarita, coaxing her to walk on a leash. It's all new to the former puppy-mill dog, who has gone from living in a cramped cage to romping about in a large indoor run and an outside play area. The medical care, training and TLC will help prepare Margarita for making the transition to life in a forever home.
Interested in adopting Margarita or another dog from Best Friends? Please e-mail dogadoptions@bestfriends.org.
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