You’ve seen all the pictures of the dogs in distress, the cute puppies, the kitties, the little fur-balls.
They all have one thing in common – THEY NEED YOU! – NOW!

young orphans often starve or freeze to death because of lack of care

First, let’s look at the various shelters and rescues and the differences between them.
Let’s start with the worst of the worst:

The municipal shelter

a.k.a. animal care & control, the pound, animal services.

This is the shelter run by your county officials. Usually by the police department, sometimes by its own department, that reports to the city’s board of commissioners. If you the animals are lucky, the city has a humane commission, which works together with shelter and city officials to make recommendations on funding, changes to guarantee the welfare of the animals housed there.

The reality in the US is that most city shelters are underfunded, understaffed and overwhelmed with animals. During puppy and kitten season cages fill quickly to and above capacity just over one weekend. Adoptions are chronically low as these so-called shelters are often not very conveniently located, nor are their visitor hours designed to draw the public in. Some shelters don’t even bother opening on weekends or have very limited hours.

corpse of a euthanized dog

Some shelters are so bad, they have an over 90 % (that’s NINETY PERCENT) kill rate of perfectly healthy animals. Their crime? They were born. Bred by people who wanted their children to see the miracle of birth (I’d like to take them into a euthanasia room to witness momma cat and kittens being murdered), thrown away because the owners moved, are suddenly allergic, the animal is too old, too ugly, too fat, doesn’t match the boyfriend, oh yeah, my favorite – a baby is on the way (so the fur baby get’s the boot). All common reasons animals end up on death row.
Still want to volunteer?

I beg you to.

Why?

Because these are the animals that need you the most.
They need YOU to care!!!

They only have you! Staff doesn’t have time to take pictures, write cute bios, CUDDLE?!?!
So, here’s what you can do at a high kill shelter:
Apply as a volunteer if they do not have a program, think about how you and a couple of friends could get one off the ground. It’s easier than you might think.
Manpower:

• dog walkers,
• photographers,
• foster volunteers,
• dog trainers,
• transporters,
• screeners, adoption counselors,
• organize a mobile outreach program with your local pet food store or at a mall

If you can’t physically volunteer think about administrative help,

• web design & support,
• manage the Petfinder account for the shelter.
• Write some nice bios for the animals.
• grant writers,
• event planners,
• fund-raising

Donations:
See what your particular shelter needs most. Talk to other volunteers or staff.
Often it’s bedding, paper.
The dogs often sleep on concrete floors with no bedding at all. It’s too expensive to maintain to clean.
There are beds that are easy to spray and clean with disinfectants that are off the floor and give the dog a little comfort.
The noise level at these places is another issue. If someone can come up with a design that is economical yet somewhat sound buffering, these places wouldn’t be so incredible stressful for the animals.

Local animal rescues and small shelters:
There are so many small rescues that are pulling death row animals from the municipal shelters and are trying their hardest to find them new homes.
They are in dire need of
foster homes (long and short term) especially for little kittens under 3-4 weeks that need to be bottle fed!!
transport,
outreach volunteers (just a few hours every other weekend to present the animals to the public and help adopt them and recruit new volunteers) It’s a truly rewarding fun activity on weekends.
I personally did this for 3 years every single weekend, on top of rescuing, fostering and volunteer coordination and my paying job

Virtual shelters/rescues such as Let’s Adopt!

We are a new phenomena thanks to social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Our networks stretch across the globe with growing outlets in the US, Canada, France, Germany and Austria, Bulgaria, Japan, Thailand, Turkey and more to come.
We need volunteers in each country, Especially foster homes in Turkey, Germany, Austria and France, but also in the US and Canada for you our local rescues.
We also need volunteers to help us transport adopted animals via airplane. There’s no cost involved for the volunteer and all the paperwork is handled by Let’s Adopt!
Let’s Adopt! is a 100% volunteer run organization and we pay for everything out of pocket, with no public funding and no adoption fees, we rely on our volunteer force and contributors to help us make each adoption a success. Most of Let’s Adopt!’s rescues are special needs animals which came from the streets, abusive situations, have been brutalized by humans, often with horrendous injuries.
We are determined to save those and give them a new lease on life with the best home out there.
Adopting one of our animals is not mercy – it’s a privilege.
If you’re interested in fostering for us. Please find the network closest to your location on the right side of this page and contact the administrator. If you’re in the US, send me an e-mail to misha@myletsadopt.com.
You can also support our work from far away by contributing to our Simba Fund. All proceeds fund the care of our special needs animals.

Larger shelters such as the SPCA / Humane Society

are usually already well off with volunteers and donations.
I must say that I have a love/hate relationship with them for various reasons.
They present themselves as no-kill but in 99% of all shelters are not!
It is a big number game with these organizations.
You are NOT a no-kill shelter when you have a selected variety of animals you accept and those you won’t.
The ones they won’t accept are as follows:
kittens under the age of 3-4 weeks, considered bottle feeders. They will either be denied or accepted and euthanized.
kittens that have a simple cold (URI), same fate as bottle feeders.
SPCA and the Humane Society are often very selective IF they are pulling any animals from the municipal “shelters”.

yorkshire terrier preparing to search for prey..

No “aggressive breeds” like Yorkshire terriers or Chihuahuas …just kidding - those they will take because there’s a market for toy breeds, but pit bulls or rottweilers, no matter how sweet and well behaved…not so much.
That’s my beef with them, and if you work, volunteer for one of them, good for you. They need you. Just ask your shelter director why there’s no neonatal program in place when there are very responsible and knowledgeable volunteers available. Why are we shipping in loads of chihuahua pups from a puppy mill in the Midwest (with all the media outlets waiting for the trucks to pull in to the parking lot), when there are chihuahuas sitting in the local shelter?
Could it be that those “fresh” puppy mill dogs will bring in between $200 and $300 a pop?

puppy mill dogs are still big profit - even after they've been rescued

If you still would like to volunteer for such an organization check your local resources for the nearest SPCA/HS.

Those little rescues I mentioned earlier are the true no-kill warriors out there that do the deed for the shelters.
HSUS and SPCA are notorious for sucking the small donor pool dry with their ability of pumping hundreds of thousands of $$ of YOUR donations into marketing efforts.

Thanks for caring, and please don’t hesitate to sign up as a volunteer.

If you start for one shelter or rescue and you don’t feel comfortable, try another. It’s completely normal. Animal rescue is not a “one size fits all” sort of thing.
I have been a volunteer, director, kitten wrangler, mentor for over 16 years and with all the ups and downs wouldn’t want to miss any of my experiences, the friends I’ve made along the way and the many, many souls I encountered, that repaid me with purrs and kisses.

Little foster Meg White gives kiiiiiisses

Priceless….

BE The Change

~Misha

Dear Tribe Members of the Let’s Adopt!USA Family.

First of, I want to thank all of our members for your continuous support in growing our FaceBook Network, and helping us connecting more volunteers and activists in the US.
I’d also like to take the opportunity to welcome all new members who have joined us over the past couple of weeks.
We could not do our important work without you.

Our tribe is growing daily.

As we are approaching the “Thousand Member Mark”, I realized that many of you don’t know each other (yet)…other than that we obviously share a love for animals, have compassion for the voiceless and want change… Drastic change.

So, this week I want to invite you to visit our

Let’s Adopt! USA FaceBook Photo Album

and post a picture of you and your pet(s).

post a picture of you and your rescue to our facebook group

It’s as easy as 1 – 2 – 3:

• Go to: Let’s Adopt! USA Group Photo Album

• Add your/pet’s name AND general location (state/metro area)  as captions.
• Post the image.
• In the comment section: Post a short story about how you met, and your life was changed.

DONE …

rescuing another being is a life-changing experience.

Add a quick note about what you have to offer to Let’s Adopt! USA in your capacity as a volunteer or activist, and what you would like to see changing in YOUR OWN COMMUNITY.
If you prefer you can also send me an e-mail to misha@myletsadopt.com

We can’t wait to see all your beautiful faces and read about your connections.

companions for life

Finally, please take a moment to add yourself to our regional networks in the LET’S ADOPT! USA group’s discussion section.

This will help us contact volunteers quickly when we need local foster volunteers, organizing transports/rescue or for local action alerts.
This will only take a few moments of your time - imagine how many lives we can AND WILL save together.

Thank you again for standing up for what is right.

We have a lot of work to do.

BE The Change…

Misha Dee
misha@myletsadopt.com

Let’s Adopt! USA
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=205025950458

Give Our Angels Wings:
http://bethechange.chipin.com/simbas-fund

Put Yourself On The Map :
http://bit.ly/LetsAdopt-Network-Map

I stopped by a pet supply store the other day to fit “Ouzo” for a harness.

As we were browsing the store, tackling all the junk food barrels, which are strategically placed on snout level….all over sudden, in an otherwise fairly quiet store, a  big ruckus errupted…

..“ohhhhh” and “aaaah” *pupppppy!!!!…

Not just a puppy – it was a purebred chocolate Labrador Retriever pup, fresh from the breeder.

I just stood there for a moment, in disbelief – numb – thinking of all the cute puppies that were being murdered today in death camps around the country.
And here was this guy standing in front of me…beaming like a young father holding his first born.

We made eye contact – he smiled – waiting for me to chime into the “ohhhh & aaaahhhh” choir.

Instead I asked him: “Did you get him from a breeder?”

He blushed, looked at me like a young boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar…. “yeeeaah”

I just rolled my eyes, turned around and walked away with my GORGEOUS, PERFECT THREE-LEGGED UNIQUE Chilean Lava Hound.…..

It would have been pointless trying to educate him about the importance of spaying and neutering, why we should adopt and not buy from breeders..

he KNEW…and did it anyway.

That evening, I went online to check out Petfinder, and there are over 1000 chocolate labs waiting for a home RIGHT NOW…..

Granted, not all of them are purebred labs, but the point is that there are rescues for every single breed out there, and that each and everyone of us has a responsibility to stop this insanity of breeding pets for profit. It begins with the hamster for your kids, the cute little baby bunnies you give your children on Easter and to the shelter by Whitsun.

BE The Change…

~Misha & Ouzo

At the end of this brief post there is a link to a video. It is extremely thought provoking and I want you to watch it.

But first reflect on these wrong propositions.

A wrong proposition:   Humans own animals as property.

Companion animals are much more than that. They are a part of your family, they are a part of your life. Their value is not measured by cash. Society needs to rethink its stance as a whole.

A wrong proposition: You make a mistake, your animal pays for it. (pounded, killed).

You make a mistake, it is you who should pay. It is never the animal, it is the human, who makes things go wrong. The payment should be in proportion to the crime.

Letting your dog run without a muzzle CANNOT constitute a crime.

Wrong proposition: Breed Specific Legislation

A dog cannot be executed based on his looks. Breed Specific Legislation is a monstrosity and needs to be fought by all.

Your dog is right now at the merci of whomever decides to report him based purely on the way he looks. This leads to absurdities like the case of Rambo and Brittany.

A wrong proposition: If there is a law, even if unjust, we must obey.

If there is an unjust law, we must fight to change it. We must fight not only for ourselves but for those who follow, for those who might suffer, for those who believe in us.

And now pls watch this video because this is the very basic proposition we are trying to change.

It is time for Brindi to go home and to be reunited with her owner, Francesca Rogier.

If you are in Canada please CALL Mayor Peter J. Kelly, Mayor of Halifax on ph: 902-490-4010 and tell him that Brindi must be spared AND returned to her owner.

If you are abroad please email kellyp@halifax.ca and express the same… We have 7 days.…

For Brindi

For the Animals

Viktor Larkhill

Let’s Adopt!

to follow Let’s Adopt!’s entire Brindi campaign – visit our Canadian blog

BE The Change!

~Misha

from our Canadian blog

The Words Of A Child…. Day Three Of Our Campaign

..

On September 26, 2008 a four year old girl, Brianna Clark wrote a letter to Mayor Kelly, the Mayor of Halifax.

It was a candid and compassionate plea like only a kid could produce, asking Mr. Kelly to spare the life of a dog, Brindi, and to return that dog to her desperately worried owner, Francesca Rogier.

a plea from a Briana to mayor Kelly

Mr. Kelly received the letter by fax. His secretary must have placed it quite visibly on his desk. We don’t know what went through Mr. Kelly’s mind, but the letter was promptly trashed and ignored.

Being an adult is not only about making money, buying a house having nice clothes and sending your children to expensive house. Being a role model is about doing what is best to the community. Is about being the kind of person your children will forever be proud of.

Being an adult means carrying great responsibility in your shoulders.

It is the responsibility of leaving a legacy behind you as well as leaving a better world for those who will follow you.

When we look at the world we see how unjust and indiscriminately cruel it can be, as good people, our one and only aim is to change everything for better.

Mr Kelly and all those involved in this case, the SPCA, the “experts” and the general public should think about the kind of example we are all setting for the Halifax community, for the young people, the children in this town and the youth in other cities around Canada. Mr. Kelly should think about the impact of his stance on people like little Brianna Clark or his own two sons, Craig and Blake.

We want our children to live in an innocent world.
We want our children to believe in us.
We want our children to believe in justice and truth and goodness

We would like Mr. Kelly to think about this about this before closing his eyes at night, to think about this when he first opens his eyes in the morning.

We fight for a dog. We fight for our children and a better world for them.

Please CALL Mayor Peter J. Kelly, Mayor of Halifax on

ph: +902-490-4010 or if you are abroad please email kellyp@halifax.ca and express your deepest inner feelings regarding this case.We have 12 days…For the Animals…
For Brindi…

Viktor Larkhill

————————————————————

Please don’t forget to express your concerns on our blogs as well. Best is to comment on the Canadian blog, but we welcome your thoughts here as well.

Please don’t delay – we need your help to free this poor dog from death row.

BE The Change

~Misha

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12 Days Left To Save Brindi

Today’s entry about Brindi has been posted on our Canadian Sister Network.

http://canada.myletsadopt.com/2010/02/26/day-2-something-is-clearly-wrong-with-halifax/

Please don’t forget to comment, repost, share, tweet and most importantly contact Mayor Peter Kelly IMMEDIATELY.

If you have already done so, and not received a response (other than the bot-mails), write him again…every day…

Better yet – call his offices.

Phone: +902-490-4010

email: kellyp@halifax.ca

This is about saving Brindi’s life, bringing  justice to a case riddled with personal agendas against Brindi’s Mom, Francesca.

Let’s bring Brindi home – NOW!!

Be The Change…