Skechers’ Post

New episode today! Join us for an enlightening episode of Starlight Pet Talk as we shine a spotlight on the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter in Georgetown, Texas. In this episode, we sit down with Community Programs Coordinator April Pfeiffer, to discuss the challenges and triumphs encountered by this shelter. April discusses the pivotal role of fostering, volunteering, and donating in supporting the shelter's mission. By fostering animals, volunteering time, or contributing financially, individuals can directly impact the lives of animals in need and bolster the shelter's efforts. Key Takeaways - WCRAS faces challenges due to the high number of animals they care for, but they have various programs in place to find homes for these animals. - Fostering, volunteering, and donating are important ways to support the shelter's work and help animals in need. - The shelter emphasizes the importance of finding the right match for each animal and provides resources and support to adopters and fosters. Shoutouts in this episode: Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter Rehome by Adoptapet.com

I came across this eye-opening article from the Los Angeles Times highlighting the current overflow of animal shelters in LA. And the same situation is impacting shelters across the US and elsewhere. The situation is dire, with an increasing number of abandoned pets in need of a loving home. Our mission at Woof is to give every pet a digital id. The reason for this is that data is a valuable element to ensure responsible pet adoption, active pet care and effective support to our local shelters. It's disheartening to see the challenges our local shelters are facing, but it's also a call to action for our community to come together and make a positive impact. 🌟 How You Can Help: 1️⃣ Adopt, Don't Shop: Consider adopting a pet from a shelter. Your decision could change lives (yours and your pet's) forever. 2️⃣ Spread Awareness: Share this article to raise awareness about the issue. Knowledge is the first step towards change. 3️⃣ Volunteer or Donate: Shelters often need support. Whether it's your time or a small contribution, every bit helps. Let's work together to ensure that every pet has a chance for a happy and loving home. 🐶🐱 Let's make a difference! 💙 https://lnkd.in/d-f3xuQZ #AnimalWelfare #LAShelters #AdoptDontShop #CommunityImpact

It’s a time of giving and good cheer. This sentiment extends to all beings on the earth including the approximately 7.6 million companion animals that enter and reside in shelters in the United States annually. Happy National Santa Paws Season! National Santa Paws season extends from December 1 through December 24 annually. It is the period dedicated to take time to focus our attention on shelter animals. This day was founded in 2001 in Long Beach, CA by Justin Rudd an animal rights activist. Justin hosts many road races and events to raise funds to support shelters and the animals they serve throughout the year. Here are some suggestions as to how you can support your local animal shelter: Drop off towels and blankets that you no longer use to the shelter for reuse and repurposing. Make a cash contribution, no amount is too small. Donations of the following are always welcome at most shelters, however, call the one you are intending to donate to check with them specifically: Pet beds, unopened pet food, leashes, crates and carriers, collars, pet toys, and cleaning supplies. If you can open your home up to foster a pet until it can be adopted. This allows the pet to be in a home environment, reduces their anxiety of being at the shelter, and opens up a spot at the shelter for another displaced animal. And you just might fall in love and adopt the foster as a forever pet. The ultimate gift to a shelter animal is if you are ready for a long-term commitment and want unconditional love, you may want to think seriously about whether you have the ability to adopt a pet and provide a forever home for them. Remember this is a lifetime commitment and NOT just a holiday gift to be discarded after the holidays are over. For the legal stuff, donations to animal shelters are considered charitable contributions and can reduce your personal income tax. You may deduct the fair market value of the donations. Speak to any CPA, such as Jason Moi or Helen Tang CPA, CGMA to learn more about this. Here’s a photo of my shelter pet. By the way he is a pup in the terrible twos stage. One would find it hard to believe how much mischief he can get into by looking at this peaceful photo of him taking a snooze. I want to see photos of your pets, please share them below. Happy Friday! PC: Jennie T #employmentlaw #smallbusiness #simplygoodlaw #workplace #kindness #pets

I don't know if he made it home safe, and I'm not proud of it. Here's the story... I went for a walk yesterday and this loose doggo came racing up to me. He's big, young, fast, very social. I greeted him, gave him scritches, and looked for a collar/tag. Nothing. He trotted alongside me for the rest of my walk. I thought about bringing him inside my Airstream, but I have one room, three pets (considering safety). So I checked for county animal control, and what I found is pretty sad: ➡ Families go in to adopt, and leave without pets- staff prioritizes other animal control issues over adoptions. "come back another day" ➡ Good Samaritans bring animals in to get treated like an inconvenience, liar, or get ignored entirely when they call. ➡ If persistent enough to get the animal in, some found the animal was euthanized as quickly as same day or next day. Family looking for their lost pet found the same. ➡ People requesting to volunteer are ignored because staff does not have time to handle it. There's a reason we need leaders. Everyone on the team needs to know the objective they're driving towards. What's the purpose of this shelter? I'm sure the teams are inundated, very stressed out. But a couple key changes to prioritize staffing on volunteer coordination would open up throughput to push into adoption efforts, which could relieve the workflow and save lives. Volunteers could also free up time for staff to coordinate fostering (if space issues). Or even time to coordinate a charity drive (if funding issues). But they are too busy, so they avoid volunteers and adoptions entirely. Throughput simplified to "In --> dead". It's a tragedy. I recognize there are limitations - only so many kennels available, and queing/throughput is more complex than it appears. But I also know for sure if no efforts are made to adopt, no lives can be saved. These outcomes are a result of the org's leadership. Period. I didn't bring my wandering buddy to this shelter, because that would be a death sentence. Instead, I led him to roam further away from the busy streets. Hopefully he found his way back home, but I don't know since I did not catch him. I didn't make a perfect decision. We are imperfect. Things are not binary. But at least it was facing the right direction. If you are a leader, I encourage you to take moment to reflect on your work: ➡ What is your team's core objective? ➡ Does everyone know it? ➡ When taking an action in daily work: does it improve chances of achieving the objective, or impede us? Sounds obvious, but only if we're focused on the same objective. I applied this pressure test to my role today and made a process change! Short term choices may contribute to the wrong objective. We're good as long as we: (1) Know what the work is for. 🐕 (2) Filter actions towards the team's objective. (3) Focus on bottlenecks in throughput. (4) 🏆 ⭐ ❤️ 💲 Comment. Reshare. Love eachother. I hope this good boi found his human.

CELEBRATE 'CHANGE A DOG'S LIFE' DAY WITH VOSD 'Change a Dog's Life Day' is celebrated on January 24th each year. The idea is to take positive actions to improve the lives of dogs around us. This year we at VOSD are marking the day with much enthusiasm, if you would also like to join us in our initiative then we have the following suggestions for you to celebrate 'Change a dog's life day'. 1. Consider adopting a stray dog or a dog from a shelter or rescue organization. If you can't make a long-term commitment, fostering is a great way to provide temporary care for a dog in need. 2. Spend your day volunteering at a local animal shelter. Offer your time to walk dogs, play with them, and help with daily care routines. Shelters often appreciate assistance in various capacities. 3. Donate supplies, money, or your time to a rescue organization dedicated to improving the lives of dogs. Your contribution can make a significant difference. You can help 1500 dogs living on VOSD sanctuary grounds by donating here https://lnkd.in/gtbMxZ9 4. Get the stray dogs in your locality vaccinated or take them for a veterinary check-up.  5. Prepare special homemade treats or meals for stray dogs in your area. 6. Spend time talking to the dogs and playing with them.  7. If possible, get a stray dog sterilized with the help of a good NGO. Remember, every day can be an opportunity to improve a dog's life. Whether it's a special day or just a regular one, the love and care you provide contributes to your furry friends’ happiness and well-being. VOSD is India's largest non-profit organisation for dogs. Over 30,000 dogs have been rescued by us over a decade and we admit 300-400 dogs to the VOSD Sanctuary & Hospital annually. VOSD provides the most sophisticated and expensive medical care and rehabilitation services at no cost for stray dogs and abandoned pet dogs. VOSD is a dog's best friend. To know more about us and support our work, visit: https://vosd.in

We do a lot in the United States to help pets in peril. If you've welcome a rescue dog or cat into your life -- as millions of Americans have done in the past decade -- your own actions are a case in point. But do we somehow end up overlooking the challenges of less-fortunate pet owners themselves? One of America's largest animal-welfare philanthropies, Maddie's Fund, has been thinking a lot lately about the animal-companion bond. Editor-at-Large George Anders takes you inside a big strategic shift that Maddie's Fund has made in the past six years, addressing the high cost of pet care -- and the ways that unstable housing arrangements can put pet owners in jeopardy. https://bit.ly/4cToILU SPCA; The Humane Society of the United States

Finding new ways to help elders age within their own homes is important. It's also important to remember that many of these elders have beloved animal companions. In most cases, it's best if we can find ways to keep them together. Organizations like ElderDog Canada are finding really wonderful solutions to this issue. Volunteers take on regular animal care for these elders, which prevents the pets from being rehomed. In cases where the elder may need to go into care and family may not be able to take the pet, there is already a network ready and willing to help out by fostering and rehoming the animal. It is far different work from traditional animal rescue or adoption, but it's incredibly important. I firmly believe that finding ways to keep pets and people together, instead of surrender being the first and only option, is the future of companion animal 'rescue'.

🐶Adopting a Pet? Here's What You Need to Know!🐱 Bringing home a furry friend is exciting, but requires preparation! 📝 🏡 Choose a pet that fits your lifestyle and home. Dogs need more space, while cats are lower maintenance. 🔍 Search online for local animal shelters and visit in person to meet potential pets. Volunteering is a great way to interact with them first! 🛏️ Pet-proof your space with essentials like beds, food, toys. Set up a Pet Profile on @neighbors for extra security. ⏰ Work with shelters to determine the right routine for feedings, sleep, and socialization through training classes or dog parks. 🐰 Introducing multiple pets? Take it slow and get professional help if needed. At Ring, we're pet lovers too! Our products like Video Monitoring and Two-Way Talk let you stay connected to your fur baby. Share your cute pet clips with us at submissionsring.com. Get ready for unconditional love from your new rescue! 💞 #AdoptDontShop #RescuePet #PetAdoption #AnimalShelter #FurryFriend #PetPreparation #PetProofing #PetRoutine #PetSocialization #RingPets

Bentley Goes Home Following up on a story I posted several weeks back about a day I spent with Bentley, a mellow seven-year-old Australian cattle dog who had been at San Diego Humane Society for several months awaiting someone who would give him his chance at happiness. Happy to report that Bentley finally found his forever home. He was recently adopted and is now onto his new life-changing adventures, so well-deserved. Posting this to express my heartfelt happiness for Bentley and to bring to the attention of dog lovers two things to know. First, the extreme crisis of overcrowding in area animal shelters continues. There are thousands of dogs in area shelters in need of fostering or adoption. As our Project Dog Foster ad campaign pointed out earlier this year, fostering a dog – for any length of time – is a really easy way that you as a dog lover can help alleviate the crisis of shelter overcrowding and provide a needed break from kennel stress for dogs lucky enough to find a foster home. I encourage you to learn more about fostering programs available at all area animal shelters. It’s a relatively easy way to help out. And second, I want to call attention to the really cool SDHS Dog Day Out program, where interested people can get paired with a dog and spend an entire afternoon adventuring on their own. The program gets the dog out of the shelter for a needed break and is an easy way for anyone who loves dogs to help ease shelter overcrowding, if just for an afternoon. The Dog Day Out experiences I had with Bentley allowed me to see what just one day away from the shelter does for a dog’s outlook and disposition. And what the experience does for anyone who loves dogs.  (You can read about my Bentley experience here: https://lnkd.in/gK9py6dc.) Absolutely ecstatic over Bentley’s good fortune. Maybe you can create your own story with a happy ending by volunteering to foster a dog or by participating in the terrific SDHS Dog Day Out program. Please consider helping resolve a serious crisis that is affecting so many dogs in need.

West Bank Dog Rescue Update We're thrilled to update you on our collaborative rescue mission. The Kindness Ranch Animal Sanctuary is preparing to welcome 10 of the 70 dogs being rescued from the West Bank, with their arrival anticipated for the week of March 18th. These ten souls will find solace and care within the sanctuary's rolling hills and with our caring staff. This effort is part of a larger initiative, with several other sanctuaries and rescues joining hands to provide a safe haven for the remaining dogs. We are grateful to SPCA International for entrusting us with this responsibility and to our fellow organizations for their solidarity. Our focus remains steadfast on the well-being of these animals, transcending any other discourse. The plight of these dogs calls for a united front of compassion and action, not division. Support Our Rescue Mission As we gear up to provide these dogs with the care they need, we are mindful of the costs involved in such a significant undertaking. Over the next 90 days, we anticipate finding loving homes for all the dogs post their health clearance. Here's a breakdown of the estimated expenses: To ensure the best care, we have full-time live-in caretakers tending to their individual needs. Each dog will be nourished with high-quality food, we estimate over 20 bags of Purina Pro Plan Plus at $69 per bag from CHEWY. Comprehensive health checks and safe transport for these precious lives are estimated at $2,500. Your generosity can make a direct impact on the lives of these dogs. Every donation, no matter the size, contributes to their journey towards a better life. If you wish to support our mission, please consider making a donation. Together, we can ensure these dogs receive the care and love they deserve. If you feel moved to be a part of their journey to a new life, we invite you to consider adoption. For more information about these specific dogs, please contact us at [email protected]. Together, we can turn kindness into action.