If you are like me, you are a sucker for a sad face; but, please do not try to take in ALL the homeless pets you come across; because, there are better ways to help them.

Some of the ways you can help homeless pets are:

1) If you find one wandering loose; take it to the nearest shelter or contact animal control to take it there for you. Loose animals may have health problems that need to be taken care of by a vet and the shelter can quarantine them so they do not make other animals sick while they are waiting to be examined and treated. You would not want to expose your family and pets to a sick animal and the animal could LOOK healthy and still be ill.

2) Adopt an animal or two from the local shelter or rescue group IF you have the time, money, and love to properly care for the animal. Pets can be expensive to care for properly and many neglected animals are neglected due to not enough money to provide the proper care and housing for them.

3) Volunteer at the local shelter - shelters operate on a very tight budget and even if all you can do is office paper work; it is a big help to them. Shelters need people to do everything: walk and pet animals; cleaning out cages; filling out forms and tags; logging data into computers, etc.

4) Donate cash and supplies: Money is always appreciated and so are the supplies needed to care for the animals. Whether you drop off an extra bag of food, litter, blankets, or disinfectant; the shelter can use your donation.

5) Fund-raisers - every shelter has fund-raisers that you can attend, promote, and support. They can always use your assistance in their endeavors. You can also put on your own event. I know one couple that throws a big Christmas party every year and anyone who brings pet food, litter, blankets, etc. for the local shelter is welcome. The day after the party, they load everything up and take it to the shelter so the homeless pets will also have a Merry Christmas.

6) Internet - there are a lot of web sites on the Internet that will let you share links or stories that could help help homeless pets. Even if all you do is share a link to your shelter, it helps. You can also share stories about the pets you got from the shelter and encourage others to adopt homeless pets from their local shelter.

7) Sponsor a pet - in my community you can "sponsor" a specific pet from the local shelter. Your sponsorship helps promote/advertise that pet in the local paper, the local cable channel, and radio spots. This can help a homeless pet that has been in the shelter for a while find a home and once the pet is no longer available other people who check in may decide to adopt one of the other homeless pets.

8) The Animal Finder Project - this is an Internet based project that tries to help owners and lost pets get back together after a natural disaster. Tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, flooding, earthquakes, etc.; all of these happen every year and pets get separated from their owners. Getting these homeless pets back together with their original owner is the best possible solution. Here is their URL if you want more info - http://katrinahelp.info/wiki/i ndex.php/Animal_Finder_Project

As you can easily see, there are a lot of different ways you can lend a helping hand to a homeless pet.

Learn more about this author, Ginger Kazay.
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