Who doesn’t love llamas?

Meet Waylon

Waylon is a senior male llama living in Utah. There isn’t much information about him on his Petfinder page, but apparently he likes to hum, and enjoys being sung to! If you have the room, could you give this gentleman a loving home?

Contact Info:
Fullmer Menagerie Animal Rescue, Salina, UT
435-529-1307
fullmermenagerieanimalrescue@yahoo.com

Meet Waylon

Texture from Bittbox.

To find out more about Waylon, check out his Petfinder page.

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Chelsea Conlin is a freelance illustrator, but if she can help spread the word about animals in need with her skills, she’s more than happy to do so! She currently lives in Kentucky with her husband where they do what they can by driving dog rescue transports on weekends. They have two dogs of their own: a rescue greyhound named Storm and a mixed breed named Azu. You can find Chelsea at Paper Nautilus, her sketchblog, twitter, and deviantArt.

Filed under: Art, Projects, Shelter Sketches on April 30th, 2011 | No Comments »

Okay, I’m blaming this little dog for any cavities I get in the near future. She’s just that sweet.

As an aside, this is our 52nd Shelter Sketch, and tomorrow will be one year since the very first post! Happy birthday Shelter Sketches!

Meet Maggie

Maggie is a female shepherd mix who is about five months old. She’s currently being fostered in a home in Canton, Ohio. The family rescued her from an abusive home and intended to adopt her, but their dog didn’t agree with the new living arrangements. They are desperately looking for an awesome home for this energetic, friendly little girl.

Maggie loves all dogs and people – even children! She is crate trained (but likes to have a radio on so she doesn’t feel so lonely), house-trained, and very playful. She loves walks, but is quite strong so needs to be walked by an adult. Being a high-energy dog she would do great in an active household where she could do agility training or be someone’s running buddy. Maggie is current up-to-date on vaccinations including rabies and bordatella, on heart worm and flea preventative, and will be spayed on May 4.

A home visit required for adoption.

Contact Info:
Lynn Serri
330-418-8976
mollyandchance@aol.com

Meet Maggie

Texture from Wojtar-stock.

To find out more about Maggie, check out her Petfinder page.

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Chelsea Conlin is a freelance illustrator, but if she can help spread the word about animals in need with her skills, she’s more than happy to do so! She currently lives in Kentucky with her husband where they do what they can by driving dog rescue transports on weekends. They have two dogs of their own: a rescue greyhound named Storm and a mixed breed named Azu. You can find Chelsea at Paper Nautilus, her sketchblog, twitter, and deviantArt.

Filed under: Animals in Need, Art, Shelter Sketches on April 23rd, 2011 | 1 Comment »

This week’s Shelter Sketch is once again brought to you by illustrator Char Reed!

Meet Andy

Andy is one of a group of Australian Cattle Dog puppies who is looking for a loving home. He’s around two months old and will grow to be about forty pounds. Andy has a wonderful personality and will keep you laughing all day. He is up-to-date on shots but, being a puppy, will need to be house-trained.

Contact Info:
Fur Baby, Los Angeles, CA
213-840-0153
dawn@furbabyforyou.com

Meet Andy

To find out more about Andy, check out his Petfinder page.

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Char Reed is an illustrator and pet caricaturist. She lives in a full household with two rescue dogs, Sierry and Kahlua, and one Keeshond, Sabrina as well as one cat, Snickers. She currently resides in North Carolina, but as a nomad, is planning on moving to Norway again soon, though the UK or Australia are also possibilities. You can find more about Char and her art at her Pet Caricature website, her portfolio, and her blog.

Filed under: Animals in Need, Art, Shelter Sketches on April 17th, 2011 | No Comments »

Happy Blog the Change Day everyone! There are some great causes today and I love reading about what matters most to my fellow pet bloggers. While there are tons of global causes super worthy of support, I’d like to bring the focus of this post more local. And not just local, but to the smallest of the local rescue & animal welfare groups.

There are so many animal groups out there that it can be hard to decide who to support, either with volunteer hours, money or both. I tend to be very locally oriented with my personal support. Obviously we care about animal welfare worldwide, but I tend to donate to my local rescues more than I do the giant corporation-like organizations. They do amazing work but I feel that the money I can afford to donate will go a lot further with small rescues. Every penny counts with these groups – it’s used to get the simplest things: towels, pet beds, toys, bowls, food, litter. Every little bit matters.

Central Texas Feline Rescue

I’ve seen this firsthand in my work with Central Texas Feline Rescue. We are a tiny group with no budget whatsoever that manages to feed over 200 ferals a day and trap-neuter-return (TNR) roughly 300 cats per year. Almost everything comes from our pockets, most of all from the founder. We are lucky to make $1500 at a fundraiser that takes months to plan. When we make that much it’s gone almost immediately, helping to buy a literal ton of cat food which only lasts a couple months. It’s hard and anything we get is so appreciated. Compare that to another local group that has a budget of something around 1.5 million dollars per year. You read that right! And that’s nothing compared to the huge organizations. Donations to them are important, obviously, and with that larger budget comes the ability to impact a greater number of animals lives. I am not against the big groups here – far from it. But for those of us who can only spare a few dollars here and there, it would be a larger comparative impact for the small group rather than the large one.

Hardships of Small Groups

It’s hard to be a small group. No one even knows you’re there. When every single volunteer spends every free second feeding & trapping & fostering & transporting, there’s no time for PR. There’s no time to put together huge fundraisers. There’s no time to even find more volunteers so each one has a lighter load! Besides that, even when you do look for volunteers, people would rather volunteer for or donate to a group that has more “face-value”, if you will. They want people to know what group they’re talking about when they tell people that’s who they’re helping. When you have a small group, it’s impossible to compete in contests to win money or donations of other kinds because there aren’t enough people to vote for you. It’s a numbers game and it keeps the small groups small.

Obviously all groups had to start with an idea and likely a tiny base of people. Some beat the odds and manage to make it to a well-established, well-known group. Good for them! That truly is fantastic! But for each one of them there are dozens of small groups who, despite a smaller reach, are still making important impacts in the lives of animals.

The Starfish Effect

We stand firmly behind our philosophy of The Starfish Effect: that every single act matters. No matter how small the group is, if they are working to help animals, then they are making a positive impact in the world. And that is why we have chosen to blog about their importance for today’s Be the Change post.

So what can you do? Go out and help! Find out what local groups in your area need the most help and whether it’s through a monetary donation or one of time, you can support them. Even the smallest rescue can make a big difference to one animal.

Filed under: Be The Change, Causes, Opinion Article on April 15th, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Our awesome friend Toki is at it again! This time, this cute Boston Terrier pup is wrangling up some wascally wabbits to help bring smiles to the kids at Children’s Hospitals nationwide. And of course, I Love Rescue Animals wants to help support Toki Poki as much as we can, so we went searching high and low for a wabbit of our own.

We succeeded. Kinda.

Well. We think he makes a good wabbit. Good job, Snarf.

The Contest & Cards

Toki Poki is running the Wuvable Wabbit Contest until midnight tomorrow. What’s the contest all about? It’s all in support of the Toki Poki Bunny Hop – another fantastic card collection pack brought to you by our favorite pet trading cards with a purpose! These collection packs will be sent to Children’s Hospitals across the nation and you could get a chance to have your favorite wuvable wabbit included in the pack by submitting a picture by tomorrow at midnight!

Yep. Tomorrow. Midnight. Deadline: April 13, 2011, 11:59pm. GO!

If you don’t get a chance to submit a picture, you can still take part by voting for your favorite picture on the Toki Poki Facebook Gallery (you can find more instructions there). The top 10 voted pictures will end up being the cards for the new Wuvable Wabbit collection pack! How awesome is that?

It’s pretty awesome.

So what are you waiting for? Go check out the Wuvable Wabbit Contest Page on Toki Poki and help make kids (and wabbits) smile!

Filed under: Causes, Contests, Partners on April 12th, 2011 | 1 Comment »