*** Updated Tuesday, September 6, 2011

We need rain here in Texas. Badly.

That’s a picture from Big Dog Rescue’s Facebook page. They’re located in the Austin area, and their Vice President just had her house burned down and they’re looking for fosters to take in animals displaced. The Bastrop County Animal Shelter was evacuated as well and thanks to the awesome folks at Austin Pets Alive and the Austin Humane Society, all the animals were saved and they’re looking for donations and temporary fosters. You can find more detailed things they need by going to their facebook pages:

• Austin Pet’s Alive Facebook Page
• Austin Humane Society’s Facebook Page

*** Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter needs fosters ASAP! They took in 15 dogs from the Leader Fire and have run out of space. Please check out their facebook page for more updated information. If you’re a shelter/rescue/someone looking to adopt, please help them out!

If you haven’t heard, Central Texas is being hit HARD with fires right now. The biggest being the one in Bastrop that has burned up to 25,000 acres since yesterday, jumped the Colorado River twice, and has desecrated more than 300 houses. Over 5,000 people have been evacuated so far, and a mother and her 18-month-old child were killed. The winds from the recent hurricane aren’t helping. You can keep updated about the fires by checking the Austin Statesman.

We are located in east Austin and while the fires are supposedly moving away from us, we’ve still come up with our evacuation plan (packing up 20 animals is no easy feat). Standing outside in our front yard, the smell of smoke is strong. It’s scary. If we didn’t have so many fosters already, I know we’d both be at the shelter taking in animals right now. I’ll be continually nagging friends all day to make sure they’re okay.

Please send good thoughts, positive vibes, and lots of rain.

*** We will be updating our twitter account with information as we get it. Follow @RescueAnimals on Twitter!

Filed under: Animals in Need, Causes, Donations, News, Personal Stories on September 5th, 2011 | 3 Comments »

It’s baaack! Once again we are celebrating all things Dog by teaming up with the Pedigree Foundation in an effort to raise awareness about the importance of adoption.

Write a Post, Help a Dog

Every year, more than 4 million dogs end up homeless. That’s A LOT of dogs on the search for their forever homes. Shelters are filling up faster than kennels can be built and with funds being eaten up by the cost of food, few shelters are able to keep up with the demand and have to resort to capping the amount of animals they can house. And we all know what that results in.

So if we can help the shelters by supplying them with food, the money saved is going to help the shelters in other ways. Like funding the building of more space, better vet care, more time to work with dogs that need it. Pedigree understands this and that’s why they are once again joining up with bloggers to bring you the 2011 version of “Write a Post, Help a Dog” campaign. How it works is this: For each post written for the “Write a Post, Help a Dog” campaign, the Pedigree Foundation will donate 20 pounds of their new dry Pedigree food for dogs to shelters. And they are going to give up to 10,000 pounds of food! That’s a whole lot of food for a whole lot of dogs.

Helping Pups Hurt by Hurricane Irene

Because of the timing of this year’s campaign, the Foundation is focusing its efforts on shelters that were hit hard from Hurricane Irene. At the moment, they are pouring through the extensive list they have and we’ll get back to you with the exact shelters that will benefit from this project.

So Here’s What You Need to Do

01. Read this post. Good job.
02. Write your own post about “Write a Post, Help a Dog” and what the Pedigree Foundation is doing to help. This needs to be done by MIDNIGHT EST, SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 3RD! TODAY!
03. Link it to the BlogHop at the bottom of this post.

Easy peasy. Voila! You are helping donate food to a shelter dog in need. The Pedigree Foundation has already raised more than $376,570 so far this year against its goal of $1.5 million to carry out its work to fund grants that not only help shelters operate, but to further shelter innovations. The Foundation depends on charitable contributions from individuals to carry out its mission to help dogs find loving homes. With the help of bloggers around the world, we can make a difference. One post matters.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you want to help in other ways, Pedigree is encouraging consumers to donate online at The Pedigree Foundation or you can purchase some cool Dogs Rule Gear here, where the proceeds go to the Foundation. Likewise, shelters can apply for grants from the Pedigree Foundation by completing a form at The Pedigree Foundation website.

Sorry this is all short notice, folks. With the hurricane and earthquake on the East coast, it took Ash and I a bit of time to get back from vacation. Please write a post today if you have a chance and help us help the dogs that need it! Thank you!

Filed under: Animals in Need, BlogPaws, Causes, Donations on September 3rd, 2011 | No 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 »

Every year in Austin, Texas, there’s awesome event called The Mighty Texas Dogwalk and it’s an event I’m sure a ton of people can get behind. Why? Not only do you get out and walk with your dog with lots of other awesome dog lovers, but all the proceeds of the walk benefit today’s group: Texas Hearing & Service Dogs. Now, there’s something special about this group. Yes, they do a lot of good because they are training hearing and service dogs and helping out people in need, BUT, did you know that all of the dogs they train are adopted? Yes! Adopted! Each dog is from a shelter! How amazing is that? That is why we are proud to support this awesome group as our Day 52! If you’re in the area, please take part in the Mighty Texas Dog Walk this year.

In other 365DAA news, we’re sad to announce that this is our last day. Unfortunately, while we had over 100 pledges, we received only about half of those shirts. But don’t worry – we’re going to try again next year and use the entirety of 2011 to focus on getting shirts and promoting our cause for 2012. We’ll be making a more formal announcement in the next coming days in which we’ll thank our supporters and talk about our intentions for next year, but for now: Thank you to all who have helped so far! Please don’t think this is it – we’ll need your help even more to get the word out and continue with this project! And please – Keep sending us shirts! The more we have, the more prepared we’ll be for next year! You all rock! Now… back to Day 52.

Also see this shirt on flickr!

About Texas Hearing & Service Dogs

THSD is a non-profit organization that trains Service Dogs and Hearing Dogs to assist people with disabilities. Hearing Dogs are trained to alert their deaf owners by touch and lead them to everyday sounds, such as a door knock, smoke alarm or telephone. Service Dogs assist individuals with physical disabilities by opening doors, fetching wheelchairs, retrieving dropped items, operating light switches, moving paralyzed limbs and getting help.

THSD adopts all of our dogs from animal shelters and rescue leagues. Utilizing positive reinforcement, we train the dogs, pair them with their new partners and then train them as teams – all free of charge to the recipients.

Where You Can Find Them

• Official Website
• Facebook
• Twitter

Don’t forget to pledge your own shirt to this project by emailing 365 AT iloverescueanimals.org. This project CANNOT happen without you! Thank you for your support! Find out more about this project on our 365 Days of Animal Advocacy page.

Filed under: 365 Days of Animal Advocacy 2011, Projects on February 21st, 2011 | 3 Comments »

One of our favorite events here in Austin, TX is an annual event called Dogtoberfest Austin. Not only do they hold one great event to celebrate our canine friends every year, but they also do it to promote adoption and raise funds for local rescues and shelters. Each year new groups are nominated and the end of the event, the proceeds are split among them. I love this event and I love that they are all about raising awareness and funds for pups looking for their forever homes!

Also see this shirt on flickr!

About Dogtoberfest Austin

Dogtobefest Austin is a 501c3, non profit , who’s mission is to provide awareness about dog rescue, as well as raise much needed money for rescue. We hold an annual event at the Domain, which has become the premier, pet related event in Austin.

If you are looking to add a new member to your family, please look to your local rescue groups, as well as shelters. There are hundreds of animals out there hoping to find their forever home. Check out this years benefiting rescue groups, or visit the City of Austin, Townlake Animal Center.
Never buy an animal from a pet store, or through Internet or newspaper ads.

Where You Can Find Them

• Official Website
• Facebook
• Twitter

Don’t forget to pledge your own shirt to this project by emailing 365 AT iloverescueanimals.org. This project CANNOT happen without you! Thank you for your support! Find out more about this project on our 365 Days of Animal Advocacy page.

Filed under: 365 Days of Animal Advocacy 2011, Projects on February 20th, 2011 | 1 Comment »