First order of business: This is our 100th post! Congratulations to all of us at I Love Rescue Animals! Happy 100th posts, everyone!

Now on to business.

Blog for Change

If you didn’t know, October 15th is Blog the Change and we have decided that the best way to change the world is to combine a project that works with both animals and children! So our Blog the Change today is about a great contest going on over at Toki Poki.

Toki Poki and the Howl-O-Ween Contest!

Have you hear about the latest craze on the street? We’ve been tweeting about it and getting the word out, but our good friends at Toki Poki are holding a fantastically fun and magical Howl-O-Ween Costume Contest that celebrates both the love we have for our animals AND the courageous and strong children at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital. How you ask? Well here’s the skinny from the Toki Poki website.

What is the Contest for?

To show off our Bootiful pets in their most creative Halloween costumes. All entrants stand a chance to win amazing prizes, while bringing smiles to the kids at the Rhode Island Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence.

How does it work?

Toki Poki™ will create Howl-O-Ween Pet Trading Card ten-packs of all contest entries. The cards will then be delivered to the Hasbro Children’s Hospital right before Halloween by 11-year-old Ryan Agnew (owner of member #68 Bailey and #79 Foster).

Why is Toki Poki™ doing this?

Ryan, a former patient at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital, one of Toki Poki™’s founding members and a true inspiration to us all felt that giving the Pet Trading Cards out to the current patients would bring a smile to a child. Read Ryan’s full story here.

Read more about the contest rules, the prizes, and how to enter on the website!

Making Animals and Children Happy!

As you can see, the outreach of this contest is widespread. Animals will be celebrated, people will have fun, and the children at the Hasbro’s Children Hospital will have huge smiles on their faces because of these beautiful cards. I think this is a win-win situation all around and a wonderful way for people to help make a positive change in the world. So for our Blog for Change, we urge everyone to go and enter their pets in this costume and change the world!

Filed under: Animals in Need, Be The Change, Causes, Contests, Giveaways on October 15th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Back at the first BlogPaws, we met the great folks over at Save this Pup and ended up recording this video at the Mighty Texas Dog Walk in an effort to help the group get on Ellen. We met up again at this month’s BlogPaws event and had a fabulous time talking with the wonderful Laura Posey about the organization and its future. We have so much faith in Save this Pup that we’ve decided that we will do anything we can to help them out. Hence this post.

What is Save This Pup?

The SaveThisPup Foundation is unique in that it supports the animal adoption organizations and the homeless pets at a direct, local level. All contributions collected through the site will be distributed directly to the animal shelters or rescue organizations and are tax deductible as the law allows. It is also unique in that you get regular feedback and updates on exactly what your money is doing to help a special dog find a forever home. For a small monthly fee you can sponsor a pup—feed them, keep a roof over their head, make sure they get the care they need until they find that special loving home. When you sponsor a dog you’ll get a best friend for life! You can also stay in touch with your new pal online — get regular news updates, photos and more.

WIN a Full Year of Advertising on Save This Pup!

Save this Pup is in need of donations to finish their website and get their organization off the ground. So to entice readers, they’ve come with a great idea – everyone who donates $10 or more from now to September 30th will be entered into a drawing. The winner of that drawing will receive a full year of advertising on their website! On top of that, EVERYONE who donates $10 until October 30th will be featured on the Save This Pups’ “Best Pet Blogs” page!

That’s not all! For OUR readers who go and donate and then comment here before October 30th, you will also be entered in a giveaway to receive a $25 gift certificate from Best Bully Sticks, a great treat for your dog! How awesome is that? Not only are you helping out this great cause, but you’ll also be entered in TWO contests AND get your link up on the Save This Pup website! Isn’t that fantastic?

Donating is easy! All you have to do is text “savepups” to 41411 and donate $10! You can also head over to the website and hit their donate button to send through paypal!

So… What are you waiting for? Head over to Save This Pup and make a donation and start making a different for homeless pets!

Filed under: Animals in Need, BlogPaws, Causes, Giveaways on September 26th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

SweetSpots Coupons Giveaway!

Hey all! Remember when we reviewed Nature’s Variety SweetSpots, the doggy “ice cream” treats? Well we were lucky enough to receive some coupons for $1.50 off that we’d love to share with our readers! Time is short, however, because we got all caught up in the amazingness that is BlogPaws and just noticed that these coupons expire September 30th! Yikes! If you’re interested in receiving a coupon, please comment below telling us why. Also make sure you input your email correctly since that’s where we’ll contact you to get your mailing address. We only have 5 of these coupons so hurry and comment if you’re interested!

First come, first serve! Don’t forget to check out our review of this product here.

Filed under: Giveaways on September 16th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

The wait has been long and hard, and I know you’re all ready to hear who won our Pet Blog Design Giveaway, but let’s talk about the awesome PawPawty that happened as well.

The BlogPawty and the following PawPawty were focused around the group Pets Without Parents and with the help of a ton of awesome people, we raised a whopping $1700 for this group. The target was a mere $500, which was reached before the first BlogPawty even began. It just goes to show not only how great people are, but how incredibly important social media is to helping shelters and rescues.

On to our Winner!

So here is what you were waiting for. The winner of a brand new pet-centered blog design is…

*drumroll*

#1: Shauna of Fido and Wino!

Congratulations Shauna! Your blog will be given a full design makeover worth up to $500. I’ll be contacting you about it soon, but if you want to get a headstart on the project, you could go fill out the quote request form to give me an idea of what you’d like to see. I’m extremely excited to work with you on this! I would like to point everyone over to Shauna’s awesome blog Fido and Wino and take a look at her new project: The R.O.A.R. Squad (something Ash and I hope to take part in as well – Go Texas!). It’s a great way to really give Rescue Owners props for the lives they have saved.

Congrats again Shauna and I look forward to working with you!

Filed under: BlogPaws, Causes, Giveaways, Website Related on April 28th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Last week may have been the official Be The Change day (click that link to read our post out about it and help out Feline Forever Ranch), but that by no means says that it has to stop there. This week on April 21st, there will be a PawPawty (or BlogPawty as the case may be this time) to help raise money for Pets Without Parents. To help out, I am going to be hosting a giveaway of my own.

The Giveaway

If you didn’t know it already, I am a web designer. I work for a small company here in Austin, but in my spare time, I freelance under the name Design Coyote (and @designcoyote on twitter). So to do my part in this great twitter pawty, I will be giving away one awesome pet design (estimated cost up to $500) for one lucky pet blogging winner!

You can see my work here at ILRA (the current design and the illustrations), over my personal blog Snailbird, or my design site that I linked to above.

The Rules

01. You don’t have to have a blog to win. We can set you up with an awesome blog either on Blogspot or a self-hosted WordPress blog (or another blog platform of your choice). The only catch is, whether you do have a blog or you’re going to be making one, it has to be about animals/pets!
02. WordPress.com blogs are not eligible unfortunately, only because they do not host custom designs. If you have a WordPress.com blog and win, you have two options: either move to a hosted wordpress blog, or move to blogspot.
03. You do not have to make a donation to be eligible to win.

How To Win

Now here’s the fun part! Ash and I tried to think up different ways that would not only be fun to do, but would also get people to promote adoption, shelters, and rescues and here’s what we came up with. To have your name thrown in the hat, we would like for those of you on twitter to pick a twitter account that posts about animals in need (be it urgents needing fosters or adoption, or animals requiring donations for injuries or rescue purposes) and RT it.

Once you’ve done your retweet to help the cause, comment here with a link back to your retweet, and we’ll toss your name into our hat of entries. If, for some reason, you do not have a twitter account, no worries. Just find something you would like to “retweet” and post it on your blog and post that link here! This giveaway is open as of now and will continue on until 1am EST on Monday the 26th of April I will announce the winner sometime later that day.

Be sure to attend the awesome BlogPawty on Wednesday starting at 7pm eastern time. It’s going to be a blast – full of new friends, great music, and awesome connections. See you there!

Contest Closed!

Winner will be announced soon.

Filed under: BlogPaws, Causes, Donations, Events, Giveaways, Website Related on April 19th, 2010 | 5 Comments »