As you can see, I Love Rescue Animals has had a complete make-over. Not only do we have a brand new design (made by yours truly), but we also have a lot more content. As always though, we would still love a lot more! Check out all our new pages, email us, and help out! What can you do to help out ILRA? Here’s a list:

Guest Post

While we love to help out and post as much as we can, we could always use more content in our blog. Have a topic you feel strongly about and want it to be included in our blog? Contact us and tell us what you want to write about and we’ll give you the guidelines. Simple as that!

Submit Links

We are constantly trying to build up our databases of Organizations and Shelters. If you have a link to a local rescue, please go to our links pages and submit your website. We are also looking for pages for Resources page. We appreciate it.

Rescue Stories

Coming soon we will start featuring rescue stories from our readers and their beloved pets. If you feel that your story is one you’d like to share with the world, use our story submission form and tell us about it. Please include a link to a picture of your pet. Your story could be featured here and in our gallery. The more stories the better. Let’s get the word out.

Product Reviews

Have a product you’d like us to review? We, as well as our vast number of animals, would love to try out your product and post a review in our blog. Send us a note about your product and we’ll send you our address. All products should be animal related.

Please contact us and let us know what you want to do to help. We would greatly appreciate it. I hope you enjoy the new look and the new content. Be well!

Filed under: News, Website Related on June 13th, 2009 | No Comments »

I recently came across an article while perusing the Twitterverse about how 6000 kangaroos are being killed by the Australian army in Canberra. At first glance, the title makes one fly into an instantaneous state of shock and anger. Then I read the article and I came away from it with a sense of unease and confusion. Why the change of emotions? Well, the article says that the kangaroos are being killed because of overpopulation and because they are causing harm to the ecosystem. Now I’m not going to try and argue if this is true or not or if this is just another excuse for humans to kill (6000 out of 9000 does seem a bit steep). Taking what the article states as fact, I think, brings up an important philosophical debate. The claims are that the kangaroo population is too large to be sustainable and that they are having a negative impact on the area – “The killings are intended to protect endangered plants and insects that share the grassy habitat with the kangaroos.” It says that they are also “threatening endangered reptiles, the grassland earless dragon and the striped legless lizard”. Now here comes the obvious to ask but not to answer question: should they? And that is what I asked when I retweeted the link. I got a response from @kdavenprt, which is where I got the original story from. The conversation went like this:

kdavenprt: Know there are arguments for and against. Absolutely hate the thought of this, it breaks my heart.

RescueAnimals: I hate the thought, too. But if it is true, then it does seem to be a choice btw them and many other species. How do you decide?

kdavenprt: I know, it’s so sad. I have no idea how to make a choice like that. I know they have to do what’s best for all species.

And therein lies the philosophical debate. How does one choose one species over another? True, in a complete, untouched ecosytem, this wouldn’t be a problem. Before all the top predators were eradicated the kangaroo numbers would have been kept down naturally. There would have been a balance and people would not have to step in to reduce the numbers of one species to help save others. The problem is, however, that humans DID interfere. We made it so that certain species were able to breed beyond their means and thus are having a heavier impact on resources than they would naturally. Because it is our fault this happened in the first place, is it our job to try and correct it? Assuming all the facts are straightforward and the kangaroo population will grow so large that they’ll start to starve to death but not before destroying the environment around them, what is the ethical thing to do? Bear in mind that while many of us outside of Australia think killing a kangaroo is downright despicable, in the Australian ecosystem, they have about the same role as deer do elsewhere. Now I personally would not want either of those animals to be killed but in answering this question, try to keep that bias to a minimum. This isn’t about kangaroos. It’s about the difficulty in trying to decide what the right thing to do in this case is. Should we fix our mess or should we try to just let nature take its course from here on out? How do you answer such a question? Can we ever truly know what the right choice is? Please leave comments and discuss it with us!

Filed under: News, Philosophy on May 12th, 2009 | No Comments »

Ever find yourself in a situation so tough and so heart-breaking that you aren’t sure you’ll be able to go through with it? That’s what this girl experienced, but thanks to a furry canine friend, she stayed strong.

While some lawyers feel that a dog in the courtroom will make the jury sympathetic to the victim, I think it’s the victim that should be the point of focus here. Kids find comfort, bravery and love in a tail wag and having a dog at their feet to remind them that no matter what happens, they are loved, is incredibly important. I hope that more dogs are able to do what Dori does.

Dori is a mixed mutt with one incredible job. If she can do it, what’s stopping other pups from being taught these same things? Yet another reason to rescue animals – the amount of unconditional love and support they give is essential to the lives of so many people. The team in charge of training Dori and many dogs like her is Paws’itive Teams, an organization based in San Diego that “provides service dogs for persons with disabilities, enabling these persons to live more independent lives and to achieve an enhanced quality of life.” As their website points out: “Therapy dogs come in all sizes, shapes, breeds, ages, gender.”

Our own pup, Spunky (the mascot you see at the top of our site), is a pound puppy. Ash rescued him from an animal shelter in Ashland, WI at around seven months, and he’s now a beautiful, friendly, happy 5.5 year old dog. In late 2008, the three of us participated in the AKC’s Canine Good Citizenship Program, and Spunky passed with flying colors. Another (human) participant in the program met Spunky and loved him and asked us if we were interested in training him as a therapy dog. It turns out that this women was head of a local therapy dog group called Paws 4 Love and after she and the rest of the group met Spunky, they fell in love with him and couldn’t wait to get him started. Unfortunately, shortly into our involvement with the organization began, we moved, and our current location doesn’t have the same opportunities we had up north. Of course, as soon as we get to Austin in a month or two, we will be finding any way we can to continue Spunky’s therapy dog training.

As both cases prove, mutts and rescue animals can do the same loving work as any purebred. Who knows how many amazing dogs with the perfect personalities and dispositions to become therapy dogs were left in shelters until it was too late – simply because it doesn’t occur to people that shelters dogs are just as great, and in many cases, even better than the alternative. Not only are you saving one life, but maybe you’re saving many more.

Think about it. Every animal deserves that chance.

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Video courtesy of a link from Francesca Rogier. Please read the Free Brindi article on this blog to learn more about what you can do to help Francesca in her own current predicament.

Edit: If you liked reading Dory’s story, you might be interested in this article: “Pet Talk: Therapy Dog Helps Funeral Home’s Grieving” from the USA Today. Thanks to @Fun4Fido for this link.

Filed under: News, Videos on May 4th, 2009 | No Comments »

Ever since there was a leak that the first dog was going to be from a breeder, people have not been able to stop talking about. Some people are happy about it, some are upset over it and yet others claim not to care yet they still take the time to comment about how little they care. I will say I am one of those that am disappointed by the news. I loved the “mutt like me” idea and was looking forward to the amount of exposure shelters and rescues would get if the Obama’s adopted a dog. I know that President Obama never outright promised that they were going to adopt a rescue dog but, let’s be honest, that was what we were being led to believe would happen. I fully understand that there was a need for a hypoallergenic dog. I know that this greatly reduced the number of options the family had. I have no problem with that. I will admit that I was rooting for the mutt route, i.e. the Labradoodle. I have never owned a purebred in my life but that certainly doesn’t mean that I have anything against them. I just thought it would be that much more poignant an example. Still, I would have been perfectly thrilled had they adopted a Portuguese Water Dog. I know finding one in a shelter would have been difficult but there are breed rescues. Some people claim that not getting one from a breeder would still put Malia Obama at risk since their background might be unknown but I think that’s just an excuse. You could easily get a DNA test on the dog for as low as $50 and the results would have come back well in time to have the dog arrive on Easter (they’ve been searching for months now). I realize that the dog was a gift and so the Obama family didn’t really have much say in the matter but I still feel that this was a huge missed opportunity for raising awareness of animal welfare in this country. That being said, I don’t understand why there is a such a huge fuss.

I’ve read innumerable articles on the subject at this point and most of them have sounded very grounded and reasonable. It seems to me that the people that comment on these articles are the ones with the biggest problems. Some of the comments are downright nasty and to be honest, it’s not the people disappointed that seems to be the most hot-headed. I’ve seen people personally attacking those who have voiced their displeasure and it makes me wonder just what kind of life those people lead if the best way they can find to spend their life is finding people to hate. And some of the things they say are just downright ridiculous. I can’t tell you the number of people that have said the whole situation is stupid because a dog is just a dog and we have so many other problems to worry about in this country. Well no kidding! No one in their right mind would think that the selection of the first dog is more important than the War in Iraq or the collapsing economy. There are plenty of issues that are personally important to me that haven’t been addressed either but I’m patient. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be disappointed with what happened in this case. Other comments have said that the “animal activists” are cruel because they’re saying that the dog should be ripped away from the girls who love him. I have a problem with this one for a few reasons. First not everyone who is disappointed is an activist. Second, calling someone an activist is always used in a derogatory manner which is stupid. Lastly, no one has ever suggested that they get rid of the dog! Not a single person. However, the children only met the dog after he had been chosen so it wasn’t like they just happened to fall in love with that particular dog. I also don’t like the suggestion that Bo is a rescue dog. He’s not. At all. He may be a second-chance dog because the first people that got him didn’t want him anymore but there is absolutely no way that dog would ever have ended up in a shelter. The breeder, who is actually very responsible from what I’ve seen, would have taken the dog back and found another home for him. It’s in the contract. That’s how all breeders should be and I commend this one for their policies. Still, this means that Bo was not rescued in any way. Now probably the dumbest and most irritating comment I came across was one praising President Obama for choosing a breeder dog because adopting one from a shelter would be “reinforcing all the irresponsible pet owners dumping their pets there”. This one just shocked me. Are people really that stupid? Shelters house countless strays and with this economy there are many people FORCED to surrender their beloved pets due to a lack of money or even the lack of a house. It is idiotic ideas such as that one that make some people leery of adopting from a shelter or rescue. My last comment on some of the excuses being thrown around is that while I’m glad that donations have been made to shelters that the Obama family were looking into that doesn’t really fix the problem. It’s a great gesture, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still not the message that so many people were hoping for the decision to send. This to me says that shelters are great but they’re just not good enough for us. If less people would think like that then there would surely be less animals sitting around in shelters.

That being said, I’m pretty sure that President Obama would never intentionally send such a message and that he truly does have concern for animal welfare. This decision fell short of my hopes but there are plenty of other causes that he can get behind that will help improve the lives of animals in this and other countries. And Bo is an incredibly cute dog and what really matters at this point is that he is cared for and happy. He still has a chance to be a role model of sorts for how pets should be cared for and that is something that is invaluable. So yes, many were disappointed, as they had every right to be, but I think it’s time that everyone start to move on and focus on other animal welfare causes that can still be supported to our satisfaction.

Filed under: News, Opinion Article on April 14th, 2009 | 4 Comments »