Hill's #FoodShelterLove Program Helps Shelter Cats All Year Long!

Check out Hill's® Food, Shelter & Love® Program and learn how Hill's is helping connect pets to people all across the country! Since 2002, this fantastic program has donated over $280 million worth of Science Diet brand foods to nearly 1000 animal shelters, helping a whopping 8 million pets find a new home.

This post is sponsored by Hill’s. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about Hill’s® Science Diet® and Food, Shelter & Love® Program, but Bocci's Beefs only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers. Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc. is not responsible for the content of this article.

We all know the stereotypes: Dogs are happy-go-lucky and always exuberant and affectionate, and cats are...well, aloof, and most of the time downright snooty. Even though I'm supposed to be "Beefing" about life with a cat, I'll tell you all a secret: Our cat, Ms. Bella, is super affectionate and gives Parental Unit lots of love and purrs—until I get jealous and intercede, of course.

And she's always in the same room as I am, and usually glued to my side, whether I like it or not.

Although, I was rescued from the shelter, Parental Unit found Bella on the street when she was about two months old, and for the last ten years, she's been ruling the roost, so to speak. I mean, let's face it, she is adorable. (Did I just say that?)

It just so happens that June is Adopt A Cat Month and the ultimate goal of the #FoodShelterLove Program is to help all pets find loving, forever homes. And when you adopt a shelter pet, you not only give that pet a second chance, you free up shelter space to care for more incoming strays. And to make the adoption transition even easier, the Program provides a free bag of Science Diet® pet food or a $5 off coupon to the new pet parent for each adoption from a participating shelter. Check out this nifty, "Find A Shelter" tool to locate a Hills #FoodShelterLove partner in your area!

With so many cutie pie cats and kittens in any given animal shelter, it can be difficult to choose the right one for you and your family. We always recommend that you access your family's lifestyle and schedule —cats need attention and companionship from their humans, too— then talk with the shelter staff about which kittens or adult cats might be the right choice for you, based on temperament and any special needs. It's always a good choice, if at all possible, to adopt a "less adoptable" animal from the shelter, like black cats (ridiculous, we know), senior cats, and/or felines with special needs, because they've likely been there the longest and are at the greatest risk of euthanasia.

In case you're new to cat parenting, check out these strategies to prepare your home for the new feline arrival, and these special tips for your cat's first month in his or her new home. However you choose to help homeless pets, whether by adopting, fostering or volunteering time at the shelter, animals in need are sure to benefit, and that's what the Hills Food, Shelter & Love Program is all about.

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Immersive Summer Camps For Children Who Love Animals

You know how we love to share information about pets and children because, well, they go so wonderfully together, like cake and ice cream. In fact, we just brought you a story about canine camp counselors a few weeks ago. The camp, kids and pets combo just got dialed up a few notches by our good friend, Caroline Golon, one of the co-founders of BlogPaws and the author of several cause awareness and fund-raising blogs, like Romeo the Cat and The Happy Litter Box.

   Camps with kids?  I love kids!

Since Caroline is both a parent of young humans and pets, she decided to create another blog, Crayons and Collars, that offers education, resources, activities and entertainment for pet loving children. Caroline and her latest blog are featured in this AP article that highlights immersive summer camps especially for children who love animals. And guess who sponsors these camps? Local animal shelters! According to this article, "thousands of youngsters ages 6 to 17 will attend day camps this summer at hundreds of animal shelters across the country." And the benefits to the animals, the kids, the shelter and the community are many: "They are designed to introduce children to animals and show them how the creatures fit into their world", says one of the shelter education directors. "Campers learn to feed, exercise, wash, train and care for dogs and cats", and older campers can even watch surgeries and monitor an animal patient to test whether they might be interested in a career helping animals. 

Caroline first learned about these camps a couple of years ago when she heard about shelters across the country that were offering birthday parties for kids, and wrote a story on that phenomenon for Vetstreet.com, touting it's win-win-win outcomes. Yep, kids and animals go together like cake and ice cream! She soon realized that the shelters and communities were offering "fantastic options for animal loving kids...[and] not enough parents know about these wonderful programs." Caroline promptly established a national database of these camps on Crayons and Collars to help remedy this problem, and so far she's listed over 250 shelters with camp offerings. What an incredible resource!

                                A famous kid and his famous dog...

Caroline says, "I'd love to see more families be aware of these programs so this next generation of kids truly understand what we can do to combat our pet overpopulation problem and be better to all animals. My site, Crayons and Collars is designed to support that goal. I'm on a personal mission to get more families and kids involved in their local shelters, humane societies and rescues!"  We couldn't agree more, Caroline. Thank you!

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Celebrating The Life And Legacy Of Dr. Martin Luther King...And Helping Pets In Need

We wondered how to connect today's national holiday, celebrating the life and legacy of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, with our blog's central mission: to help educate others about the plight of companion animals in shelters, and to promote adoption and rescue, rather than the purchasing of pets. We believe that one way to connect today's remembrances and celebrations with animal welfare is to help educate our country's younger generations about Dr. King's great legacy of helping others. This one person led several generations out of the darkness of segregation into the bright hope of equality and dignity for all humans. He did this, in part, through his passionate call for moral justice— a justice that goes beyond our nations written laws.

Today, as we pause to remember this great man, why not spend a few minutes with someone younger, and talk with them about what you feel is important about Dr. King's legacy. You might also discuss the heartbreaking issue of companion animal overpopulation, and the need to dispel the myths of shelter animals as broken or "less than", so that these deserving fellow creatures can find loving homes. After all, isn't defining a human or fellow creature as "less than" at the heart of all separation, denigration and mistreatment? And perhaps you could even pay a visit to your local food pantry or animal shelter to spend part of today helping others that are less fortunate.

Here's an uplifting blog post from today's New York Times Learning Network that demonstrates the power of each generation to effect change. It also provides a collection of links to MLK resources for teaching. Let us know how you'll spend today.

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The Puppy Bowl: Cuteness Overload!

 Photo from this year's Puppy Bowl courtesy of The Washington Post

We're gonna admit this right up front: Neither Parental Unit nor I have ever watched the Puppy Bowl-not one second in eight years of mega amounts of cuteness and tens of millions of viewers. But this year will be different!

We saw this (five page), wildly funny article in the Washington Post that alerted us to the possibility-make that probability - that two hours of adorableness should not be missed. We've learned that "Cute cannot be dismissed" when you've got 63 puppies playing on a mock, 10-by-19-foot football field. Millions of humans are eternally grateful that in 2005, "Animal Planet executives green-lighted a crazy idea: to film puppies playing football as counter programming to the Super Bowl." But this annual event, now in its ninth year,  turned out to be far from crazy, with 8.7 million unique total viewers last year alone.

But the real winners of this game are the pups, because each is from shelters and ready for adoption. "Some shelters have built relationships with the show and give their dogs football-inspired names", like a terrier mix from the LA ASPCA to appear in this year's game named Blitz, who is hoped will "follow in the footsteps of Fumble, last year's Puppy Bowl MVP." Backstage note: All but four of the puppies appearing in this year's Bowl have already been adopted.

And just in case you thought that the animals might be mistreated in any way, "the entire production is supervised by...a representative from the Humane Society's film and television division, who ensures that the dogs, cats and hedgehogs [yes, hedgehogs!] are faring well."

If you want even more information about Puppy Bowl IX, check out this article published just hours ago by the Associated Press, "Animal Shelters are real winners of 'Puppy Bowl'. The Puppy Bowl airs On Sunday, February 3, on Animal Planet from 3:00-5:00 pm EST and then repeats throughout the next 10 hours.

Will you be first-time watchers like we are, or are you veteran Puppy Bowl aficionados? Let us know!

P.S. In all the Puppy Bowl hubbub, please don't forget the "Super Dog Sunday" extravaganza, where as  a member of the Cheer Team, we'll be helping to raise funds for Petfinder.com! Details here: www.boccibeefs.com/2013/01/super-dog-sunday-benefits-petfinder.html

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How We Select Shelter Pets: The Research Is In!

This pooch looks a bit like me!

Why is it important for organizations like the ASPCA to conduct research, like the study described in this article, about how people make the decision to choose certain shelter pets over others? Well, the more we know about the criteria people use to choose pets from a shelter, the more shelter workers can prepare the animals in advance, so that they're the chosen ones. With five to seven million pets entering U.S. shelters each year, and three to four million of these homeless animals euthanized because they weren't adopted, it's imperative that shelter workers be proactive in making the dog or cat as "adoptable" as possible, based on humans' selection criteria. In other words, by "prepping" the animals before they're officially ready for adoption with grooming and training/socialization, shelters might be able to "increase adoption and decrease returns." The proactive prepping should also include getting to know each animal and individually counseling prospective adopters about each pet's wonderful personality traits, for example, that might transcend their looks or demeanor on any particular day.

According to the ASPCA study discussed in this article, "physical appearance and behavior are the biggest factors when it comes to pet adoptions." For example, this study confirms previous findings that "cats and dogs that approach the front of the cage when a person nears have a much greater chance of being adopted."

Now, when the shelter worker opened the cage that I was in (that happened to be the higher, top cage), I jumped right into the shelter worker's arms and immediately started trying to lick Parental Unit, who was standing beside the worker. And it's true that Parental Unit loved the way I looked: all scruffy with a full terrier beard, and when I looked at her with my big brown eyes, she practically swooned! And dare I say, I chose her at that moment...

So if you have an adopted pet, what was the deciding factor for you in choosing that dog or cat from all of the others available? Let us know!

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The Magical Mutt Mystery Tour!

Thanks to our friends at willmydoghateme.com/, peggyfrezon.blogspot.com,  and www.istillwantmorepuppies.blogspot.com/ for coming up with the idea for this fun bloghop-we're thrilled to say that we're an official member of the "Mutt Club" (O.K.we just made up that club name, but we think it's fitting!) Check out any of these blogs for not only incredible and fun pet-related content, but for directions to enter this bloghop!



Meanwhile, here we go with our Magical Mutt Mystery Tour post! I'll let Parental Unit take over from here-hope she's says good things about me...

Bocci jumped into my arms (literally) at our local shelter in June of 2008, and well...the rest is history. He's been a fabulous friend, and surprisingly, he turned out to be a darn good writer, too. Now, I know that we all think our dogs are funny, but Bocci is just a side-splitter-he's willing to chase after anything that even vaguely resembles a toy (particularly if it sqeaks) and has a ton of fun doing it. He loves to try and bat the toys with his paws as they're bouncing-does he think he's going to catch them?

His most amazing quality is that's he's extremely gentle-he puts up with brushing, teeth and ear cleaning, trimming, you name it, and just adores short people...I mean kids. But he's also a darn good watchdog-he's been very selective about his barking and so far he's "Batting 1000." I'm sure he even saved me during one late night walk from a particularly scary dude.

By the way, he's about 18 inches high at the shoulder and weighs 31 pounds. The shelter papers called him a "Terrier Mix", and I'm thinking maybe Schnauzer, Beagle...and a few other things. What do you think are his "blends"?

And dare I say that he's a good lookin' fella? Just take a look at these fabulous photos taken by Rachel at www.rachellaurenphotography.com - he considers her his personal photographer, you know:-)

You rang?

Rin Tin Tin pose.

Meeting at the Old Elm Tree to Discuss Squirrel Eradication.

I can't help but repeat a previous statistic from a post I wrote earlier this week: 75% of all dogs in shelters are mixed breeds, or "blends". Maybe if we figure out why so many mixed breeds end up in shelters, we can finally come up with a way to bring those numbers way down. What do you think?

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