My bulky and, therefore, not particularly agile brain, has been thinking too small. It’s time to broaden the horizons.
For any of the dog loving readers who happen upon this post, there is an incredible site called Time To Train Your Dog that is definitely worth visiting. The training techniques offered are all based on positive reinforcement, providing the best possible relationship and bond between your dog and yourself.
Litchi is a rescue – she approves of this post!
As we all pretty much know by now, I’m something of a Rescue Freak. Time To Train Your Dog kindly suggested that I do guest posts and I jumped at the chance. Any and all publicity for the rescue shelters is greatly appreciated.
Alright then – this is where you guys come in. Didn’t think you were going to get off lightly on this one, did you? Shelters within South Africa can and will be Revealed on my site. However, much to my utter amazement, numerous of my readers are based in an astonishing number of different countries.
Sabre – “I’m a rescue and I approve!”
Highlighting the rescue organizations in only one country, no longer makes as much sense as my pea-brain had originally thought. Now, much as I would love to be travelling the world, visiting all the fabulous shelters, I find that BMH (Barking Mad Husband) is not a VRH (Very Rich Husband), so I shall need your assistance with this. No, no, I don’t need money (unless, of course, you wish to send it, at which point I’ll gladly accept), what I need, is for you to send me the details of Animal Rescue Shelters in your area, that you believe could benefit from a bit of publicity.
There are only one or two teeny-weenzie little rules with this. The shelter needs to be Pro-Life / No-Kill. This was my mission when I set out on this journey – to help those who will help the animals for the rest of their lives (not the peoples’ lives, silly, the animals’ lives). The second, is that they are well run and, thereby, give the animals a life, not simply keep them alive.
Shadow “me too, me too – I’m a rescue and I approve!”
So, off you go then. Stop waiting around reading my nonsense. Go find the most deserving Shelter in your area and send me the information. If it’s a dog rescue shelter, it will be featured on Time To Train Your Dog. If it’s cat, rat, bird, guinea pig, other pig, etc. it will be featured on my site.
Come on guys – let’s do a Global Rescue Reveal
PS – pictures to go with the story of the shelter would obviously be great. Either send me the stuff, or get the shelter to do so, or give me info where I can reach them.
Email me at longlife@dcrprocess.co.za
Long Life Cats and Dogs 
What a fantastic idea, we have Battersea dogs home, they get bombarded with unwanted dogs. I know they can’t find homes for them all, so I believe some do get put down..Such a shame..Breaks my heart but they did a programme on the telly, with a famous person,so hopefully they will get more homes and more funding..:) Waffling again, arn’t I ? LOL xx00xx
Mollie and Alfie
Love your waffles (oh, are you making any – now I need a waffle 😀 )
Would really like to stick to the no-kill shelters. Of you go – run around your area finding some little known but fabulous shelter. I know you can do it Mollie & Alfie!
Super idea. I’ll email info re: Homeward Bound just outside Sacramento, CA – rescue and sanctuary for Golden Retrievers (and shhh…don’t tell anyone) their golden+ friends.
As I was writing this, I thought about you guys. Was hoping you’d jump on board. That’s brilliant – your place is simply fantastic. I’ll not tell about the “friends” if you don’t. Sure the rest of the entire internet blogging community will do the same 😀
🙂
While it’s not a shelter in my area it’s one that I feel deserves a major mention as a force working towards No More Homeless Pets and Spay/Neuter programs among many other things including being one of the largest no kill shelters in the US. It’s called Best Friends Animal Society. I’ll shoot you an email w/ more info later and a link to their website.
Best Friends is a great shelter. They get involved in rescues all over the US and their techniques are cutting edge. I have learned so much from being a member.
How wonderful that you are member. This sounds like exactly the type of organisation that should be featured. Thanks a mill.
Brilliant – it sounds like a perfect organisation for a story. Thanks. Spay/Neuter programs are just as important as the shelters themselves, so it’s wonderful that they get involved there as well. Looking forward to the info.
Best Friends Animal Society is the sanctuary/rescue responsible for saving dozens of pit bulls from the NFL Quarter Back for the Philadelphia Eagles, one Michael Vick, when he was busted for his horrid dog fighting business. Notice, he is now back playing again, making millions and yes, he now owns another dog. This organization in Utah is top drawer in my book. I saw a 2 hour documentary on their work with Vick’s throw away pits, it was heartbreaking AND inspiring. Savannah’s Mom
The DSPCA in Dublin, Ireland do amazing work helping both domestic and wild animals. I wrote about them recently:
I’ll hop on over and have a look at the post and shelter itself. Thanks for the info. So nice to have you on board.
Would really love you to do something on the Turkish Didim shelter but they are governed by Turkish law and the volunteers do the best they can with auctions, table top sales, sponsored xmas day dip in the Aegean, transporting dogs, and everything else comes out of their own pocket. I greatly admire all the volunteers around the world that endeavour to make the world a better place each and every day – fantastic idea btw
Would love to do a post on the Turkish Didim. Does being governed by Turkish law mean that I cannot? If i can, please send me info – it sounds like exactly the type of place that needs the coverage.
Will speak to the shelter and get some contact details!
Thanks, you’re a star!
What a beautiful story of rescue. Litchi, Shadow and Sabre are beautiful.
I am not sure you can find many shelter here in my country 😦
My late Kame was a rescue as her previous owner wants to get rid of her. Kroten, tho I bought her from petshop…also a rescue (in some way), she was badly threaten there.
Both certainly count as rescues. Any animal taken from a place where they are not being looked after properly, is a rescue. By the way, where are you (had a look around your site but couldn’t see). I thought pretty much every country had rescue shelters of some form or other.
I am from Indonesia….I probably haven’t mentioned that in my turtle’s blog.
We have so few…and even so, I only heard it from other people, never seen it myself
Indonesia – wonderful. Well, if you here of any that could do with some publicity, just let me know.
I will ask around for some of the smaller rescue charities as here in London the main ones get loads of publicity as it is. Let me think on it. However we think it is a great idea. Have a terrific Tuesday.
Best wishes Molly
Thanks Molly. You are right, it’s usually the smaller ones that most need the publicity and are, often times, the ones who care the most about the animals in their care. They are doing out of the pure goodness of their hearts. Will be interesting to see what you come up with.
I’m sure we have loads of independent ones (eg caring for specific breeds) but my local shelter is part of a brilliant national charity called the Dogs Trust: http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/. Their motto is “we never destroy a healthy dog”. I’ve visited their Glasgow home and it is spotless, with volunteer walkers, exercise, agility and so on.
It sounds absolutely fantastic. I’ll definitely be adding them to the list. Thank you so much for your input.
Most shelters (I believe it’s a law) in Holland are No-kill!
If you want I can search around. 🙂
How wonderful – I think I’ve just fallen in love with Holland. How I wish all countries could have such laws. it would make a great story if you knew of a shelter to add to it. Thanks
I’ll take a look at it!
They are only allowed to euthanise when the animal is so aggressive it brings the staff in danger, or when the animal is really sick.
but I’v heard of stories of shelters that break the laws.
But it’s one of the main reasons why the shelters are usually really full. That’s why it’s so important to know of TNR or spaying and neutering.
What a great idea. We need to support all the no kill shelters. Can’t wait to visit that site.
Thanks Hailey and Zaphod. The no-kill shelters are so often the smaller ones that desperately require any promotion they can get.
Excellent idea!
Your blog/posts have alerted me to the ‘kill’ attitude of some shelters. I started to investigate our local councils and was shocked at what I found. Thankfully one council has changed their policy and now uses a local vet to euthanize with injection rather than placing the animal into a large freezer type box with carbon monoxide from a car engine pumping the gas into the chamber. This, much to my horror, usually takes 30 minutes to ‘kill’ the animal/s. Some survive and are re-gassed..! Horror of horror.!
The more aware we, as the public become in regard to the base tendencies of our nature in regard to those who do not have a voice the greater help our dear animal friends may receive.
Great work you are doing here…! Carolyn
Thank you Carolyn. I am horrified to hear how some of the shelters are dealing with “euthanizing the animals”. It’s bad enough that they do it in the first place but to do it in such an inhumane manner is, as you say, simply horrifying.
This is the main reason why I deal with the no-kill shelters. The people who run these tend to truly love the animals and would never end a life unless it were absolutely necessary (illness related reasons). Of course, it means that their requirements are large and they desperately need animals to be adopted out in order that they can rescue new ones.
Hi, interesting. We don’t have street dogs at all, and hardly have any shelters in Norway, only a few organizations who helps to find new homes for dogs when people for some reasons can’t have them. But I visited a very interesting organization in Egypt, were they are VERY needed: http://www.sparelives.org/ They need all the support they can get.
I’ll certainly be having a look at your suggestion but oh my, how wonderful to live in a country that has no need for a multitude of shelters. That is simply fantastic. I’m afraid, however, that is not the case in most other countries.
One of our favorite shelters is PAWS in Norwich CT. Here’s a link to their site: http://pawsct.org/ Also here’s a link to a blog about them: http://animalsheltervolunteer.blogspot.com/
Nubbin wiggles,
Oskar
Thanks Oskar, I’ll definitely be having a look at your suggestion. Hope we can get lots of people to think about adopting from all these wonderful organisations.
Falling in love with your photos! I think I am most in love with Shadow and that little tip of pink tongue sticking out! Snuggly wolfie cuddle for Shadow!! 🙂
My word, wolves falling for a kitty. I hope you’re just thinking she’s cute and not awfully tasty. She’s rather a skinny one, so she wouldn’t fill the tummy very well at all 😀
please visit this website CARA Welfare Philippines.. this is where i adopted my kitty Tiger just recently.
http://www.caraphil.org/
btw, Shadow, Sabre and Litchi are so adorable 🙂
Btw – as a totally biased mom – I agree 😀
I will definitely visit CARA’s site and let’s hope we can get lots of people to think about adopting from all these wonderful shelters.
Good on you for adopting Tiger from there – Yippee!!
Hey Lady Litchi, Hey Sabre, Hey Boks, Jet here. Hi Miss Susan.
Fantastic, brilliant, expansively great idea!!!
Ok, in the broadest sense, we MUST recommend Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Yes, they get plenty of publicity, however, they do amazing things and Mom says they walk the talk. She even went there with my human sister about 7 years ago to volunteer (and make sure!)
On the local scene… we will collect data, since we came from Golden Rescue South Florida, which only fosters goldens (and guys like me sometimes) when they get sprung from the shelters…
yes! Thank Jetty and Miss Lori for the input on BFAS. They totally rock!
Well, if both of you say so, then there’s absolutely no chance of them not getting a story. You guys are all being fantastic with your info.
Thanks Jetty, that’s a great option. It doesn’t matter that they already get publicity. These shelters can never get enough and, even if only one new person thinks about adopting from one of them, we’ve made a difference. Do what you can, with what you’ve got, now!
The Golden Rescue have a blog, am I correct – the Gardens for Goldens? If it’s them, then I am definitely doing a story on them. Any place that offers the animals such a lovely environment, deserves a story.
Thanks for all your input.
What a super idea! We’re obviously obsessed with KAR in North Cyprus and put most of our energies into them. There website is http://www.kyreniaanimalrescue.org/ and they’d be more than happy to give you any more details if needed. There are so many other great charities out there doing superb work. One we also think does great work in a thankless environment is nine lives Greece – their website is http://ninelivesgreece.com/en/ and our contact there is Cordelia Madden-Kanellopoulou. Do look forward to seeing this resource!
Thanks for all the info. Really appreciate it. Thought you might just want to do KAR 🙂 – was waiting for that one. I’ll look into both of your options.
SUCH a wonderful idea… The options are endless, unfortunately! So many do such amazing work on such little (and disappearing) funds. But GREAT idea — THANK YOU THANK YOU!
CARA Welfare Philippines
100+ Abandoned Dogs of Everglades Florida
Smitten with Kittens
Many Tears Animal Rescue
Protect Mustangs (Had to throw the horsies in there)
…I’ll stop now. 🙂
No need to stop – I’d like it to become a regular feature. I’ll have to look into all of them and, of course you can do the horses – this is all about any animals that require assistance, adoption, etc. Thanks for all your input, I really appreciate it.
This is fantastic Miss Susan. I would like to bring your attention to Our Companions, a local organization (for me) that is currently in the middle of building a sanctuary based upon Best Friends (in Colorado.) This sanctuary has cat and dog cottages where the animals live in a home like situation, which is so less stressful on the animals than a traditional shelter.
When people who call in looking to surrender their animals, the volunteers are trained to ask questions to determine what the underlying cause is, and they then work to helping that person keep their pet.
I could go on and on but then I should just write a post about it. 🙂
You can find more about it here http://www.ourcompanions.org/
Thanks so much Jodi – this seems like a wonderful shelter to highlight. I’ll most definitely be looking into it. Wonderful that they give the animals a more “home like” environment. That’s exactly what I’m talking about – giving them a life and not just keeping them alive. Brilliant choice.
What cuties! I love the Time to Train Your Dog site too. There was a great article there about how to train your dog loose-leash walking.
Thank you. Yes, it’s a wonderful site and so useful to anyone with a dog. I hope many new people find out about it now.
I did some research and found several no-kill shelters in Oregon. This one, http://www.columbiahumane.org, I’ve had some dealings with and respect what they do. Sage was rescued from the Oregon Humane Society (http://www.oregonhumane.org), which is a not specifically a ‘no-kill’. However, they utilize many means to place an animal, such as fostering and Second Chance Programs (Sage was in this), that “they euthanize only for significant health or behavior issues and do not take lightly the decision to end a life”.
Not sure if either are what you are looking for, but worth a look.
Thanks for putting in the great effort. I’ll be looking into both of them. This is fantastic, learning about the different no-kill shelters around the world. They are often harder to find but certainly worth publicizing when we do.
I’ve tweeted a link to this.
Thank you Clowie – that’s brilliant. How incredibly sweet of you.
You’re very welcome! I’ve just sent you an email.
We’ve put it on facebook and twitter.
Oh wow, thank you so very, very much. I just love this blogging community – so ready to help in any way they can.
We constantly marvel at it 😀
Oh dear, I hope my mom does not see this post with the time to train your dog link – I like to train mom and let’s leave it at that! You are so kind to help all those shelters! Everyone should have a cause and yours must really be a huge amount of work but rewarding. I don’t personally have any rescue organizations to recommend to you right now but mom does on occasion rescue pets.
Good for Mom, rescuing pets – that’s fantastic. Keep up the good working training her (sounds like you’ve done really well so far 🙂 )
Reblogged this on Time To Train Your Dog.
Thank you – very much appreciated. I just love this blogging community! Will be doing a post over the weekend (work keeps getting in the way at the moment).
You are amazing! Thanks for the dog training link too!
*big hug*
It’s a great link and full of very positive training techniques.
On the amazing side, we’ll only know once I’ve sifted through the incredible responses and done some of the stories. I just hope that it will help to raise awareness for these shelters.
I’m sure it will 🙂
This is such a wonderful idea! Here are a few: North Shore Animal League (http://www.animalleague.org/?gclid=CPzmmbWvwrMCFQuCQgod2DYAwA) is the world’s largest no kill shelter and adoption organization; there is an entire list of no-kill shelters for New Jersey (USA) here: http://www.nokillnetwork.org/d/New-Jersey; and there’s a huge international list here: http://www.animalliberationfront.com/AR_Orgs/No%20Kill%20Animal%20Shelters.htm. Hope these help!
How lovely…what a great idea! I will start looking shortly!
We will see if Toby’s shelter will participate. You are doing amazing work!
Bella and DiDi
Great idea – good luck with it.
What cute photos you posted 🙂
Thank you so much and I really do hope that it will help bring attention to the wonderful no-kill shelters around the world.
Thanks for the comment on photos (always have to add something visual for people to look at 🙂 )
Great idea. Unfortunately I am not at all fond of the no-kill rescue in my area. I would never ever recommend them to anyone. But I wonder at only featuring no-kill shelters. Wouldn’t it be also help to feature shelters where animals are on the clock, so to speak. Maybe I am missing the point? Is it about the shelter or the animals?
Hi 2 Brown Dawgs, that’s a valuable question. Here in South Africa, we have some absolutely brilliant no-kill shelters but they tend not to be very well known. When I started this blog, it was with the intent of raising awareness for these types of organisations. I have volunteered and worked at some of them but must admit that I am a bit too much of a softy to try to work where animals are “on the clock”. I’d end up with them all in my place (where I’m not even supposed to have animals – but have 4 already).
One of the reasons I am asking my readers to personally recommend shelters, is that some of them (and especially the no-kill ones) can often be more of a hoarding environment than a sanctuary for the animals. Others, however, are simply brilliant. They are often smaller, though, with less funding and not necessarily staffed by marketing orientated people, so they remain largely “under the radar” and I had wanted to help change that.
When I started, I had never realised I would land up with so many international readers, which starts changing things somewhat. it is certainly not a matter of ignoring the animals “on the clock”. In fact, my post “Sharing is Caring” (the previous post) was specifically to try to help some dogs that were scheduled for euthanasia. This is a hard one because yes, ultimately, this entire blog is for the animals and the attempt at highlighting the shelters is a way to try to highlight the animals in need. The problem is that if I were only to post about animals about to be “put down” I think it would get so depressing that I would lose readers at a rapid rate.
Sorry for such a long reply, I’ve virtually written a post already but your question was such a good one and needed a decent answer. Some of the suggestions that have come through are for shelters that are not strictly no-kill but who are really doing fabulous work and they, too, will be highlighted. Future posts will highlight all sorts of shelters and all sorts of specific animals in need.
I hope this answers you question but please feel free to ask anything else and to give any suggestions. Your input is great and highly valuable. I believe this blog will end up being drawn into all sorts of areas I had not even considered before. It is readers such as yourself that get me thinking on a broader level and I thank you for that.
Thanks for the great reply. I think you make valid points about some issues with no-kill shelters. I see what you are driving at. I suppose featuring animals on the clock so to speak would be depressing.
Thanks. It was a great question and not an easy one to answer. I will certainly feature animals on the clock but I have to vary things up along the way. If I can at least get readers considering adopting, I’ll have got somewhere. Feel free to keep prodding my brain. I’m happy to answer anything and very happy to receive ideas and advice.
The Wood Green Animal Shelter at Godmanchester nr Cambridge UK is quite near us and has an excellent reputation. I have not been there personally because I know I would not be able to visit without coming home with a stray and lifestyle does not permit us to have animals at present. http://www.woodgreen.org.uk is the link.
Thank you so much for the information. I will definitely add them to my list. I do, however, understand your fear of visiting. I must admit that I find it rather hard to keep my zoo here under some kind of numbers control. I haven’t managed particularly well, especially considering that the complex in which I live has a “no pet” policy. Guess I’m changing that for them 🙂
Love that you are changing the `no pet` policy! We can`t keep pets because we work as housesitters from time to time – but we do look after (and love) our clients` pets.