In honor of its 15th year of doing dog’s work in helping connect millions of homeless dogs with loving, forever homes, Petfinder has declared March 15th “Help Petfinder Adopt the Internet Day.”
The day will be dedicated toraising awareness ofpet adoption and helping homeless pets find homes.On March 15th, Petfinder will host a blog hop asking websites and bloggers everywhere to do one simple thing – talk about pet adoption.
Dogsteris partnering on the campaign, so all blog posts published on that day will be about dog adoption, including this one. As a dog lover/rescuer/fosterer, adoption happens one of my pet topics, so I’m psyched!Other participating sites include PeoplePets, BISSELL‘s Pack of Pet Lovers, ICanHasCheezBurger and FIDOFriendly.
And here’s a heads up, Dogsters: You’re invited to be part of this historic event by blogging about adoption too.
Here’s how to participate: Post at least once betweentoday and March 14th about Adopt the Internet Day, including a blogger badge (find one here). Then, on March 15th, devote at least one blog post to the subject of pet adoption with another blogger badge or a link back to the All Star gallery. If you’re stumped for something to write, simply spotlight one of the Adopt-the-Internet All-Star Adoptable pets (pick one here).
So, whether you have a blog or you prefer micro-blogging on Twitter, please get online and spread the word about the joys of dog adoption. Tell a “happy tail” story, your own or someone else’s. Blog about your local shelter – or a shelter you visited far, faraway. Start typing now; the more posts on this topicbeforethe big day, the better!
Raising awareness of animal adoption was never more important than right now. All over this country, millions of perfectly adorable, adoptable dogs are being killed because there aren’t enough homes for them all.
The “luckier” ones are killed bylethalintravenous injection, but many shelters don’t have the resources to euthanize dogs this way. So they use gas chambers or intracardial injection, a.k.a. the “heart stick.” In this method of “euthanasia,” a needle containing sodium pentobarbital passes through the chest wall and several layers of muscle before puncturing the heart, andthings can go very wrong, causing the dog to die a horribly painful death (such as if the lungs accidentally become punctured instead).
The situation is even more grim in Russia. AP reports that thecity of Moscowis overrun with packs of stray dogs. The clever creatures are commandeering seats on the subways, where it’s warmer than outside on the freezing streets. So, in a move that has drawn loud protest from high-profile animal activists, the government announced plansto round up the dogs and deport them to an isolation facility outside the city.
“The proposal to ship the dogs far away appears aimed in part at avoiding criticism for harshly efficient dog-control measures like those seen in Bishkek, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan,” the article states. “Authorities there say they don’t have enough money to build shelters, so they shoot strays officials said this year that they expect to kill some 10,000 dogs.”
Russian mutts have always had the right stuff; decades ago, the streets of Moscow gave rise to the first Cosmonaut, a mixed-breed dog named Laika who was found astray on the street, trained for the demands of flight, strapped into a capsule, then famously shot intospace as the first living creature to orbit the Earth.
The brave little dogdied of asphyxiation because her capsule was not designed to bring her back alive.Laika was honored with a bronzestatue, but that does little tomitigate the wrongfulness of her death. Now, thousands of this K9 hero’s kin face a gruesome death – or an even worse life in a K9 version of the Gulag.
In Egypt, the world saw what the Internetcan do to revolutionize the status quo. Now, let’s show the world that animal adoption matters. As Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Hope to see you in the blogosphere soon.
