Hi everyone! Hope your holidays went well.

Most of us are aware of the importance of expanding our Canadian network in order to ensure the progress of the group in our country. Since Let’s Adopt! almost entirely relies on its network of volunteers, we are seeking to reach more and more people like us to join our team to be then able to save even more animals and have an even greater impact.

We are looking for adoptive families for our animals as well as foster homes.

Being a foster home means temporarily welcoming an animal in need and taking care of him until he gets adopted. If you’re interested, contact viktor@myletsadopt.com.

To view dogs and cats for adoption, click here. These animals are located in Turkey and will travel in company of flights volunteers.

Perdita

Let’s Adopt! is neither a shelter or a typical animal rescue. Each ”new” animal is under the responsibility of the rescuer until a permanant home can be found. Potential new families must agree to the following adoption conditions:

- The animal must live inside the home;

- The adoptive family must already have another dog or cat at home;

- The adoptive family must agree to send an update with picture (if possible) after the adoption;

- There can be additional condition(s) depending on individual cases.

Currently, we have no animals available for adoption in Canada, but we will soon.

Contact viktor@myletsadopt.com if you’re willing to help us!

Cath

P.S.: Got talent, girls?

Animals DO NOT Make Good Gifts

This Holiday season you may be tempted to give animals as a gift, please don’t give in. An animal who is given as a gift risks a lifetime of suffering, unloved and unwanted. You may have good intentions, it is unfair to give an animal to anyone unless you are absolutely certain that the person wants that particular animal as a companion and is willing and able to give a lifetime of proper care.

Recently, the LA Times published this article chronicling a demand/trend for shiny new purebred pups referring to as the “Paris Hilton Syndrome.” To date, “A third of the dogs held at San Francisco’s city shelter are all or part Chihuahua. If the trend continues, officials said, the shelter would become 50% Chihuahua within months. While many people will buy into the “Christmas puppy” dream this season, by summer, when the dogs have grown a bit and aren’t as cute and their owners make plans to get away for summer vacation, many may end up at the shelters.

Animal shelters are filled beyond capacity with homeless animals. Many of these are former “pets” who were easily “bought” but somehow did not fit into their lifestyle or they were not prepared for the serious commitment (exercise, housebreak,veterinary/emergency care, spay/neuter, grooming supplies, leashes, harnesses, and bedding). Many people experience little or no guilt when turning an animal over to a shelter or simply abandon them on the road.

If you still want to give an animal as a gift (do not shop, go to your local shelter) please discuss this idea with the prospective recipients, please make sure that they have the time, willingness, ability, and resources to properly care for an animal. Consider offering them a gift certificate from the local animal shelter. Again, Do not shop from the pet stores.

When you shop from pet stores you contribute to the misery of the puppy mills. When I talk to most of my friends, I realized that most of them do not know what the term puppy mill means. A puppy mill is a breeding operation in which dogs are repeatedly bred for financial gain and are kept in substandard conditions. Puppy mill dogs are often confined to small cages for their entire lives and commonly suffer from various infections and parasites. Dogs who live their entire lives in cages and are continually bred for years, without human companionship and with little hope of ever becoming part of a family. These dogs receive little or no veterinary care and never see a bed, a treat or a toy. After their fertility wanes, breeding animals are commonly killed, abandoned or sold to another mill. The annual result of all this breeding is hundreds of thousands of puppies, many with behavior and/or health problems.

Behind the friendly facade of the local pet shop, the pastoral scenes on a “breeder’s” website, or the neighbourhood newspaper ad, there often lies a puppy mill. These canine breeding facilities house dogs in shockingly poor conditions.

You can do your part to help stop Puppy Mills:

• Boycott Pet Stores that sell animals
• Choosing not to buy your next Pet from an Internet site
• Spay and Neuter your Pets
• Adopt a Pet from a local shelter
• Donate money, food etc. to your local shelter
• Sponsor a special needs dog in a rescue program
• Write a letter or email, make a phone call to your state Rep.
• Tell ALL your friends and family to do the same

Me and Badem, we wish you and your furry family a very Merry Christmas, and let’s hope 2010 brings an END to Puppy Mills and Animal Abuse.

Happy Holidays

Love,

Pia

And some words from Badem

Dear Santa,

As a rescued/adopted kid I appreciate that you gave me a loving HOME 4 years ago. THANK YOU. I could not be happier. But please tell my human friends not to give pets as gifts this year. Tell them this: Don`t SHOP for your BEST FRIENDS, ADOPT!! Don`t support Puppy Mills!!

Heyy I have been a really good girl this year. Don`t you think? I only chased the squirrels (just wanted to play with them). I write this year for the friends I had to leave at the shelter, on the streets and who suffer at the puppy mills.

Can you please bring them loving new homes this year? They will be as good as I have been this year. They promises. Read more »

La vérité, c’est qu’ils ont tout fait de travers.  Au lieu de mettre la jambe cassée du pauvre chien dans un plâtre et la laisser guérir, ils l’ont amputé.  

Amputé par la municipalité

Pour lire la version française, traduite par Bihter :
http://france.myletsadopt.com/2009/11/29/alexandre-trois-jambes-et-un-grand-coeur/  

Alexander est présentement en pension, et a maintenant besoin d’un foyer temporaire en Turquie. Il pourra être adopté à une famille permante, qu’elle se trouve en Turquie ou sur un autre continent.

Les conditions d’adoption de Let’s Adopt! :

- La famille doit déjà héberger un autre animal (un chien, un chat, un cheval… les oiseaux, rongeurs, poissons et autres petits animaux ne comptent pas) ;

- L’animal que la famille souhaite adopter devra vivre à l’intérieur ;

- La famille intéressée devra envoyer des nouvelles de l’animal après l’adoption, avec si possible des photos ;

-L’animal que la famille souhaite adopter devra avoir un régime cru ;

-Il peut y avoir des conditions additionelles selon le cas de l’animal.

Pour plus d’informations sur le régime cru :

www.rawfed.com (en anglais)
www.rawfedcats.org (en anglais)
www.barf.ch/barf/ (en français)

 Bonne chance Alexander et surtout, merci aux membres dévoués de Let’s Adopt!

—–

Three Legs and a BIG Heart

Today, Let’s Adopt rescued a three legged dog in Turkey.

Alexander was a stray dog. He has been hit by a car and left unconscious on the side of the road. Someone called what we could call <<Animal Control>> in Turkey… I’d like to tell you that they took great care of him, but that would be lying.

Truth is, they did it all wrong. Instead of fixing the broken leg, they just cut if off.

Amputated by the municipality

Read the original article:
http://blog.myletsadopt.com/2009/11/29/alexander-three-legs-and-a-big-heart/

Alexander is currently in a pension. He will need a foster family in Turkey, and a final home, either in Turkey or overseas.

There are conditions for adopting an animal through Let’s Adopt!:

- Prospective adoptants should have at least one other animal under their care, and be able to demonstrate their ability to take care of animals through their history with this already existing animal (rodents, reptiles and fish don’t count)

- Should a prospective adoptant live in a home with a garden, he or she should guarantee that the animal to be adopted through Let’s Adopt will live inside the home as opposed to the garden only.

- Individuals who adopt an animal through Let’s Adopt agree to create a photograph album later on that contains images from the new life of the animal to be shared with all members of the network and to be published on our blog.

- Individuals who adopt an animal through Let’s Adopt agree to create a photograph album later on that contains images from the new life of the animal to be shared with all members of the network and to be published on our blog.

- The adopted animal must be fed raw.

- Additional conditions may apply in individual cases.

For information on a raw diet, see:

www.rawfed.com
www.rawfedcats.org

Good luck Alexander, and a BIG thank you to the dedicated members of Let’s Adopt! for giving him a new chance at life!

We can be angry, and we can be hurt, but we must not turn away…Before we can change something, we must be willing to look at it!

Diane Leigh & Marilee Geyer

It`s a dangerous world out there, and everyday, in cities across the nation, dogs and cats by the thousands end up on the streets…

The book I`m gonna talk about today, ONE At a Time- A Week in an American Shelter starts with these words…I personally was in tears by the end of the introduction… I had to stop multiple times because I was crying so hard. Best and worst part of the book are the photos. Seeing their faces and looking into their eyes made it personal, and it makes you feel helpless. So you are gonna ask me… why are you suggesting us this book? To make us Sad? Are not we surrounded by enough sadness already? Some of my friends on facebook tell me the same thing all the time…Pia, we can not even watch/read the the things you post till the end… Cause it makes us sad… But we can not runaway from the facts or the horror that`s surrounding us… You can be hurt but you can not turn your head away. You have to make a decision… So ARE YOU IN???

Authors Diane Leigh and Marilee Geyer spend a week in a shelter in Northern California in order to document the lives of animals. The book tells the 75 stories of individual dogs and cats that come to the animal shelter during the week. All of these cats and dogs are here to find a home. Some will be reunited with their family, some will move to a new and hopefully permanent and loving home, and some will be euthanized. They are to be commended for telling a very difficult story in an honest and non-biased way. It’s heartbreaking to know that some dogs and cats have no chance of adoption and are euthanized simply because of their unpopular breed or age or health condition. Some happy adoptable animals succumb to kennel stress and the personality problems it causes. I found myself looking at the end of each story to see the outcome before I even started reading about the animals. Is he/she adopted or euthanized??? There is not enough money to care for sick animals or time or staff to socialize animals with behavioural problems. It is often a losing battle. The authors make it clear that much of the blame lies on irresponsible people who don’t spay or neuter their animals. You begin to realize how hopeless the odds are even at the most well-run animal shelter. Many more animals arrive than can be adopted. You need to be strong to read this book. You’ll fall in love with some of the animals and learn they did not survive the kennel but there is joy in knowing many do find new homes. The book selects several animals to feature and there is a picture or two. All are beautiful animals who deserved a chance that many never got.

And there was Kelly who broke my heart into million pieces… A beautiful, eight years old golden Husky mix who was found by the control officer in the shelter`s play yard, probably left by her guardian because the shelter was not open at that time. Her guardian came few hours later for signing her to the shelter adding that she is such a great, loving dog, who gets very well children. The staff was dumbfounded. If Kelly was such a great dog, why her guardian gave her up? Apparently in her current home she was primarily a yard dog, sleeping in the dog house and being fed outside in the mornings. Back in the kennels, she was devastated. Her grief was unmistakable. She did not eat, would not look up at anyone who stood in front of her kennel, did not lift her head as her photo was taken. After three days, it was clear that she was not going to bounce back from the trauma of being abandoned; puppies, even street dogs, do better in the shelter, having never known a home. It is the ones who had a home-the ones who have lost the most- who suffer the worst. Her suffering sealed her fate=EUTHANASIA…

Here are some general statistics from the book:

• 6 to 8 million lost and unwanted animals entered animal shelters nationwide last year. 3 to 4 million animals were euthanized in animal shelters last year. This means one animal is put down every nine seconds.

• Euthanasia in shelters is the leading cause of death of healthy dogs and cats.

• 1 in 3 animals will have a home that lasts their entire lifetime.

• 20% of animals currently in homes are adopted from shelters.

• 25% of dogs in shelters are purebred.

• A companion animal is lost every 30 seconds.

• Only 2% of lost cats who enter shelters are ever reunited with their families. Only 16% of dogs are reunited with their families.

• The length of time that most surrendered animals have been in the home before being surrendered is less than one year.

Leigh and Geyer ask this question “ How do we End this TRAGEDY?”

Here are the answers they come up with.

What You could do:

• Keeping current ID on animals and ensuring that they are kept safe, do not become lost

• Spaying and neutering to help overpopulation

• Getting an animal when you are absolutely ready

• Adopting a homeless animal from a shelter/rescue group

What Shelters could do:

• Identification and microchipping programs, (An ID tag and microchip could save countless lost animals)

• Low cost spay and neuter

• Pet parenting classes and animal behaviour help

But most importantly we need to create communicate communities that killing is not an acceptable answer, animals have value and beauty as beings with a sacred spark of life and spirit.

When describing it to several people, I was asked why I would want to torture myself by reading such tragic stories. The answer is that every pet owner (past and present) in the country NEEDS to read this book. It should be required. Too many people just don’t know what happens when they don’t spay/neuter their dogs and cats, or when they drop off their pets at a shelter because they are moving, or “tired of the animal,” or some other unacceptable reason for giving up a pet. Euthanasia (even gas chambers) does happen to millions of animals each year. Turning away from this reality is a betrayal of the animals. If they must go through it, we can be strong enough to know about it and face it.

I would like to dedicate this post and this song Coldplay-Fix You to all the Rainbow angels. Sorry, we could not Save you!

www.novoiceunheard.org

Love,

Pia