Recycling pets

[zimbee]

I've been thinking about ways to recycle more than cans and plastic.  Lately several things have come up, so I'm going to do a weekly feature on recycling that is outside of the things we can put into our local recycle bins.

This week I'm talking about recycling our pets.  We recently had two occasions to help with giving animals homes who didn't previously have one. 

First, at my first grader's school, they all studied gold fish in every first grade classroom.  So there was a goldfish for every first grader, and when the science was finished, they all needed homes (or they were returned to be feeder fish).  We were invited to take the fish home, but my son and I started a trend and we asked to take home more than his one fish.  We ended up with 5 fish, and several other families realized they'd like at least one other to go with their one fish too.  We were able to give a home to many more fish than originally planned.  Yay!

Then, this last weekend, my family finally came across a dog that seems to be a great fit for us.  Actually, because of the fish we found the dog.  We were shopping to outfit the new fish tank.  Now we have a beautiful hound mix 9 month old.  I already wrote a journal about that whole story, but I wanted to say how much rescuing dogs from the pound or from a shelter can be a form of recycling.  Instead of these unwanted animals being discarded or even killed, they can find a good home.  I am in support of non-profits like the one we adopted Dixie from.  They were called Every Creature Counts and they are a no-kill shelter.  They foster out the animals until they can find the right fit for them.  It is very cool.  You can check them out at www.everycreaturecounts.org if you like.  I'm not sure if they are local or national.  Our local Pet Smart features dogs for several shelters in our area.  That is where we found her.

Go online to find shelters in your area.  Just google "animal shelters" or if you happen to have a particular breed in mind you can try that like "retreiver rescue" to find a specific animal for your family.

Happy Pet Rescuing!  Now, please share YOUR stories or post other links to shelters.

[SweetpeasKids]

All our fur babies are rescue babies. We got our dog from a shelter that was really good and making sure pets went to safe proper homes. The shelter would come to your home to make sure you have a fit living home to house your pets and if your renting they called your landlord so people didn't sneak pets that were not aloud and could possible be taken away. For the like of me I can't remember the humain society anymore but it was in Silverdale, WA.

Then my cats the oldest one was from a ad in the paper. The homeowner found a poor kitten under her house and couldn't keep her so my mom picked her up for me when I answered the ad since I was 17 at the time and still didn't have my drivers licence, LOL. While my youngest cat only by a 2 yrs from the oldest I got from a friend of mine who's grandmothers cat had a litter and needed to find homes.

No I'm a Navy wife and housing can be striked about animals in how many you can have if any at all and what kinds. Well we had to fight for ours and I'm so happy to win, LOL. My poor cats are getting to old to give up and our dog was our practice baby....I believe pets are pets for life.