Best Friends Network

Newly rescued puppy mill dogs learn about life outside of a cage.

For the 150-some puppy mill survivors just rescued from Midwest states, nearly everything in life is new — walking on a floor instead of a cramped wire cage, being held by people, drinking out of a bowl instead of from an water-feeder bottle, going on walks and, most of all, just simply being dogs.

Just look at an apricot miniature poodle boy. For half a day after he arrived at a temporary care center on a Midwest farm, he sat huddled in a back corner of his kennel.

So Best Friends trainer Pat Whitacre gave the dog a play date with another poodle the same size.

It was obvious to the handful of volunteer caregivers observing the little poodle that it was the first time in his life he’d been out of a cage. He sniffed the floor, and then, with his hind legs crossing over each other as he stepped forward, he gingerly walked around an indoor play area.

With each step he took, his confidence increased. He looked up at the people watching him. Next, with his belly on the floor, he stretched out his front legs and then his back legs, he opened his mouth like he was yawning and stretched his neck. Within the next 30 minutes, he did that four more times. Then he rolled on his back.

Those watching could have sworn he was smiling. “That’s total relaxation,” says volunteer Kerri Dahlheim. “It gives me goose bumps to see a puppy mill dog finally be comfortable enough to relax.”

Also relaxing was a pomeranian who volunteers described as an opossum because he fell asleep in volunteer Cathy Madewell’s arms, as if he were playing dead.

The first time she held him, he settled down against Madewell’s arm. “He took a deep breath,” she says as she holds him. Then she whispers to the dog, “Life is just going to keep getting better, sweetheart.”

A Chihuahua stayed back in her travel carrier but slowly walked out on her own as she tentatively looked around. “You were so afraid to come out, but you’re doing so good now,” Mary Richie, Best Friends’ Dogtown receptionist, tells the little dog as she coaxes her out of the carrier.

These dogs’ behavior isn’t surprising, considering their backgrounds. “Some puppy mills are worse than others, but all have more dogs than anyone would keep as pets, and the dogs don't live as companion animals,” says Kelli Ohrtman, a specialist for Best Friends’ Puppies Aren’t Products campaign which organized this latest Pup My Ride rescue. “They live in cages in barns and sheds, more like livestock than pets.”

But with each day that passed at the temporary care center, where the dogs were taken after they were rescued, the once-confined canines slowly improved.

On the second day, Whitacre took each of the bigger dogs on walks. Having obvious fun for possibly the first time in her young life was a husky girl. Whitacre led the 1-year-old dog out for what would be one of many walks over the next couple of days.

Once on the grass, the dog literally bounced around, moving from sniffing the ground to putting her nose in bushes. When she’d see bugs, she’d pounce on them on the grass. “Oh, my goodness,” Whitacre says. “Did the grass move again?”

He ran with her down a gravel road. “She knows she’s outside to have fun,” Whitacre says.

But Uncle Sam, a 2-year-old boxer, was unsure. “The first time, he had no idea what would happen,” Whitacre says. But slowly, with each walk, he too began to enjoy being outside.

According to Whitacre, most of the dogs exhibit typical puppy-mill behavior. “About 80 to 90 percent are uncertain of what’s going to happen,” he says. “They’re used to being ignored or taken out for something that’s not fun. There’s anticipation of the unknown.”

At the Best Friends sanctuary, for example, Whitacre says it’s different. “Most of our dogs at Best Friends, when you walk through their areas, are excited,” he says. “They’re saying, ‘Take me first. Take me outside.’ Here with puppy mill dogs, it’s the opposite. Only 10 percent, as with the husky, say to me, ‘Take me out and let me have fun.’”

It’s a matter of slowly introducing them to new things. “Uncle Sam [the boxer] is experiencing things for the first time and seeing that nothing bad is happening to him,” Whitacre says. “Now that he’s been out a few times, he’s thinking, ‘Maybe this isn’t a fluke after all. Maybe I come outside to have fun.’”


View the videos of the dogs' rescue and journey to safety. 

• See the video of the dogs when they were first rescued.

• To view video of the dogs' safe arrival at rescue groups, please click here.

• Click here to watch the video of  Fancy, a rescued puppy  mill dog, make a photo shoot pleasantly difficult.

 

How You Can  Help

 

• Adopt don’t shop.  Many purebred dogs are available for adoption. Search by breed at Petfinder.com for your next family member.

 

• Help rescue more dogs from puppy mills by donating to Puppies Aren’t Products campaign to fund future Pup My Ride programs.

 

 

For More Information

Pup My Ride: A Best Friends program to get dogs out of shelters and puppy mills and into areas where they are most likely to find their forever homes. We deliver the pups to local partners with highly successful adoption programs capable of finding homes for many dogs at a time.

• To learn more about Pup My Ride, please click here. 

• Visit Best Friends’ Puppies Aren’t Products campaign to learn more about puppy mills.

• Journey to Safety: Read the first story of this Pup My Ride rescue.

• Finding Comfort: Read the second story  about the dogs arriving at rescue groups.

 

Photos by Molly Wald

Video by Jason Watt

It’s Best Friend’s gala event of the year, and we want to send one lucky winner and a guest to be a part of it.

 

It’s glitzy, glamorous, celebrity-packed, and it’s all for the animals. It’s the Lint Roller Party, and Best Friends is going to send one winner of our win-a-trip drawing and guest to attend it. The annual event raises funds for the Best Friends’ Los Angeles Programs, a vital cog in our mission to bring about a time of No More Homeless Pets.

 

This year, the Lint Roller Party will be held on October 3, 2009 at the Hollywood Palladium. To celebrate Best Friends 25^th anniversary, we’ll be going back in time to the year Best Friends was founded, and partying like it’s 1984. To that end, the Bangles (one of the greatest all-female bands ever) will be providing the live entertainment, and a D.J. will be spinning all the favorites of the decade.

 

Vegetarian cuisine by Wolfgang Puck, auctions, open bar and dancing until midnight round out the evening.

 

The chair of this year’s Lint Roller honorary committee and the recipient of a special award is actress Katherine Heigl, star of “Grey’s Anatomy” and the summer blockbuster “The Ugly Truth.”

 

The winner of the drawing and his or her guest will receive:

 

• free airfare to/from Los Angeles
• two-nights accommodation at the famed Roosevelt Hotel
• VIP passes to Lint Roller, which includes reserved premiere seating, VIP lounge access and valet parking
• tickets to the pre-party Founders’ Reception, where you can hobnob with the people who built Best Friends from the ground up and chat with the stars of National Geographic Channel’s “DogTown”
• the chance to walk the Red Carpet

 

… all in all, a prize worth around $2,000, and a great way to support Best Friends while having a great time in la-la land.

 

To enter is easy. Simply text “PARTY” to 90999 on your cell phone.* You will then be entered to win, plus you’ll receive text alerts from Best Friends. (You’ll also receive a message asking if you’d like to donate $5 to Best Friends. Of course, the donation is not necessary to enter the drawing.)

 

The win-a-trip drawing has already begun and ends at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, September 13. The winner will be announced on Thursday, September 17. Stay tuned to our website for the announcement.

 

For more information on the Lint Roller Party, click here.

 

* Free SMS Service is available on most carriers. Standard/Other messaging rates may apply. Reply STOP to unsubscribe. For more information please visit mGive.com/e. No purchase necessary.

 

Photos by AndySheng 

 

As part of Best Friends 25th anniversary in 2009, our goal is to double our membership, so we can double our efforts to bring about a time when all companion animals have a forever home. What can you do to help? Give the Gift of a Best Friends membership to family and friends.

Want to network with like-minded people? Then mark your fall calendar, because Best Friends is gearing up to host another memorable No More Homeless Pets National Conference in Las Vegas.

To learn more about the conference and to register to attend, click here.

The three-day weekend focuses on tried-and-true approaches in grassroots animal welfare that are all about the no-kill movement and how to be more effective for the animals in communities across the nation and beyond. More than that, says Claudia Perrone, the conference is “definitely about networking opportunities and enjoying Las Vegas at the same time.” Last year’s event, also in Las Vegas, attracted 650 attendees.

Attend the NMHP Conference

There’s still time to register before September 14 to take advantage of the early-bird discount for the conference, which is being held at the Rio Hotel-Casino October 23-25. Go here to register.

For the keynote speech this year, instead of having just one speaker, co-founders Faith Maloney and Francis Battista and interim CEO and co-founder Gregory Castle will be addressing attendees Friday evening at the welcome reception.

Included as speakers at one of many workshops are Best Friends’ Dog Care co-manager Michelle Besmehn and training expert Ann Allums, both of whom are stars of National Geographic Channel’s “DogTown” series, which showcases Best Friends’ work with abused, neglected and abandoned dogs. With Besmehn and Allums, you’ll learn training techniques straight from the pros.

Register Now!

Talking about social media and how to effectively use it to help the animals is Jon Dunn, Best Friends’ all-around Internet guru and social media manager. (To see some of Best Friends’ social media sites, go to Twitter and Facebook.

But it’s not just Best Friends’ experts you’ll be hearing from. There’s a cross-section of speakers from rescue groups and organizations across the nation and Canada to fill out the seminars, panels and workshops, making it a multi-faceted weekend with something for everyone. Included in the sessions will be innovative tips on how to survive in animal welfare during an economic downturn. Other current issues being addressed include expert advice and guidance on converting pet stores to humane stores and stopping puppy mills.

And back by popular demand to speak again this year are Nathan Winograd, director of the No-Kill Advocacy Center and Mike Arms, president of the Helen Woodward Animal Center.

Meet and Greet!

As an added treat, this year mark’s Best Friends’ 25th anniversary. Attendees will have an opportunity to meet the founders and learn first-hand about their journey, beginning in 1984, and how they started out small and ended up becoming leaders in grassroots, no-kill, animal welfare, spearheading the No More Homeless Pets movement.

Represented groups, besides Best Friends, include PetSmart Charities, Alley Cat Allies, Project Bay Cat, and the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs, among many others. Click here for a list of presenters.

As the conference brochure says, “We'll be bringing the innovators to you. It’s your chance to network and discuss methods and cutting-edge programs that are saving animals in communities nationwide.”

Written by Cathy Scott
Photos by Clay Myers

To learn more about the conference and to register to attend, click here.

As part of Best Friends’ 25th anniversary in 2009, our goal is to double our membership, so we can double our efforts to bring about a time when all companion animals have a forever home. What can you do to help? Give the Gift of a Best Friends membership to family and friends.

Four Legged Food Drive Set To Launch

By Sandy Miller

Pet owners are struggling out there. They’re losing their jobs, their 401ks, and sometimes their homes. For many of them, just keeping a roof over their heads and putting food on the kitchen table is a daily struggle.

As a result, some pet owners are relinquishing the four-legged members of their families to shelters because they can no longer afford to feed them. It breaks their hearts, but they just don’t see any other way out. Meanwhile, not-so-responsible pet owners are just abandoning their pets, and shelters and rescues are struggling to keep up with the growing numbers of pets coming through their doors.

“Every community has a problem of homeless pets,” says Ellen Gilmore, campaign specialist for Best Friends’ First Home Forever Home campaign. “The economy has really done a lot of damage. Some people are going hungry to feed their animals. We’re hearing from groups across the country that the relinquish rate has increased in recent years.”

Best Friends’ First Home Forever Home campaign doesn’t think anyone—human or animal—should go hungry. And that’s why First Home Forever Home, one of four Best Friends’ campaigns aimed at reaching the goal of No More Homeless Pets, is launching its summer Four-Legged Food Drive in early July.

It’s very much a grassroots effort, with Best Friends Team No More Homeless Pets volunteers ready to launch in almost a dozen cities across the nation. No More Homeless Pets teams are already at work in cities in Florida, Nevada, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Washington.

“There’s a great need out there which is why this project was born,” Gilmore says. “There are a lot of people out there who are struggling financially and a way to help them is to help them feed their pets. We want to support the food pantry work that’s already happening in communities.”

These volunteers know their own communities better than anyone, and they’re stepping up to the plate to collect pet food for local food banks to distribute to families in need.

“The volunteers are just amazing,” Gilmore says. “They’re bringing to the project a great deal of energy and logistics that would not be possible without them.”

Sherry Johnson of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is one of those volunteers. Johnson, with the help of other volunteers that include members of the local high school football team, will be collecting pet food at tables in front of local stores for Ellie’s Pet Pantry, a local pet food bank at the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society. Families who have lost their jobs can go to Ellie’s Pet Pantry and get food for their pets. Ellie’s Pet Pantry also distributes pet food to local food banks.

Why did Johnson decide to get involved?
“I want to help keep pets in their homes with the families that love them and out of shelters,” Johnson says. “If it keeps one family pet out of a shelter, I will consider this a success.”

Jackie Roach of Omaha, Nebraska, is another one of those dedicated volunteers. She and her fellow volunteers will be collecting pet food for the Omaha Food Bank. Her goal is to collect 4,000 pounds of dog food this summer for struggling families in Omaha.

“Animal welfare is my passion,” Roach says. “I volunteer each week as an adoption counselor for the Nebraska Humane Society and I see first-hand the sad stories of people forced to surrender their pets due to economic difficulty. I pet them and see their confused faces. They don’t understand why they have been dropped off in a strange place. They wonder where their family is.”

Roach hopes the Four-Legged Food Drive will help more pets stay with their families.
“If obtaining food can help alleviate some of the burden and even one pet can stay with its family, then we’ve accomplished our goal,” Roach says.

Participating Cities

Florida, Brevard County
Florida, Jacksonville
Florida, Orlando
Nevada, Las Vegas
Nebraska, Omaha
North Carolina, Raleigh
Oregon, Portland & Eugene
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
Texas, Arlington
Utah, Salt Lake City
Washington, Longview/Kelso
Washington, Seattle

How You Can Help
Contact your local food bank to make a donation of pet food. First Home Forever Home is compiling a list of organizations that provide pet food to families in need. See our list in the Pet Food Banks folder on the resources in this community.

For More Information
The goal of Best Friends’ First Home Forever Home campaign is to help people make and honor a lifetime commitment to their pets. Millions of companion animals die every year in crowded shelters because their families decided to let them go for some reason. Through education, intervention and action, First Home Forever Home provides guidance and resources to help people care for their pets and keep them as loved members of their families. Read more about the First Home Forever Home campaign.

For more information on First Home Forever Home’s Four-Legged Food Drive and how you can help struggling pet owners in your community, e-mail Ellen Gilmore at elleng@bestfriends.org.

Main photo by Molly Wald, Best Friends photographer
In-story photos by Clay Myers, Best Friends photographer
Posted by Cheri Moon, Best Friends Network editor