Pets and people who love them: How you can help

Published 5:30 am Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Here’s your chance to de-clutter your house while you save the lives of Limestone County dogs and cats.

Mark your calendars for 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on June 17 for the fifth annual Athens-Limestone County Animal Shelter yard sale, and start collecting items to donate for this important cause.

You can drop the items off during normal shelter hours the week before the yard sale and you can visit the sale to find the treasures that you didn’t know you needed.

Other ways to help include recruiting your professional, social, fraternal or church groups (youth or adult) to host their own events to help the shelter. A bake sale at your child’s sporting event or a pet food drive at your business, or by your scout troop can provide much needed support. And if your group already does a regular fund raising activity such as bingo, carnival or fish fry, consider having a shelter night where proceeds support our cats and dogs.

For all you coupon clippers out there, challenge yourselves to see how much dog and cat food you can buy for next to nothing using your highly developed shopping skills. Not only can you take the value of your donation as a tax deduction, but you can feel good about helping our furry friends.

Hint: Did you know that some local stores allow you to use two coupons when purchasing a BOGO? Even if you are purchasing for your own pets, by double-dipping on the savings, surely you could afford to donate one of the items to animals in need.

Other areas of the country have more stringent and better-enforced spay/neuter laws than many southern states and as such, don’t have the homeless animal population we have. Just $90 can sponsor a cat or dog for rescue.

A sponsorship allows a rescue group to accept an animal with little or no immediate expense for veterinary care or transportation, which makes that animal very attractive to groups with their own tight budgets. They can then concentrate on finding the perfect human matches in Chicago, New Hampshire, or Florida for animals from Limestone County.

How many lawns would you need to mow, cars would you need to wash, hot dogs would you need to sell to save one animal? And what would our children learn about civic responsibility and kindness by participating alongside their parents in such a cause?

That’s a win for the animals, a win for the souls of the volunteers and a win for the community. Works for me.

— Pets and the People Who Love Them is brought to you by your friends at the Athens Limestone Animal Shelter. To adopt your best friend (cat or dog,) please visit the shelter at 1701 U.S. 72 (behind Limestone Veterinary Clinic,) visit our Facebook page, or call us at 256-771-7889.

E-mail your questions to me at PetsAndPeople@charter.net. I’ll check with the experts (veterinarians, animal behaviorists, etc.) and get back to you in a future column.