Home for the Pawlidays~

Hello Sweet Friends!

If you live in Sacramento, CA and are interesting in adopting a cat or dog for free then hurry! They are offering free adoption until the end of December at Sacramento’s Front Street Animal Shelter. Read the article below. Happy Adopting!

Realtor Kim Pacini-Hauch offered to pay the adoption fees for animals from one Sacramento animal shelter. What happened next may require Kleenex.
This is not your run-of-the-mill feel good story. It’s evidence of how one simple good deed has the potential to save countless animals from being euthanized, or at the very least—enduring a lot of suffering.
If Pacini-Hauch’s name sounds familiar, Care2’s Steve Williams mentioned her in a much-needed good news piece last week.
Pacini-Hauch made headlines after offering to pay all the associated costs of adopting an animal from Sacramento’s Front Street Animal Shelter through the end of December.
Adoptions at Sacramento’s Front Street Animal Shelter (aptly named for its 2127 Front Street address) usually run $85 for dogs, $100 for puppies and $65 for cats.
Deemed “Home for the Pawlidays,” the shelter posted Pacini-Hauch’s generous offer to Facebook on Tuesday evening last week. By the next day, more than two million people had viewed it.
Pacini-Hauch’s simple act of kindness triggered what the Sacramento Bee described as “an overwhelming first-day response.”

Bobby Mann, a spokesman for the shelter, said more than 250 people were lined up when the shelter opened at noon the following day, and by mid-afternoon, a sign was posted announcing: “All cats adopted today.” By about 4:30 p.m., 20 cats and 21 dogs had already been adopted, according to Jenman Fong, a customer service representative.
Hundreds of animals found forever homes already. (Happy sniff.)
Since Pacini-Hauch’s gracious offer, the Sacramento shelter shared “We’re almost out of adoptable animals!” (Now there’s an announcement I wish every animal shelter in the world could make.)
But they’ll be full again soon. According to Mann, there are about 650 animals in foster care that will be brought into the shelter as space opens up.
Mann made it clear that it’s unlikely the shelter will run out of pets for people to adopt before the free adoption fee offer ends on Dec. 31. Sacramento’s Front Street Animal Shelter takes in about 11,000 unwanted animals annually. So for folks in the Sacramento area in search of a new furry friend, it’s not too late to adopt one there for free.
 
If you are thinking of taking advantage of this offer, expect to go through the same important adoption hoops. As the Sacramento Bee explains, “People seeking to adopt pets meet with shelter volunteers who counsel them on the responsibility and cost of pet ownership and try to match the pet with the prospective owner’s lifestyle.”
Before each animal goes off to its forever home, it is spayed or neutered, get shots, and receives a pet tag and city license.
 
Anyone, anywhere, can help local animal shelters
Regardless of where you live, there are local animal shelters throughout the U.S. and beyond that could use your help.
Adopting, if you are in a position to tackle all the responsibilities that come with pet ownership, is one way to help. Volunteering your time is another option. So is donating supplies and money, which brings us back to how this story all began.
One woman decided to make a generous financial donation, and then amazing things happened.
Noelle Cahill, who is a volunteer with another Sacramento shelter called Bradshaw Animal Shelter, put it really well:

“Pacini-Hauch made it possible for people with modest means to find love in the form of furry companionship. Sometimes you just need a little help to get a lot of love.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Karma aside, Pacini-Hauch will probably get more than her share of free advertising from all of this, which is fine by me.
But a key takeaway from this story is the fact that it didn’t take much to get a whole lot of people to adopt animals in need. And now there are hundreds of animals enjoying their new forever homes.
That got me thinking—why limit this to Sacramento?
I did the math. Adoption fees at this particular shelter are an average of about $83 per pet. If 200 pets get adopted—that comes to over $16,000 in fees — way more than the average citizen can afford.
But many of us can afford to give just $35. If 474 people donate just $35 each, then that could work just the same.
What if people started organizing their friends and family to follow in Pacini-Hauch’s footsteps?
Maybe together you too could cover all (if not some) of your local animal shelter’s adoption fees. Perhaps even make headlines like Pacini-Hauch did. The end result could be just as heartwarming.
“Home for the Pawlidays” is a beautiful concept that can be implemented anywhere there are shelters filled with animals in need of forever homes, and at least one generous contributor who steps up to cover adoption costs for would-be adopters.
Of course it goes without saying, owning a pet is not only a huge responsibility, it can also be quite expensive. So here’s hoping that everyone who adopts an animal from a shelter is prepared for the financial obligations that come with it.
 
What a wonderful gift this would make too! Just think of sweet children or a family out there that would love to have a cat or dog. Please share this article with anyone you know that loves animals. Anything to help these sweet pets find a home. 

Thanks so much and have a purr-fect week!
xo
Janet