Help!

A picture of Mink for no better reason than the fact that he is also an animal.

Animal-centric day today!

As I have probably mentioned before, I volunteer at the Austin Humane Society (in the cat department). It's a really fantastic shelter (no-kill, as well), and I so enjoy spending time there and working with the animals. Recently, the shelter's dog population has been swelled with the addition of over 150 dogs confiscated (well, some confiscated, some voluntarily relinquished) from a local animal hoarder. It is one of the worst cases of animal hoarding on record locally, and the conditions in which these dogs were living are just horrific. You can read more about the case here and here. Not very pleasant.

Anyway, the shelter needs monetary donations to help them deal with this influx of new dogs and all the health-care they need. None of them were spayed or neutered, and none of them were properly vaccinated, so all that will need to be done as soon as possible. Space and resources are also a problem, as the dogs pretty much doubled the population of the shelter overnight. If you have any carriers of any size and any old towels, AHS could really use them - you can drop them off at the shelter (142 W. Anderson Lane, opposite the Red Lobster) between 7am and 7pm. I'm sure we all have some ratty old towels lying around that we can get rid of! At least, I hope I'm not the only one that clings to towels well beyond the span of their natural lives. I blame The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

And while I'm trespassing on your good nature, I'm going to go just a little further, to the nice grassy bit perfect for picnics (I didn't get much sleep last night. Can you tell?). Care2 is running a competition to find the best shelter in America, and you can vote for your favourite. The winning shelter will receive $15,000, which, as you can imagine, will come in handy! If you wouldn't mind heading over to the ballot page and voting, that would be wonderful. It takes a couple of minutes, and all you have to do is enter your name, email address and zip code. I would so appreciate it, and so would all the wee animals, although I can't promise they'll write to thank you.

Thank you so much, everyone!