I'm involved in two animal rescue agencies. One is
Small Paws Rescue, Inc., which I'm told is the largest single breed rescue group in the country. Other than donations, I've picked up dogs at the airport and taken them to their new homes, found groups to take in victims of the Amish puppy mills, and am on their prayer team. Unfortunately, it would be hard for someone of Girl Scout age to help with the driving and all. But if you do visit the site, notice that they were invited to be on Fox and Friends & go to the link
here instead of the one on the site - if you love animals, you'll love it! (the talkative dog is just like mine, only mine's quieter, like most bichons!) In fact, if your daughter is interested in SPR, she could email them, and ask them if they know of a hands on project.
The other is something I fell into, but hope to get out of soon! It's the Trap, Neuter, Release group for feral cats. There's a major feral cat colony in my mother's neighborhood, and she was feeding them every day. The queen (major female) had a new litter every few months like clockwork, then dumped them on my mama's porch. So, when I ended up staying with her, we started trapping them, taking them to the vet, letting them recuperate in our "kitten suite" (garage), then letting them go when they wanted to. We were able to place a few of them in real homes, but that was because we caught them young enough that they weren't truly feral yet. I'm sure that there are groups such as this in every county! We took the best head count of the cats that we could, then talked to a local vet about it. We were able to get the price of $35 for a male and $40 for a female to neuter. I do have to tell you, the first time we had a kitten in the trap (the humane traps, needless to say), he was crying so pitifully, I wailed to my mama, "I'm not cut out for this!" Well, that was the beautiful Siamese with the flame points whose picture I posted about a year ago. He had pink eye, so we had to get that healed before the neutering - which was how he had to stay in the garage. We'd open the door, and he'd start purring. Then, I gave him his meds (he would stick just the very tip of his tongue out, as if to say, "I don't like that, but I don't want to ruin this gig!") while my mother changed his litter & fed him. The very day we put up adoption signs, he was adopted by a woman with three other cats. Within the week, he was sleeping in the bed with her, and ruled the roost! But there are definite dark days, too, when we had all of the snow this year, and some of them tried to get into the house, or the one who was released and killed the same night. And now that the house will be sold, I'm trying to think of a place where they can be fed (I work close to the house) without Animal Control messing with them. It's also heartrending to know that the average lifespan of a feral cat is two years old, and the current ones just turned two...
Hybrid Mode
