News Alert: August 12, 2011

1. Help Your $100K Challenge Shelter Win Big—Send Us Photos!

More than 3,000 animals went home during the first seven days of the ASPCA $100K Challenge, marking an amazingly strong start to the three-month-long shelter competition to save more animals’ lives. Last weekend, contestant shelters across the country stayed open all night and offered special promotions and discounts on adoption fees to get the public motivated and in the door.

“Many shelters shattered their own records for most adoptions in a day or a week,” reports Bert Troughton, ASPCA Vice President of Community Outreach.

For the next three months, each contestant will continue to bring its best game in an effort to save at least 300 more animals than the same period in 2010. The shelter with the biggest increase in animals saved will win a $100,000 grant from the ASPCA.

But it doesn’t end there: This year, we’re awarding a total of $300,000 in grant prizes, including a whopping 15 $1,000 grants to the winning shelters of our second annual $100K Challenge Photo/Video Contest. That’s where you come in!

Did you adopt a cat or dog from one of the Challenge shelters? Did you foster an animal or volunteer for one of our Challengers? Or perhaps you were reunited with your pet at a Challenge shelter? If so, we want to see the evidence! Submit a photo or video, and you could help your local shelter contestant win a $1,000 grant.

Not sure if your shelter is participating in the $100K Challenge? Check out our full list of contestants! Then share the contest URL www.aspca.org/100kphoto with your friends and neighbors by posting the link on Facebook or Twitter. The deadline for entries is October 31!

2. ASPCA Happy Tails: Go Get ‘Em, Tiger

It looked like Tiger, a spunky brindle Pit mix with severe arthritis, wouldn’t find a home by his seventh birthday. Tiger had come to the ASPCA in 2009 after Humane Law Enforcement Agents rescued him from neglect, and he’d been waiting for a family ever since.

But his difficult life didn’t dampen his effervescent personality or passion for people, and he spent his time with us learning commands beyond the basics, getting featured as Pet of the Week twice, and earning a special place in the heart of every staffer who met him. He even won the 2009 Talent Show!

Meanwhile, ASPCA volunteer Marc Ragovin was coping with the loss of his own brindle Pit, Samson, who had passed away a year before. But Tiger’s special needs "made me want to pay him some extra attention,” says Ragovin, and after a few months of walking and playing with Tiger, Ragovin felt that he’d forged a bond with the friendly pooch.

So just before Tiger reached his two-year anniversary at the ASPCA, Ragovin adopted the lucky dog and brought him home—just a few blocks from our Adoption Center. Tiger’s new life affords him lots of affection and games of fetch. And his location means he can pop in and visit his friends at the Adoption Center.

“When I walk him past the ASPCA, he’s stopped and gone toward the door, and I have to tell him he doesn’t live there anymore,” says Ragovin. “I guess he has good memories.”

For more adoption success stories, visit our Happy Tails archive.

3. ASPCA Grants Across America: Hay for Horses

The economy has been particularly rough on horse guardians this year—widespread hay shortages have caused the price of hay to skyrocket, making it more difficult than ever for many people to care for their equine companions. With most horse rescues already at capacity, recent ASPCA Equine Fund grantee Dream Catcher Therapy Center had the foresight to address the problem of horse abandonment at its source, resolving to help people through tough times so they can keep their beloved animals.

Although the Dream Catcher Therapy Center’s primary role is to provide animal assisted therapy for those with physical or mental health issues, it has become a vital resource in western Colorado through its hay bank. The ASPCA’s most recent grant of $4,000 will allow the Center to shore up its supply of hay, which will be available free of charge to individuals requesting help.

“This is a good group that thinks beyond their own doors and asks, ‘How can we keep horses in their homes?’ as opposed to them winding up in rescue or headed for slaughter,” says Jacque Schultz, Senior Director, ASPCA Equine Fund.

Located in Olathe, Colorado, the Dream Catcher Therapy Center has helped more than 1,200 disabled children and adults, and has rescued, rehabilitated and re-homed hundreds of at-risk horses. The Center is a verified Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries facility. This is the ASPCA’s fourth grant to them in as many years.

The ASPCA is on track to award more than 10 million dollars in grant money to worthy animal welfare groups across the U.S. in 2011. To learn more, including how your organization can apply for an ASPCA Grant, please visit aspcapro.org.

4. Freekibble.com Feeds Hungry, Homeless Cats and Dogs

Mimi Ausland is an inspiring young advocate for homeless animals. Now a teenager, Mimi started Freekibble.com, a website that donates food to shelter animals, when she was just 11 years old.

Freekibble is an interactive site that asks visitors to answer a brief trivia question about animals. For every answer—right or wrong—the site donates pet food to shelter animals. We were so inspired by Mimi’s ingenuity that we named her ASPCA Kid of the Year in 2008.

Since then, Freekibble has fed nearly 6 million meals at shelters, rescues and food banks across the country. The ASPCA is now honored to be among the shelters receiving the program’s monthly donations of HALO Spot's Stew to feed our own cats and dogs.

Show your support for Freekibble’s food donation program simply by answering a daily trivia question at Freekibble.com. To learn more about Mimi's story, please visit ASPCA Kids.