The Local Leash: 5 Wallet- and Time-Friendly Ways To Help Animals

I'm a volunteer at Pawsibilities... I think. I can't remember the last time I actually made it out there to help. I have the best of intentions, really I do. But since I work from home, the lines between my work time, family & pets time, free time and errands/chores time is quite blurred.

Thankfully, there are some amazing organizations that make helping animals very easy, with zero to little extra time or cash required:

   1. Pedigree's Every Dog Deserves campaign

During the month of June only, Pedigree will donate food to shelters across the country every time someone engages with the brand via Facebook or Twitter. One pound of food, up to 100,000 pounds, will be donated for each "Like," comment, @ reply, re-tweet and photo upload directed at Pedigree. Tweets need to include the hashtag #everydogdeserves. If you send a tweet with that hashtag, please include@LeighPeterson in your tweet so I can see what you write and follow you!

   2. Pet Postcard Project

Be careful when you go to the pet postcard project website. The posts of adorable postcards, hand-made by dog lovers, will suck you in for longer than you planned to stay.

Every time someone makes a postcard featuring their own pet and snail-mails it to the Pet Postcard Project, food is donated to animal shelters. The food is supplied by pet food companies who agree to pledge a certain amount of food per postcard. Current sponsors include Rachel Ray's Nutrish and Lucky Dog Cuisine.

   3. Purina Weight Circles 

If you buy Purina pet food for you own pets, you'll find weight circles on participating products. The weight circle appears to be informational, but those little circles can do a lot more than just tell you how heavy the bag of food is. Purina Pro Club® members, like the Humane Society of Greater Akron, can redeem these circles for veterinary service vouchers. Save those weight circles and donate them to Pawsibilities!
   
  4. goodsearch.com

Simply use goodsearch.com rather than Google or Yahoo for your everyday web searching. You can set goodsearch to donate about $.01 cent from every search you perform to the non-profit of your choice. I just tested the engine by comparing its search results for the keywords "adopt a dog in Cuyahoga Falls" to the results given in Google for the same phrase, and the results were almost identical.

If your favorite non-profit isn't already affiliated with goodsearch.com, you can add it.  Local animal welfare organizations already benefiting from goodsearch include:

• The Humane Society of Greater Akron: $138 this year, $2,502 total
• Golden Treasures Golden Retriever Rescue in Bath: $36 this year, $217 total.
• Akron Zoo: $.77 this year, $39 total
• Angels for Animals in Canfield: $10 this year, $143 total
• One of a Kind Pets in Akron: $10 this year, $87 total
• Paws & Prayers in Akron: $15 this year, $220 total
• Wolfspirits Toy Breed Puppy Mill Rescue in Canton: $38 this year, $421 total

   5. freekibble.com

Freekibble.com is a cute site to visit on your lunch break. It features little trivia questions that you can answer, and for each answer the site donates 10 pieces of kibble to a homeless dog or cat (freekibblekat.com). It doesn't matter if you answer incorrectly, they'll still donate the food on your behalf. One trivia question is available every day, so it's quick and fun. Currently, the site is partnering with Halo Purely for Pets, so the animals are being fed healthy, all-natural kibble while visitors learn about pets in a fun, free way.

The site donates kibble to shelters all over the country, but currently the only affiliated Ohio shelter is the League of Animal Welfare in Batavia. According to the freekibble site, 407,099,550 pieces of kibble have been donated since June 1, 2008. By my loosely estimated calculations, that's over 2 billion meals!