This is Willow. About two years ago, I rescued her from an animal shelter. She lived in a cage and rarely received human contact. She was skittish and frightened by almost everyone. She spent her first few months hiding in her cage.
After a couple months, Willow became on of the most loving and playful dogs I have ever met. She never leaves my side and I love her with all my heart. She is truly one of the happiest parts of my life! Willow was my inspiration for this project. Adopting her has changed my life.
Willow’s story has a happy ending, however she is just one of 8 million dogs that entered shelters in 2009.
Unfortunately only half of the 8 million dogs and cats in shelters find homes… That means about 4 million animals are euthanized a year.
Because of my love for animals and my great experience with Willow, I wanted to spread awareness about animal adoption.
The main goal of my project was to encourage awareness about animal adoption. To do this, I created a website called Paws In Pounds .com, the website is home of resources for pet adoption information, videos, and a blog. Over the course of the semester, I wrote about 50 blog posts including “Happy Tails” adoption stories, interviews with animal shelters, and “Willow Wednesday” which featured a themed picture of my dog weekly.
One of my main goals was to tell the narrative of pet adoption. I asked several people to contribute their experiences when adopting a pet. I hoped this would help encourage people to adopt.
One of the stories that really touched me was of a dog who was rescued by the founder of a dog rescue organization in Thailand. The dog had horrible mange. These are pictures of the actual dog… as you can see the story definitely had a happy ending!
I also connected with several adoption organizations in North Texas. Weekly, I had interviews asking them 10 questions that most people wouldn’t think to ask a rescue organization or shelter. Some of the most interesting things I found were: St Cloud’s Rescue, a St. Bernard Rescue, goes through about 22,000 pounds of dog food each year…. Good Shepherd Rescue of North Texas is run by one lady, but rescues about 50 dogs a year, and Paws in the City spends over 200,000 dollars a year on medical expenses.
I used social media to communicate with the community and encourage people to my site.
I hope to continue on with this project and hopefully Paws in Pounds will make a difference to lower the number of animals euthanized each year. Hopefully it will make a difference and at least one more sad lonely dog in a shelter, will become a happy dog adopted by a loving family. Thank you!
