Donating to the local shelter with Chewy and Fussie Cat #chewyinfluencer

You might have noticed that I haven't started a kitten watch this year and I haven't really started talking about fostering very much since I moved. One of the reasons for that is I can't get a shelter to return my inquiries about fostering. There is a shelter that is fairly nearby and I have filled out an application on the weekend and was told someone would get back to me the next week. Well, so far, no one had.

When I saw this month's influencer offerings by Chewy.com (where they offer me free product to review on the blog), I thought I would request the Fussie Cat Market Fresh Chicken and Turkey Recipe Grain-Free Dry Cat Food and make a donation to the shelter as a way to get them to notice me. This is what Fussie Cat has to say about their Market food:

Fussie Cat Market Dry Cat Food is created with the freshest and finest ingredients for your feline family member. Cats are notoriously fussy when it comes to their food and require a diet based on animal proteins to truly thrive. That’s why Fussie Cat tailors the taste of each recipe based on actual feline feedback to ensure it’s equally delicious. This Physiologically Tuned and grain-free recipe features real meat as the first ingredients to provide complete, high-quality protein and an excellent source of vitamin B12, riboflavin and phosphorus.

I had a few cat beds that I adore but my cats never used, so I thought I would take those too. I had also bought several cases of cat food on Black Friday figuring they would also be a donation, so I piled it all up and took it down

Shelters are always in need of cat food donations because they are still very much an overlooked pet despite the overwhelming numbers of them owned by people and turned into shelters. Shelter pets rarely get high-quality donations as $10 bought that large bag of Meow Mix. The 24 packs of canned food were $12 a piece and the bag of Fussie Cat is $30 and is half the size of the Meow Mix.

I was so happy that Chewy gave me the opportunity to do something nice for the shelter cats.

A Donation for the Shelter Bunnies #chewyinfluencer

This month's Chewy.com Influencer "free product for an honest review" Program's list also had a nice bag of Oxbow Essential's Adult Rabbit Food. It has been a while since I made a donation to the shelter for the bunnies, something I like to do from time to time so I asked if they would be okay with my asking for that product and donating it. Chewy was fine with the idea.

Rabbits should eat mostly hay and dark leafy green veggies but adding in a bit of rabbit food each day makes sure you hit all of their nutritional needs. I found it quite interesting that I saw this particular brand being sold at my vet's office when I was just recently in there, so you know it has my vet's approval.

Rabbits also need to chew constantly to help wear down their teeth.I thought using the Chewy Box to make some chewy toys would be a great idea.  I bought a bag of Timothy Hay to make the toys more interesting.

I checked out Pinterest to find some ideas for DIY cardboard rabbit toys.  There were some really amazing projects but I wanted to keep it simple. I used this pin and this pin for inspiration.

Since I had just acquired myself an empty roll of toilet paper, I thought I'd make the simplest of rabbit chewies first. Shove timothy hay in the tube.

Done! Wasn't that simple? The bunny that gets this can eat the hay and chew the cardboard to reveal more. They can also "nose" the roll around the cage for something to do.

Creating cardboard Xs is another simple toy for rabbits. They can chew them, pick them up and toss them around and dig at them with their feet.  I cut the short sides of the Chewy.com Box off and cut them in half.

For the longer sides, I had wanted to create more stuffed chew toys like the toilet paper roll one, but I could not place my hands on my natural twine.  If I had found it, it would have looked a lot like the one below with the pink ribbon.  I probably would have put two or three ties on it to give the bunny something to investigate and chew on as well. I made sure all of the tape was off the box first.

But alas, no twine, so I decided to shove hay through holes in "cards" of cardboard. Jack thought he needed to help me at this point and his distraction led me to not get any photos of the final project. I cut both long ends into four squares and then cut holes in the middle.  For several of them, I kept the simple approach and just shoved a tuft of hay in one card. For others, I used two or three cards to make the toy a little more 'challenging"

I piled everything up in the base of the Chewy.com box. I decided to not deconstruct it and make more toys for two reasons, one it made an awesome carrying case and for another, it might be a nice for the shelter to have the box to give to a rabbit to chew on.

I then called the shelter and spoke to Peter (no, the coincidence did not escape me) and asked him what they might like for some goodies for the rabbits. Shelters will often get large donations of greens so I wanted to make sure I wasn't buying anything they didn't need. He asked for some apples, some dark leafy greens and some cilantro because it helps them wake up from surgery (which I had never heard of before). I stopped at the grocery store on my way to the shelter, and thought a few boxes of popciles for the staff would be nice because it was such a warm day.

All told, the donation cost me just under $20 and it was very much appreciated.

Peter let me feed some craisins to the rabbits and I had to be mighty careful that this little girl (above) didn't try to nibble on my fingertips which still smelled like them. You can almost hear her asking "Hey, Lady, you got any more of them craisins??"

The small animal area consists of two rooms and in the 'office' area they leg the rabbits run around for some exercise. Here is another cool cardboard box craft. The two bunnies in the box really love the green tube and seemed to prefer to use that enterence.

Peter and I talked bunnies for a few minutes and he let me pet a few of them. Sometimes it still really hurts that I feel can't have a rabbit right now due to what happened with Bri (she came down with a URI which I believe she caught from Skippy) Rabbits do make wonderful pets if you are prepared to deal with their unique needs.

Thank you to Oxbow and Chewy.com for being the inspiration for this donation. I hope it leads to other people thinking about supporting nontraditional shelter animals.

Oxbow is currently having a giveaway until August 31st. Nominate your favorite shelter to win $5,000

Making a difference - thinking outside the box when donating to an animal shelter

My sister in law got married this past weekend. She held the service at her brother's house and they did a lot of the prep themselves. They put up a large white tent and rented tables and chairs. They ordered food from Olive Garden catering. They bought lots of veggies for appetizers and had multiple choices for desert.  It was a lovely and quite touching ceremony, and not just because my husband officiated.

The prep team prepared for 120 or so guests and while we didn't actually count we guessed that there was about 90 or so there. As does most families, my husband's family tends to buy far more food than they think will be necessary, and in this case, there was so much left over food that the hosts were in a bit of a panic as to where they were going to put it all.

I did my best to help prep the food to make it easy for guests to take food home, but I knew they would still be swimming in food, so I started thinking what I could do to help.  I made plans to take what we could use at the house. I thought of my parents who enjoy a meal at Olive Garden, so I took what they could use. I looked at the mountains of food left, including an entire table full of over 20+ bowls of salad. I tried to think of other people I could 'pawn food off on' and while I was cleaning up the tray of vegetables it dawned on me that the small animals at the shelter could use veggies. If I was going to make a run to the shelter for veggies, I might as well bring a few bowls of salad for the staff, and if I was going to bring salad, I should probably bring some dessert.  At this point, my car was full of food or I might have brought more.

Two grocery bags full of cut veg, two large bowls of salad - including two bottles of dressing and plastic tongs - and a box of desserts.

The staff wasn't quite sure what to make of my donation at first, I'm guessing they didn't quite understand what I was saying I was bringing in. When they got a look at the deserts they were all quite tickled. One gentleman even gave me a hug!  When I talked to the foster coordinator later she told me that people rarely bring in donations for the staff to enjoy.

Shelter works have very hard jobs, physically and emotionally. I have always thought that it was important to support the staff as well as the physical day to day running of the shelter - which is what most donations go towards.  A couple of boxes of popsicles in the summer.. a box of cookies in the winter.. little things are important.

Maybe you have a spare bunch of tomatoes, or your fruit tree was extra bountiful this year..  Or maybe you have a floral garden that makes a nice bouquet.  If you would appreciate someone bringing goodies to you, you know the shelter staff in your area would appreciate it too.



I took some time to take some photos at the shelter and I will share those with you tomorrow.

Please consider donating canned food to your local shelter

I have been fostering for my local shelter for over a decade now, and one thing that seems to ring true year in and year out is that fall is a very hard time for kitties. Mother cats who are nursing kittens are often nursing their second litter of the year which makes things even harder on them. Giving birth and nursing kittens is very draining on the body's reserves, and to become pregnant again means there is less nutritional reserves for everyone. Mother cats are thinner, kittens are smaller and both become sicker more easily. It is very sad.

On top of this, many people don't think about donating food to their shelters this time of year. A lot of fundraising awareness is done in the spring in the face of kitten season starting up, and Christmas often brings a second influx of donations to a shelter, but late summer and fall kitties are often feed whatever is left in the pantry - which is generally dry food.

Dry foods are often donated to the shelters because they are big and cheap and make a good show. Walking in with a 20lb bag of food feels better than walking in with 12 cans of food despite the fact that the cost is usually equivalent. And while that 20lb bag of food will feed healthy pets for longer periods of time, pets that have any health issues could use the nutritional boost that only comes from a diet that is higher in animal proteins.

Nursing mothers tend to need it even more. My current foster mom is now eating six 5.5 oz cans of food per day. Her babies are starting to help her so I wonder how many cans I will be going through in the upcoming weeks.

I went into the shelter the other day to stock up on some canned food for my fosters and they had run out. Even their dry food supplies were low and they put out a call for donations from their wishlist. Hopefully the call helped and there will be some food when I go in this weekend, if not I'll have to go and purchase some myself. If you would like to help out, you can purchase from their Amazon wishlist or my own. If you prefer to support your own local shelter, please consider donating some canned food for them this weekend because I have no doubt they could really use some.

Someone was saving a little bit for later #nowislater #fosterkittens

A video posted by Connie (@tfkblog) on Oct 21, 2015 at 4:39pm PDT

updates

well I weighed Ella tonight and she weighed 2lbs..(for comparison, Jackson is 3.5) so it looks like the end of their stay is sooner rather than later.  Elsa is doing so well that I only have a few minor reservations about her going up for adoption... and all of them having to do with not being able to control the public that enters to see her.  But that is not for me to deal with.  I will mention my observations of her to the shelter and let them deal with what they want to do with her.  My hopes is she does so well on the adoption floor that she goes home shortly after showing up.  She is quite beautiful and really is loving and fun and is so energetic that I can't imagine someone wanting her now (as long as they don't have little kids)

Oddly enough she does remind me a bit of Daisy.
It is in some of the poses she makes.

But..

The painters have been dealing with some inflammation in their eyes.  Mostly Jackson.  It was in his left eye, and as that started to clear up it went to his right. Somewhere in between it jumped over to Evelyn's eye.. There has been some random sneezing but all in all it is pretty minor.  One of those wait and see instances, and I think it will clear up in time.  Probably not in time to get them all home by Black Friday, but hopefully by December 1st *paws crossed*

This morning DH and I went out and about to the Christmas Fairs.  We walked into one fair and there was a pair of  "Bear Chairs" each was marked at $1.00.  I commented how cute would that be with the kittens cuddled up on one.  My husband noticed they were only $1.00 each and lobbied to buy it.  I laughed at him and said he needed to buy the stuffed cat sitting on it to show the kittens what to do with it.  I wandered off to look at something else and when I turned around he had the bear and the cat in his hands. :)   It was so adorable that every single person there who was older than us said something cute to him.

the kitten is about the size of a beanie baby..for size reference 

When we got it home, the kitties knew right what to do with it.

In case you were wondering, yes Elsa is nursing the Painters

I ended up taking a hundred or so pictures.  Ella thought the bear's eyes had to die.  Both Ella and Jackson whispered something into the bear's ear.. lots of sniffing, lots of posturing.. they are freakin adorable, but it is a freakin lot of pictures too..

Miss Lady Frida Floofface... I don't quite know what I am going to do with that kitten.  I adore her so, but she still has some major trust issues.  I so wish I could get my hands on my Rescue Remedy.  I've got a couple of bottles floating around the house at this point.  Part of me says that if I can't find it than it must be that I shouldn't be using it.  I keep looking for it hoping, because I do think it will do her some good.. *shrug*  But tonight we did two things.. I got her running around after the toy and she touched my leg *YEA!!* and I took her on a "field trip" around the house and let her take a look at The Crew and how much they trust me.  I took her into the bathroom and shut the door and put her down and let her walk around for a bit.  I was able to pick her up with out much of an incident, but I could tell that while I was doing it she really really REALLY wished I was in Antarctica..   Jackson - he is pretty much a normal socialized kitten, only being hesitant when you go straight at him, but then so are a lot of other kittens.  Evelyn is somewhere in between.

Then I went to the #BlogPawtyPALs on Twitter.  This is the second BlogPaws Twitter party I've been to this week.  The first one was on Tuesday and it was a rather long and drawn out event.. Even still I ended up winning two prizes at it :)  This one was much shorter, and I won.. well I won two prizes out of this one too.. only thing is one of them was something I really couldn't use (OK I probably could have, I wouldn't mind a good walking jacket for Skippy, but it was more of a dog harness thing) so I "donated" it back to the party.  Funny thing was the person who won it after me also donated it back.. lol. It finally ended up with someone who was very happy to have it, so that was a good thing.  then there was this:

and the question..

Freaking exciting hun??   If you haven't seen the talking Guinea Pig video PAL has done, you so need to.

So, only thing more exciting than the prize was this..

Twitter reads backwards.. 

I really liked the idea of the shelter buying $500 worth of food for the foster kittens, but I knew someone who could use it more..

They did give away another $500 prize, but I failed to win that one (as is probably the right thing)

Afterwards I thought about Jeanne and the need that she has and felt a little bummed I didn't remember sooner, but I hope that by supporting the auction they are going to have to fund raise will do some good.

Comment-a-thon totals

Staff at AWS with the donation from Chewy.com
for some reason they sent 'senior' food  *shrug*

There has also been exactly 400 comments from the start of my blogoversary until now!! LOL  of course I'm sure quite a few of them are mine, but that is OK.  I was hoping to donate ~$100 and poof, that is the total we actually got.

While I didn't get there the way I originally wanted to, I'm still tickled pink that I got there, so thank you to all of you for coming back to my blog again and again and spending a small part of your day with me, The Crew, and the influx of fosters I get.

I have another bit of interesting news... while watching my comments, I also watched my web stats.  Blogger/Google started tracking visitors for me back in May of 2008. They haven't been the most reliable I'm sure, but they are still interesting and fun to watch.  Well just very very recently I hit 100,000 page views :)  At the time of the composition of this post it actually reads 102,112  Yup, I'm more than a little chuffed about that one.

Stopped by the Shelter.

On Friday the 13th, I saw that Tamar at ihavecat.com was doing a give away.  One only had to email and be one of the first 20 and they would get a 15lb bag of Science Diet's new corn free food.  Well since I don't feed SD I emailed saying that I would donate it to the shelter I foster for.

Apparently I was too late, but Tamar was sweet enough to appreciate the donation and she gave me one of her personal codes.

I went over to http://www.petfooddirect.com/ and placed an order.  There was a little confusion on getting the code to work, but once it was in the whole process went pretty smoothly.  I got the confirmation email on the 14th, and it mailed on the 18th.  It arrived on the 19th.  Pretty impressive especially for free shipping.  Unfortunately the box it came in was damaged (nor was there any information on the outside of the box to say who it came from.. I am not a fan of that) but the bag inside was just fine.

I had to put it in my car to prevent Jack from chewing on the bag.  Not to say that he gives this food his two paws up, but just that he has a long extensive history of chewing through bags of food and food like substance (like wheat and corn based litters)

I finally got up the nerve to go to the shelter and return Spooky's needles and such (nerve because it made me sad to gather  up the bits of her life left here).  I also had a stack of pill vials that I knew the shelter could use and a few other things that I took to assist one cat or another and should have gone back. 

The people at the shelter hadn't heard of the food, and were interested in it.  Fortunately they are still not hurting for food (I can't tell you how much that warms my heart) but unfortunately that means my hefty donation of $40 food wasn't fawned over as much as some of my other donations in the past.  Hey, this isn't about being fawned over, it's about feeding cats.  Besides, too much fawning makes me uncomfortable.

The kitties were all pretty much bedded down for the night, so I didn't spend a lot of time there.  There was one black girl who was turned in on the 19th that was freaked out of her gourd.  She was growly and hissy, and swatted at the staff who tried to feed her.  I tried to make nice with her, but she wasn't buying any of my "it's going to be OK" moves.  Oddly enough she did walk out of her hidey hole to see me better when I looked at one of the kitties below her.  She was sending off very mixed signals.  I so wanted to take her home and let her chill in my foster room, but that really wouldn't help her adjust to the shelter.

I did see a notice of someone looking for a pet sitter for several months, so I thought I'd call and offer my foster room, but she has found a situation for the kitty, so that wasn't necessary.

So it is still just me, and Jack, and Muffin, and Eli, and Twee, and Kit, and Fleurp, and Skippy.

It has arrived

Remember way back when Romeo the Cat ran a contest for free Royal Canin Food in conjunction with PetCo?  And remember when I won?  It was oh so exciting!!

I wrote to Romeo and asked if he or his staff could connect me with Royal Canin to purchase the other half of the pallet, because I like to make a canned food donation in the fall (when donations fall off, but all those late summer kitties are still around and food is scarce)  Romeo's staff wrote and when Royal Canin heard that I wanted to purchase it they oh so generously donated the half of pallet I didn't win..

Well with the summer vacations and the emailing back and forth and scheduling things, the food didn't show up for a bit of time, but it SHOWED UP TODAY!!  yea!!  (yet I know Minerva won't eat it, so I don't know why I'm doing the happy dance.. oh wait.. the other kittens in foster care and at the shelter will!!)

Is it wrong of me to be a little happy I don't have to unload it??

Except they have told me they want me to come down and get my picture taken with it all.. I hate having my photo taken.. *pout*

Donations

I had been going to the shelter for supplies for a few weeks and they were out of scoopable litter.  I have a plethora of litter at our home because I buy a lot of it when it goes on sale, but I knew the shelter really could use some, so when Big Lots gave out a 20% off coupon I decided to buy about $100 worth of litter for a donation.

I went down and only saw a few cases on the shelf, so I asked management if they had any more.  After the ineveitable questions as to why, they said they had recently done a donation drive for animal supplies for another shelter but since they hadn't picked it up in months, would I like to bring it down.

Well I'm never one to turn down a donation for the shelter.  I know that they also supply a local food pantry with pet food with supplies they have in excess, so even if the shelter couldn't use it, it would go to use.

So this is what $100 (almost 500lbs)  of litter looks like after I sweet talked the staff :)

I did route around in the boxes.  There was some canned food, some bags of dry and bags of litter, and a few boxes of toys.  I snagged a few of the toys for the fosters and they are already well loved.

Do a Little Dance...

Yahooie!!  I can't believe I won half a pallet of food from Romeo the Cat and PetCo and Royal Canin for the shelter!!

So happy... As you may (or may not) know I am a huge proponent of canned food for kitties (http://www.catinfo.org explains why) and I bet you this is going to help a lot of cats and kittens stay nice and healthy at the shelter while they await their homes.

I usually donate a boat load of canned food to the shelter once a year... usually in the fall when donations start drying up, but I thought hey, if they are coming anyway with half a pallet, how much more could it be for a WHOLE pallet, so I contacted Romeo's mom and asked her to send along a note asking if I could do that.    Won't that be fun...