the Save A Life project

If you are a fan of my page, you may see me posting lately about the Save A Life project. And if you do not know already you may asking, what's that all about? It's another donation project (much like the Peace - Remember Me tshirts). I was super excited to do this project! 

I was born an animal lover, that I'm sure of. In our recent search to add a fur baby to our family, it really opened my eyes about the situation in the animal community. I started finding shelters/rescues/humane societies on Facebook and becoming a fan, hoping to across a good match for our family. Our family includes myself, my husband, our three year old son, two pugs and one cat. We lost our third pug in July 2011 to lymphoma.

Looking at all the fan pages, I was so taken back and amazed. Taken back by all the "urgent lists" and "death row" animals. I mean, I knew animals were being euthanized due to illness, extreme injuries and overcrowding. I guess I didn't know the severity of it.

I eventually turned to petfinder in search of a new fur baby. I actually emailed several potentials and as soon as I mentioned we were a military family, that kind of made them skeptical. I do understand that when some military families move, they don't take their animals with them. That's just not how we operate. Our animals our like our children. But I took that as a sign that those animals weren't meant for us. I eventually came across the most precious little (well, little at the time as he's growing fast) guy named Blaze. Listed as a shepherd mix and had an eye injury. We soon made arrangements to drive to Mobile, AL from Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, AL to meet Blaze. Almost a 2 1/2 hour drive, which was totally worth it.

Blaze had showed up in a sweet elderly ladies yard one day while she was outside gardening. He came trailing behind her dog from the woods. One of her friends worked for a local shelter but the elderly lady said she would foster him. After being there for a few days, his left eye hazed over. The vet he saw while in their care felt that his eye was damaged due to blunt force trauma. I know, why would anyone do that to a puppy? We will never have those answers, but the good thing was he was safe wit her.

We finally arrived at her house and we were welcomed by the two sweetest ladies, his foster Mom and her friend from the shelter. I sat in the car with our son at first, he was sleeping. So my husband got out and walked up to talk with them. The foster Mom went to get Blaze from her back yard. He was squirming ready to jump out of her arms. She let him down and he came running towards my husband and then slowly military crawled towards him. I do believe that it was love at first sight.

He brought Blaze to the car and I got out and immediately knew, he was meant for us. You could just tell. By that point our son woke up and was ready to get out of the car. Now here was the other test, how would Blaze react to a toddler? Let me tell you, those ladies were extremely thrilled to see Blaze running around with our son, Ronnie like he was his little shadow. I'm telling you, Blaze was like a match made in heaven for us. We took him home that day and could not have been more happy about it.

Back to his eye. Our vet strongly believes that he has no sight in his left eye and agreed it was probably due to blunt force trauma. He said that Blaze might be able to distinguish shadows. Those words, blunt force trauma, it truly breaks my heart to think how someone could have hurt him. He is the most gentle and loving dog, I just can't imagine someone's reasoning for doing that. At this time, it's still undetermined whether or not his eye needs to be removed. It doesn't seem to cause him pain, but does bother him most days. We are going to reevaluate that when it's time to neuter him.

After our attempts at finding a fur baby for our family, seeing all those animals that are so desperately in need of homes and then finally rescuing Blaze, I wanted to do more. Sure, I've made several donations to several different rescues. But I wanted to help more. That's when I decided to create the Save A Life project. It's starting out small, but I am praying it grows to be big.

I am offering a package deal. 1 Save A Life T-shirt, 1 reminder band (like the Lance Armstrong bands) and a pet ID tag. All of them say, Save A Life. My thought behind this was, whether you are volunteering, fostering, donating money or items needed, transporting or adopting; you are helping Save A Life. I am offering these package deals for $30 with free shipping. A $12 donation will go to a rescue/shelter/humane society etc., of the customers choice.

Do you know what kind of difference $12 can do? Well I wanted to know the same thing, so I contacted to shelters. Aide For Animals, where we adopted Blaze from and Bryant Animal Control, where we actually have an adopted cat from. So here are some answers I got when I asked what a $10 donation could do. At the time I asked these questions, my plan was to donate $10 since then I've changed it to a $12 donation.

Quoted by Betsy from Aide For Animals in Mobile, AL. "We feed 2+ big bags of cat food daily @approx $10 - 12 each and have an ongoing vet acct. $10 buys paper towels, bleach, dog chews, (we go through lots of those) etc. Believe me any shelter appreciates any amount!"

Quoted by Tricia Bryant Animal Control in Bryant, AR. "It could be used to vaccinate one animal for rabies, or vaccinate two animals against Parvo, distemper, etc. It can buy a couple gallons of bleach, which we use to sanitize bedding and cloth toys, and reduce disease transmission. It could be put against a pet's adoption fee, reducing it and making it more likely that they are adopted (adult cats, and big black dogs are two types of pets that have a harder time getting adopted at the shelter.) It could be combined with other donations and used to purchase food, litter, toys, treats or bedding. Last year, we collected nearly $9,000.00 in donations, which were used to purchase a large bank of stainless steel cages for our clinic room. These cages bring us into compliance with the Association of Shelter Veterinarians recommendations for small animal housing.

All of these things together help save lives, some by increasing the chances for adoption, some by increasing the likelihood that an adopted animal will stay in its adopted home. Some help to keep shelter animal's healthy, so they can stay at the shelter longer. Some of the items help calm scared animals, which makes them eligible for adoption or transfer into foster care. ALL save lives.

So in answer to your question - just $10 can make all the difference."

So as you can see that $12 donation made on your behalf by the Save A Life project, it can go a long ways and it helps more than you know.

Where can you find this awesome package? Check out my Etsy Shop. 

  (Save A Life package)

(that's me and my inspiration, Blaze)

Until the next time.....