Have you heard about the book, Unlikely Friendships, by Jennifer S. Holland?

Jennifer’s 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom showcases tales of friendships between animals that you’d never expect would be buds. Some of these adorable interspecies friendships were brought together by human intervention, like the runt of the litter piglet rejected by its siblings but given a second chance with a Dachshund, while others happened on their own, like the Tortoise and the Hippo who were discovered one morning cuddling with each other (OMG how cute, right?) There’s even a hamster that was intended to be dinner for a snake, but the two declared peace instead.

Each story is accompanied by a scientific outline of the species involved with the phylum, class, order, etc. It would make a fantastic gift for your animal loving friends. Or for you.

The thing I love about this book is it shows how animals can transcend what they are “supposed” to do and hang with anyone they darn well choose. Sometimes I wonder why humans make everything so complicated. If cats ran the world there would be fewer wars and more naps. Take note humans, if your animal pals can find contentment and friendship, so can you.

Pugsley and I have even made peace with the Crawling-Drooling-Pooping-Crying Creature. She pulled my tail the other day and got a fistful of fur but it’s all good. She does get the staff up earlier these days, so we’re cool.

Unlikely Friendships is also a Unlikely Friendships 2012 Wall Calendar! Twelve months of awesome photos and stories reminding us that we’re all in this together, dudes.

AND I am giving TEN of them away to lucky readers! That’s right! Ten! Just leave a comment below telling me a story of an unlikely friendship you’ve experienced or heard about or witnessed. If you don’t have your own story, tell me what you think would be a hilariously unlikely friendship!

LEAVE YOUR COMMENT BY TOMORROW, NOON EST THURSDAY DECEMBER 15 so I can make sure you get your calendar in time for the new year (maybe even by Christmas!) Then check your email tomorrow at 12:15 p.m. so I can get your address if you are a winner!

Good luck and Happy Holidays!

It’s Petside’s Annual Pet Net Day! This year, a group of bloggers have come together to write about pet adoption and rescue. Today, I’m letting the staff take the reins to talk about breed specific rescues. But first, a few housekeeping issues.

MOST IMPORTANT, please visit Petside’s page and VOTE for this post as your favorite! If we win, we will get $500 to donate to the organization of our choice. I say “our” choice because, we’re in this together. You guys cast the votes and you guys get to choose the rescue if we win. I will ask YOU to submit your fave rescue and then do a drawing! Wheeeee!

There are other ways you can help raise food for shelter and rescue pets. You can see how right here.

Okay, staff. Go:

On Facebook recently, a friend posted her desire to find a good breeder because she wanted a black lab. Her family had always had labs and her sweet old baby had recently gone to the bridge. I love this friend but I was near hysteria. Trying not to sound like a crazy zealot (because that never works, my friends) I emailed her privately and said, “OMG go to your local shelter or find a lab rescue!” She was skeptical at first. “There are lab rescues??” Uh, yah.

Here was this smart, fabulous, kind and caring woman who didn’t know that, according to the ASPCA, 25 percent of dogs in shelters are purebred. And, with the many breed-specific rescues out there, the number of adoptable pure breds is quite a bit higher.

It’s okay to be obsessed with a specific breed of dog or cat. I’m not quite sure how it happens but for some of us humans, a certain breed creeps into our hearts, lays down and stays put.

This woman loves her labs. I love my persians. My friend Bev loves her bichons. My brother and sister in law love their bostons. And there are plenty of people out there who couldn’t live without a series of wonderful loyal mutts (a breed of their own, in my opinion!) in their lives. It’s okay to have a preference. You can find almost any breed in a shelter or breed-specific rescue. And we need to spread the word to help these breed-specific rescues help more pets in need.

Neither of my persian babies would have survived without a breed-specific rescue.

Romeo was two-years-old when he was brought into a shelter in Kentucky for the second time. He was covered in scabs and deaf in both ears. He had litter box issues. He was a mess. And probably would be hard to adopt out. But a shelter worker who knew of a persian rescue in Ohio called them and asked if they wanted him. Of course they did! So Renee drove several hours to pick up this little matted, flea ridden ball of misbehaving fluff that would completely change our lives.

Sweet Pugsley was an 11th hour rescue. In a shelter in Indiana, he was (incorrectly) diagnosed with a life-threatening and contagious disease and slated for you-know-what. The eve before, one of the workers who wasn’t entirely sure he had the disease in question, called the persian rescue. Within hours, he was in a carrier, headed to Ohio and, several months later, into our home.

What if these shelter workers had not known about The Forgotten Persian Rescue & Friends? The more people who know about breed-specific rescues, the better. Most organizations out there are wonderful and do everything they can to save the dogs and cats in their care. But often a breed specific rescue can take it just one step further, as in Romeo and Pugsley’s cases.

So tell me, do you have a specific breed of cat or dog that you love? Do you have a story you want to share? Please do!

It’s Petside’s Annual Pet Net Day! This year, a group of bloggers have come together to write about pet adoption and rescue. Today, I’m letting the staff take the reins to talk about breed specific rescues. But first, a few housekeeping issues.

MOST IMPORTANT, please visit Petside’s page and VOTE for this post as your favorite! If we win, we will get $500 to donate to the organization of our choice. I say “our” choice because, we’re in this together. You guys cast the votes and you guys get to choose the rescue if we win. I will ask YOU to submit your fave rescue and then do a drawing! Wheeeee!

There are other ways you can help raise food for shelter and rescue pets. You can see how right here.

Okay, staff. Go:

On Facebook recently, a friend posted her desire to find a good breeder because she wanted a black lab. Her family had always had labs and her sweet old baby had recently gone to the bridge. I love this friend but I was near hysteria. Trying not to sound like a crazy zealot (because that never works, my friends) I emailed her privately and said, “OMG go to your local shelter or find a lab rescue!” She was skeptical at first. “There are lab rescues??” Uh, yah.

Here was this smart, fabulous, kind and caring woman who didn’t know that, according to the ASPCA, 25 percent of dogs in shelters are purebred. And, with the many breed-specific rescues out there, the number of adoptable pure breds is quite a bit higher.

It’s okay to be obsessed with a specific breed of dog or cat. I’m not quite sure how it happens but for some of us humans, a certain breed creeps into our hearts, lays down and stays put.

This woman loves her labs. I love my persians. My friend Bev loves her bichons. My brother and sister in law love their bostons. And there are plenty of people out there who couldn’t live without a series of wonderful loyal mutts (a breed of their own, in my opinion!) in their lives. It’s okay to have a preference. You can find almost any breed in a shelter or breed-specific rescue. And we need to spread the word to help these breed-specific rescues help more pets in need.

Neither of my persian babies would have survived without a breed-specific rescue.

Romeo was two-years-old when he was brought into a shelter in Kentucky for the second time. He was covered in scabs and deaf in both ears. He had litter box issues. He was a mess. And probably would be hard to adopt out. But a shelter worker who knew of a persian rescue in Ohio called them and asked if they wanted him. Of course they did! So Renee drove several hours to pick up this little matted, flea ridden ball of misbehaving fluff that would completely change our lives.

Sweet Pugsley was an 11th hour rescue. In a shelter in Indiana, he was (incorrectly) diagnosed with a life-threatening and contagious disease and slated for you-know-what. The eve before, one of the workers who wasn’t entirely sure he had the disease in question, called the persian rescue. Within hours, he was in a carrier, headed to Ohio and, several months later, into our home.

What if these shelter workers had not known about The Forgotten Persian Rescue & Friends? The more people who know about breed-specific rescues, the better. Most organizations out there are wonderful and do everything they can to save the dogs and cats in their care. But often a breed specific rescue can take it just one step further, as in Romeo and Pugsley’s cases.

So tell me, do you have a specific breed of cat or dog that you love? Do you have a story you want to share? Please do!

Wow, there are SO many ways we can help homeless pets these days! This one is for those of you who have blogs. If you are a member of the BlogPaws community, you should already know about this.

But If you haven’t heard about the BlogPaws and BISSELL Blog Carnival to raise money for the Petfinder.com Foundation, there is still time to get involved! A Blog Carnival is a community-wide BlogPaws event in which we all post around the same topic. The topic we are all writing about for this event is your adoption story and the happiness your pet has brought you! Now that’s an easy one, right?

Here are the deets:

1. To enter, you must be a member of the BlogPaws community. You can become a member here.

2. Write a blog post and email a link to your post to vhunt@crt-tanaka.com with “BlogPaws  Carnival submission” in the subject line. Submissions must be received by midnight ET on Saturday, Sept. 10.

3. A panel of judges made up of one BISSELL representative, one Petfinder.com Foundation representative and BlogPaws founders/organizers will review posts and select the winners.

4. Click the following link to download the official contest rules. Download BlogPaws Blog Carnival Contest Rules.

5. Prizes
One grand prize winner will be awarded a $2,500 grant and two runners-up will each receive a $1,000 grant for the Petfinder.com shelter of their choice.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Wow, you guys really, really love your rescues and shelters! That’s clear due to the number of entries you generated. I wish, wish, WISH that everyone could be a winner. That would mean every one of your organizations would receive these awesome donations!

But, alas, this time we could only draw three. And they are…..

Caren G. of Cat Chat with Caren and Cody is our first prize winner! She won a $1,000 cash donation to her favorite organization, Almost Home, in Southfield, Michigan.

Caren says, “I would donate to Almost Home whose founders Gail and Lauren Montgomery, work tirelessly in their quest to find the cats (and dogs) at their rescue a furever home.”

Our second prize winners are:

Joyce J., who won 1/2 pallet of food….that’s 3,696 cans…..for her favorite organization, Gimme Shelter.

And…

Connie, whose organization of choice is the Animal Welfare Society in West Kennubunk, ME. Connie fosters a lot of cats from AWS and blogs about her experiences at Kitty Blog. Sigh. I love foster moms. AWS will also receive 1/2 pallet of food!

So, some truly amazing organizations will be receiving a much needed boost. THANK YOU, ROYAL CANIN AND PETCO! And thanks to all of you.

I’ve received lots of emails from you all, requesting more contests like this so I will work on bringing you more opportunities to help your local organizations.

Until then, in the words of my old buddy, Angelus Kitty:

TUNA OUT!

Hi everyone!

I’ll be posting the Royal Canin/Petco GOGO winners tomorrow. I know I said today but the staff underestimated how long it would take to tally up all of your wonderful entries plus she has to verify a couple of things before she announces.

SORRY! But, really, you should know by now how much of a slacker she is (especially when it comes to tuna but we’ll save that topic for another rant). Sigh.

Stay tuned, buddies!

xo,

R

Riding in style.

Staff had the nerve to go out of town over the weekend. Pugsley got shipped off to the V-E-T to be boarded since he still needs close attention, meds and someone to closely watch his litter box output. But I stayed here and held down the fort like a GOOD BOY.

Tired, cranky and frazzled staff went to pick up Pugsley from the V-E-T last night and forgot the cat carrier so Pugsley had to ride home un-contained.

He apparently spent half the ride in the back window (much to the amusement of other motorists) and the other half sitting in the walking-yelling-ABC’s singing Creature’s car seat.

All I know is that Pug smelled funny when he got home but didn’t have that ridiculous cone thing on his head anymore.

Welcome home, Pug!

FRIENDS! Don’t forget to enter my contest to win either $1K OR 1/2 pallet (more than 3,000 cans!) of cat food for your favorite rescue or shelter. Contest ends July 10, 2011 at 6 p.m. EST.

Do you know that it’s Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat month? That’s right, June is dedicated to encouraging people across the nation – the world – the universe – to adopt. Of course, this should be every month…..

Before Pugsley and I were “persian rescue cats” we were “persian shelter cats.” I was in a shelter in Kentucky, and Pugsley in one in Indiana. Both of us had medical conditions that might have made us unadoptable….which means, well, you know.

But some fantastic shelter worker in each of our cases recognized something special in us and contacted the Persian Rescue in Marysville, Ohio to see if they wanted to take us on. Luckily they did. But what about the shelter cats with medical conditions who aren’t so lucky? Shudder.

The Morris Animal Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancing veterinary research that protects, treats and cures animals on every continent, is celebrating Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat month by showcasing shelter cat stories on their Happy Healthy Cat Facebook page. All you need to do is go and “like” their page and upload your story and photo for a chance to win a fun array of prizes.

Their Happy Healthy Cat initiative is aimed at “unlocking the mysteries of feline health.” That makes my staff giggle a little bit. She says, “EVERYTHING about you little rascals is a mystery!”

An especially interesting aspect of this initiative is the Helping Shelters Help Cats program, aimed at the specific issues many shelter cats face: upper respiratory disease, diarrhea and ringworm. These are common, treatable, reasons shelter cats may be put to sleep before they even have a chance to be adopted!

The research is funded through grants made possible through an anonymous donor who has pledged to match every dollar donated to this program, up to $500K. The gift is to honor all of the wonderful people – vets, shelter staff, rescuers and more – who give their time and talents to help pets in need.

We love that. If you feel moved to contribute to this research, you can make a donation here.

You can also show your non-monetary support for their initiative by checking out their Facebook page, where you can upload your awesome adoption story and win some fun stuff!

Meow on, Shelter Cats!

Sierra and Kobe chillaxing

Their staff, Meredith told us all about a funny story about when Sierra and Kobe went to the V-E-T. Sierra was all finished with her exam and Kobe was getting his, when Ms. Sierra climbed up to the top shelf in the exam room, knocked off all the samples and then plopped down for a nap! At the V-E-T office!

Silly Sierra. Check out Sierra and Kobe on PeoplePets.com. They’s fa-mouse!

And remember, this week is National Take Your Cat to the Vet Week, sponsored by Feline Pine all-natural cat litter. Each day, Feline Pine is picking a new winner in their Tell us Your Funny Vet Stories contest. Winners get 6 months of free Feline Pine litter and a $75 gift card towards their next vet visit. Enter here to win!

I’m so happy to share that beautiful Sweet Praline was today’s winner in the Feline Pine

What a gal!

She was even featured on PeoplePets.com today!

Here is Praline’s story:

Praline hates going to the vet’s office. She even hisses at the vet techs when they go to get her out of the cage. Last spring after she had some surgery and had to stay all day, I came to get her.

The tech walked back to the back to ask Praline is she was ready to go home. I heard a thud and then the tech laughing. She said Praline (my little persian) literally leaped from the cage to her carrier when she heard my voice. Persians don’t “leap!” Praline fussed at me the whole way home!

Nice “leap” Praline!

Each day, Feline Pine is picking a new winner in their Tell us Your Funny Vet Stories contest. Winners get 6 months of free Feline Pine litter and a $75 gift card towards their next vet visit. Lots of chances to win! Enter here.