All About Pets 
The best way you can help homeless pets is becoming their owner. But sometimes this isn’t possible and you cannot adopt everyone. There are other ways that you can help your local animal shelters and rescues that doesn’t involve you becoming a pet parent.
Volunteering
The easiest way to help an animal shelter is to volunteer your free time. There are numerous tasks that volunteers can perform, depending on age and skill level. Taking dogs for a walk, petting and brushing a cat and cleaning kennels are some of the duties. There are opportunities even outside business hours like transporting animals to adoption events.
Foster Animals
By becoming a foster parent for shelter animals, you take them into your home temporarily. Doing this allows you to socialize them to other dogs, house cats, or even small children, outside of a cage or kennel environment.
Diets are another area that should be focused on during this period. Maintaining your pet’s weight is important as an owner. Many pets come to shelters either overweight or malnourished. Closely monitoring food will help these animals thrive.
Social Advertise
There are thousands of amazing animals in shelters. Often nobody knows about them except the staff. Most of these shelters don’t have the time or the reach for advertising.
Offer such help to your local animal shelter.
Choose some animals that you think would make a great pet and share their information and photos on social networks. Tag your family and friends that would be a great match for them. The more these social posts get shared the better chance it will be viewed by someone that will rescue them.
Photo Help
Shelters need to advertise to increase their chances for adoption and having the right photos could be the difference.
Do you have a professional camera?
Offer your help and volunteer. They will be grateful and you get to play with the animals for a day. Win, win. If you don’t know how to take photos, look for friends who are ready to help with this.
Just keep in mind that taking pictures of animals is not an easy task. Dogs and cats will not patiently sit still waiting for you to make a great photo. Ask assistants to help hold the animal so that it goes smooth and faster. There are some easy tips your can use for better pet photography.
Financial Help
Running shelters and rescue cost money and donations are always welcome. Pet food, staff, and veterinarian service can get expensive and add up fast. Donating what you can, when you can, will go a long way.
There are many ways you can financially help, talk to shelter staff directly or donate online. Donations can often be used as personal tax deductions, so get a receipt.
Organizing Fundraisers
If you want to help, but are limited in funds, it does not matter! You can help the animal shelter by organizing a fundraiser.
The simplest one is the installation of a charity box for donations. Most often will find it in pet shops, grooming salons, and veterinary clinics. You should also place cases in other crowded places – shopping centers, beauty salons, etc.
Pet Food
Donating doesn’t always have to be money, dog and cat food is a constant need for any animal shelter. If you don’t know what the shelter needs, feel free to buy ready-made dry or canned food. It is better not to buy the cheapest animal food. Some animals may have allergies and require special diets, check with staff to see if they have any animals with these special requirements.
Other Equipment
Animal shelters often use bowls that quickly become unusable. Therefore, if you have a couple of extra bowls lying around the house, feel free to take them to the shelter. Size does not matter.
The first condition is that dishes should not leak. In addition to bowls, you can bring blankets, beds, paper towels, cleaning products, and other household goods. Ask the volunteers what they need.
Grooming Animals
Shelters often need brushes, combs, and hair clippers. Another opportunity to make life easier for shelter dogs is to take on the responsibilities of their hairdressers. Such help is especially relevant for the summer when dogs are shedding. Find out if the shelter has tools for grooming animals, and turn its shaggy residents into beautiful and well-groomed dogs and cats.
Your Help Can Go A Long Way
As you can see, there are many options for helping homeless animals in your local animal shelters. Choose what you like and begin. After all, it’s astonishing to know that, thanks to your efforts, animals can start a new life.
