Foster gifts are especially good for hard-to-place pets like our plus-size supermodel Miss Petunia Ann Stern (left), who came to us as an abandoned, injured, traumatized former house cat. She spent her first six months with us atop her cat tree, coming down only at night to eat and use her litter box. Today, she’s an affectionate, charming lap cat, and we adore her.
May is also Responsible Animal Guardian Month, and the most important thing about being a responsible pet parent is commitment. No matter how you adopt an animal, you must know in your heart that he/she will need you for the rest of his/her life. Just the other day, I woke up to three emails from people who are moving and asking me to rehome their pets. My heart breaks every time I read these.
Besides keeping a lifetime promise, being responsible means having time to love and nurture, and the resources for proper medical care. This doesn’t mean you can’t have a life and a full-time job; it just means you have to make that pet a priority. As for medical care, there are many wonderful pet insurance programs out there to help, including Fetch Pet Insurance, one of North Shore Animal League America’s generous partners!
Responsible pet guardians also make sure to microchip their pets. As May is also Chip Your Pet Month, I decided to do a little research. Did you know that microchipped pets are much more likely to be reunited with their families? According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, “lost dogs with microchips are returned to their owners at a rate of 52.2%, compared with just 21.9% for those without. For cats, the difference is even more striking: Microchipped cats are reunited with their owners at a rate of 38.5%, compared with only 1.8% for cats who are not microchipped.” So keep your microchip information up to date!
