World’s Best Cat Litter (WBCL) is continuing with the charitable distribution of their litter. With Round 1, they gave litter to rescues and shelters in the Washington D. C. area. As Round 2 gets under way, they are focusing on the Los Angeles area. You can vote daily for the rescue you want to receive free cat litter from WBCL. All of the participating groups will receive litter, however. The more votes, the more litter.

Round 2 voting will run from September 8 to November 8. The groups that are acquiring litter this time are Alley Cat Allies and Baldwin Park Animal Shelter, Kitten Rescue, and The Cat House on the Kings. So far, in this round, over 7,000 pounds of litter have been raised for these three groups.

You can vote daily by going to: Givelitter.com

Help Best Friends Animal Society win $200,000 in the Members Project sponsored by American Express and Takepart. You can vote once a week and if Best Friends gets enough votes (they are currently in 2nd place), the animals will really be winners.

You will just need to register to vote. You can do that HERE.

Once you are registered, look for Best Friends under “Environment and Wildlife” and vote for them. Five Charities will ultimately win $200,000 each (a total of $1 million from American Express), but you can only vote for one charity each week. The winners will be announced November 29, 2010.

We Love Best Friends Animal Society. Black and Orange Cat Foundation is part of their member network and they are always trying to help other rescue groups in many, many ways. So please help them by voting!

Barney and Oleander are the final pair of cats we are featuring for Petfinder.com’s “Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week,” which ends today, September 25. “Less Adoptable Pets” are not pets that people would not want–they just have some issues that cause them to be overlooked initially. This includes shy or senior cats, black cats and dogs, and animals with handicaps. They are no less capable of love or companionship. They just need someone who can look past their initial issues and love them despite their differences.

Oleander and Barney are buddies. Dr. West calls them the “Brokeback Mountain Boys,” because they love each other so much and like to hang together. Oleander is a big orange, fluffy tabby who is about 5-6 years old. Oleander came to us from a really bad situation in a trailer park. We could not return him to that, so he came into foster care with us when he was much younger. We thought he would get adopted very quickly. His other cat friends came and went, but because he is shy, he was always overlooked. Oleander loves other cats and especially his good feline friend, Barney. Oleander is a bit shy when he first meets you, so he will need time to adjust to his surroundings. He does best with Barney, so we do want them to be adopted together.

Barney is a brown, short haired tabby who is also in the 5-year-old age range. He originally was living outside. One of our volunteer’s was taking care of him by providing shelter and food. But when he developed a very bad ear infection that left him partially deaf in one ear, Dr. West could not allow him to be an outside kitty any longer and she asked us to bring him in out of the weather. Barney has flourished by being inside, but he is a bit shy with new people. He and Oleander quickly bonded and they are now best friends. They have helped each other overcome some of their shyness with people and are always together.

Barney and Oleander are also currently living with Bells, who is also in foster care (and was previously featured during “Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet week”). These three kitties get along great.

We know Barney and Oleander would be fine in a home with other non-dominate, laidback cats. They would probably be best in a quiet home without small children where they could adjust slowly at their own pace.

If you would like to give Oleander and Barney a home together, there would only be one adoption fee, as we really want to keep the boys with each other. If you are willing to give them their own time to settle in, these super boys will not disappoint you. Unfortunately, they have several things working against them–they are shy, they are older, and we also want to keep them together. But we know the perfect family is waiting for them!

As I mentioned in the post featuring Bean Bag and Apple Seed, September 19-25 is “Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet week.” This celebratory week, which is sponsored by Petfinder.com, showcases pets that often get overlooked by people searching for a furry addition to their home. These might be cats that are a bit shy, have special needs, or are older. Additionally, black cats often get passed over because of long standing prejudices about black animals being “bad” or involved in witchcraft.

I promised to feature some of Black and Orange Cat Foundation’s kitties during this week–kitties that love their foster homes and have been staying with their fosters for quite a long time.

Our cats are very spoiled and we understand why they might not want to leave us to venture off to a new home. But we want them to have their own family and a home where they are not fosters, but have found their forever mom or dad.

Bells is our featured cat today. Bells is a silver tabby who got her name because she arrived just before Christmas two years ago and looked like a “silver bell.” Bells is about two years old and has fur that is as soft as a bunny. She likes other cats once she has warmed up to them. She has lived with a rabbit and with her two feline buddies, Barney and Oleander (who will be featured later this week).

Bells came to us during a trapping project–thus, her ear is eartipped, because we thought she was a feral cat. When she began head butting and rubbing up against the side of the trap, we knew she was a friendly cat. While Bells is friendly, she is also shy until she gets to know you. This has been her downfall in the realm of adoption. When we take her to PetSmart for adoption events, she hunkers down and refuses to uncoil herself from a tight ball until she is home again. She did the same thing when she was in the cage we have at PetSmart. We thought she would get adopted quickly, because she is so gorgeous and so friendly. But at PetSmart, no one ever saw her true personality. Because of her shyness, she has been with us for a year and a half.

Bells would be best in a quiet household where she could adjust in her own time. She could be with other non-dominate cats, but she really likes all the attention and gets a bit jealous if you don’t pour on the love. She and the Brokeback Mountain Boys (Oleander and Barney) are buds now, but it took Bells her own time to befriend them. If you don’t rush Bells and allow her to settle in at her own rate, she will reward you with love, love, love.

PetSmart is conducting a new photo contest where they are asking you to “scare your way into a PetSmart commercial.”

All you have to do to enter is “Like” PetSmart on Facebook before October 27. Click here to “Like” them: PetSmart Facebook

Once you have done that, you submit a photo of your pet in their best Halloween costume. The grand prize is a cameo in a 2011 PetSmart commercial. Additionally, nine runners up will win prizes ranging from a $250 PetSmart gift card to $1,000 cash. There will also be a weekly $500 PetSmart gift card giveaway for the photo with the most votes and one daily, random $50 PetSmart gift card prize.

After you upload the photo of your “Hot Dog” or “Count Barkula,” share the photo with friends and family with the link PetSmart will provide to you. Encourage everyone to vote.

The Grand Prize winner will be chosen by votes on Facebook and announced on November 1.

I know most of you dress your dogs up for holidays (or just to be cute–and several of you, namely my sister, Bobbie, tortures her cats by dressing them for hysterical photos), so don’t hold back. Enter those photos and let me know when you do. I’ll provide the link to all the B and O supporters to vote on. Then we’ll be able to say that a pet that loves B and O is featured in a PetSmart commercial–what huge bragging rights!!

I had a few emails from various rescue groups alerting me to the release of Jim Gorant’s book, The Lost Dogs, which tells the story of the rescue of the forty-seven dogs taken from Michael Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels (there were fifty-one dogs and, miraculously, all but four were able to be saved). While I was browsing in a bookstore this week, I remembered that the book was available and I hunted for it on the shelves. I was a bit disappointed that it was not featured at the front of the store among the latest non-fiction releases, but was instead tucked on a lower shelf in the pet section. I really had to work to find it.

I have not had to work to read the book, however. It is very easy to read and very engaging, although it does pull at my heart. Sometimes I read a bit faster or skip over the harder sections. I do not understand how anyone could harm dogs in such a manner and feel nothing as they watch these animals suffer.

Just as most animals do, these dogs have overcome their pasts, forgiving and healing. Many of the dogs now live in loving homes with children. Some are even therapy dogs! None of them will ever be subjected to torture again. That 47 of the 51 dogs were able to receive a happy ending to a gruesome tale is proof of the resiliency of animals; proof that they are in touch with higher powers that allow them to love even when love has formerly been absent in their lives. We humans can learn so many lessons about forgiveness from these brave canines.

The rescue group that was hugely involved in saving the dogs is BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls). You can read their review of the book on their blog: BAD RAP blog

For more info on the book and author Jim Gorant, visit his web site: The Lost Dogs

When I finish with The Lost Dogs, I plan to donate it to my public library so that others can be read this emotional story.

One of our good friends and supporters, Ernie Sparks, donated his son’s Mini Cooper S, which is the sport version of the Mini (it has a clutch with six gears and the speedometer goes to over 150), to B and O to use however we wish to raise money for the kitties. Ernie is a pharmacist who owns Ernie’s London Apothecary at 54 West High Street in London, Ohio. His son is living in New Orleans now and no longer needs the car, so he asked us if he could donate it to Black and Orange. Of course, I said YES!

The car has about 130,000 miles on it and has a retail book value of over $12,000. Private party sale would be around $8,000. Trade in would be around $7,000. We are hoping to get over $6,000 from the car to help with spay and neuter services for the cats we help.

I wanted to find out your thoughts on the best way to raise the money. We thought about doing a raffle with everyone buying tickets that cost $100. If we sold a minimum of 60 tickets, we would have the $6,000 we want to raise. If we kept going beyond the 60 tickets, we could raise more.  Carol also suggested that perhaps we limit tickets to 200 and sell those for $50. That would raise $10,000 and there would still be a 1 in 200 chance to win. Those would be pretty good odds to win a car.

We also thought perhaps we could just sell the car outright to someone or post it on Craig’s List to sell. But we thought that we might gain a bit more publicity with the raffle and even raise more money since people would take a chance since it was for a good cause. If we did the raffle, we could advertise for it in local newspapers and also have the Plain City and London papers do an article about Ernie to raise awareness and sell more tickets.

What do you guys think? Would you buy a raffle ticket for $50 or $100 for a chance to win a car?

Let me know your thoughts on the best way to raise the most money to help the B and O kitties.

And, finally, we just want to thank Ernie again for this very, very generous gift!

You’ve done it before and now it is time to do it again. Go to The Animal Rescue Site and click to give on the purple button. Once you’ve done that, you can vote once a day, every day in The Animal Rescue Site’s $100,000 Holiday Shelter Challenge. After you have clicked on the purple button, you will go to a second page and there will be a “VOTE” button at the top. Click on that to vote for us. Along with Petfinder.com, The Animal Rescue Site will be giving out grants between $1,000 to $10,000 to the rescue or shelter that gets the most votes. The time for us to get ahead is right now in the very beginning when groups are still alerting their supporters about this new challenge.

Remember, you can vote once a day, every day from September 20 to December 19. Visit: The Animal Rescue Site and VOTE!

To find us to cast your vote, just put in Black and Orange Cat Foundation, Plain City, Ohio.

Additionally, The Animal Rescue Site is conducting a “Shelter Fan Photo Contest” Prize. If you enter a photo of a “happy pet” in the contest and select Black and Orange as your rescue organization, we could have a chance to win a $2,000 grant. So all you photography buffs, send in your pictures. To find out more, go to: Shelter Fan Photo Contest

When you enter the contest, you just have to tell them you are entering on behalf of Black and Orange Cat Foundation in Plain City, Ohio.

Thanks for helping us out! Remember Vote every day and submit photos of your happy pets!