Community Organizer For Pets

Some of you may remember Luna, the stray I had for like 6 weeks last summer. I won't go into the long detailed story, but through that rescue effort I met Meridith, a terrific gal that was fostering puppies that belonged to Luna. She is a total animal advocate and quickly became a client that ordered artwork of her Higgins & Chloe. Meridith contacted me this month to see if I wanted to have artwork exhibited today at a coffee house that is hosting a Pet Day event that is promoting an amazing little neighborhood org that reunites pets with their owners locally via the web. The group is called Little Forest Hills Animal Alert. The group was started by Maeleska Fletes with a simple goal of reuniting lost pets with their families. Unlike huge city pounds, and over burdened no-kill shelters this group is all about handling the occasional fence jumper and mishap that happens locally in their own backyard so to speak. Fletes also happens to be the editor of the Little Forest Hills neighborhood newsletter that is distributed on doorsteps every month. Through a combined effort of the printed newsletter and the web this tiny little group of volunteers has been proactive in reuniting dozens of pets with their humans. These lost pets never had to go through the the ordeal and trauma of the larger city shelter system. City shelters do the best they can, but unfortunately they are always under staffed and under funded.

What if your own neighborhood had a group like this? What if every neighborhood had a proactive group like this? The strain that it would take off of the city shelters would be huge and their euthanasia numbers may even drop.