Senior pets need all of us -- & so do our bears!

So you don’t have a pet to love and care for, or you don’t have enough of them.  Easy: adopt a senior pet.  That’s possible all year long, of course, but this month is “adopt a senior pet” month, and shelters and rescues are promoting older animals who need loving homes. 

Wouldn’t any older pet, or pet of any age, be happier in a home -- especially now with Thanksgiving and the winter holidays fast approaching?

Earlier posts here have mentioned some of the benefits of homing older pets, both for them and the people who adopt them.  Here are a special few to note -- and, I hope, act on:

1.  Love is ageless.  Age doesn’t affect how much an animal can love . . . or be loved.  In fact, age might increase a senior pet’s need for love.  (There’s a real parallel to older humans, I think -- as an older human! -- there’s more need to be loved!)

2.  Older pets are more calm and ready to relax; there’s less wild energy to burn -- and less wildness to keep up with! 

  

3 -- Senior pets “have been there” and they may settle into a new home faster than puppies or kittens, who are new at all this.  Adopting an adult pet is like forming an adult relationship.

Finally, and this bears repetition, I think:  It’s been said that adopting older pets gives them “a chance to feel cherished and secure during the time they have left.”   Isn’t that what all of us want?

If, despite the appeals in these November blog posts, you haven’t yet or simply can’t adopt a senior pet this month, there are a few other things you might do:  

(1) visit a shelter and “check out” a senior pet for the holidays -- something some shelters are promoting right now.  Bring her/him home for Thanksgiving through New Year’s to enjoy happy times with happy people.

(2) visit a shelter and spend time with an older animal there.  Take a toy or a treat, and spend a while with her/him, petting and talking or maybe walking too. 

(3) in person, donate to your area shelter -- money, toys, food, towels, supplies you know are needed. . .  

 In other words, get up close and personal with homeless older animals and try to help them in all the ways you possibly can.

   

Here’s a story about Princess Tigger, a senior cat who needs a home asap.

https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/shelter-takes-in-21-year-old-cat?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20191120dododaily&utm_content=20191120dododaily+CID_a1339d2470dfd7bf75c7895a168fcb4d&utm_source=campaignmonitor

Help save our bears!

Before the second phase of New Jersey’s heinous bear hunt resumes on Dec. 2, here’s one more chance to remind Governor Phil Murphy he reneged on his campaign promise to end the hunt, and we will not accept that!  His claims of inability don’t wash.  In fact, nothing he says on this subject washes . . . until he keeps his word and does what he is fully able to do.  

Please keep phoning the governor’s office (609-292-6000) to urge him to do the right thing and the promised thing -- then come out to support our bears’ right to life!

(for more details about this event next Saturday, please visit the Animal Protection League of NJ on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/420759738600874/)

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Your comments -- particularly about adopting senior pets -- are always welcome at 1moreonce.blogspot.com.  

If you’re with a shelter or rescue group, you’re in an ideal position to recommend senior pets who especially need loving homes.  Please reach out!

If you have adopted a senior pet this month or recently, congratulations and thank you!  Please tell us about your experience and send a photo of the happy new resident in your home.