Donations

Donations to THISisadvocacy can help cats, kittens, dogs and other animals in four ways:

Education

Animal “protective” leagues and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals closed their doors to the public for an entire year during COVID. Throughout that year, people who’d been laid off and were no longer able to afford food and litter for cats, kittens, rabbits and dogs posted their pets on Craigslist, Facebook and other apps/websites, not knowing people, including a Cleveland woman named Celina, were collecting animals for dogfighters’ dogs to tear apart for practice. Some people posted cats that belonged to elderly people who’d died from COVID. HuffPo readers have known since 2015 that dogfighters obtain bait animals from Craigslist, but dogfighters have been using cats as bait since at least 2007. Animal shelters are supposed to protect animals; instead, they turned their backs on them, leaving people who’ve never been trained in animal welfare to rehome pets and litters of kittens on their own. Worse, APLs, societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCAs) and humane societies have thousands of social media followers but never warned them about dogfighters in their city.

We’re living in a time when news is compartmentalized. Thanks to social media and algorithms, people read about what they’re interested in and never see what they don’t want to hear about — e.g., animal cruelty. Dogs, cats and other animals are paying the price for humans’ lack of awareness. I’d like to raise money for billboards and notices like the you-have-a-sexual-predator-in-your-neighborhood postcards you receive in the mail. Telling people they have a dogfighter near them would inspire them to:

• spay/neuter their pets so they aren’t handing kittens to strangers
• bring outdoor cats inside where they belong
• keep their pet until it dies rather than when it outgrows its kitten/puppy stage.

Spay/Neuter Appointments

While shelters closed their doors to the public for an entire year, they also stopped doing trap-neuter-return (TNR). Consequently, shelters are FULL of kittens that are being euthanized, and people are posting them on Craigslist for free or “$20 to ensure a good home.” I’d like to hold FREE mass spay/neuter clinics to celebrate Spay/Neuter Awareness Month every February.

Rewards

I’d also like to provide reward money to people who report the people providing cats, kittens, dogs and rabbits to dogfighters. Let’s face it: a lot of people don’t trust police/Crime Stoppers. They might be more inclined to report them to someone else.

Food, Litter and Other Necessities

While replying to Craigslist pet section ads to warn people about dogfighters and other predators, I also try to help people and their pets in other ways, such as sending information about pet pantries in their city, providing food myself or playing pet taxi to a potential shelter. For example:

Helping me enables me to help more people and their pets. Thank you in advance for your kindness and compassion.