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Mojave Desert Animal Rescue robbed twice over the weekend, because people are terrible  »

Mojave Desert Animal Rescue is a wonderful and necessary nonprofit that helps out homeless people with pets. They register people’s animals (collecting spay/neuter and vaccination information), and provide food for them. They also provide emergency supplies for homeless people who can’t stay at shelters because they have pets. And over the weekend, some horrible, heartless jerks robbed MDAR’s warehouse twice.

The thieves took almost everything in the warehouse, including “canned food, both for human consumption and for pets, veterinary supplies, jackets, coats, socks,” and they tried to take a backhoe. MDAR founder and Director Annie Lancaster told the San Bernadino Sun

You can tell they just threw things across the room and just completely trashed the place. … I mean who does that? We had signs in there that clearly said we were a charity and there were pictures of the homeless people we’ve helped and their pets and they still had the heart to do something like this? I just don’t understand.

It’s winter in the high desert. People are the WORST. 

You can donate here to help out MDAR. Read more about this gross crime at the Sun.

[Story via Ken Layne at The Awl, where he covers the animal beat! Photo via MDAR]

Got a heart? Foster some bunnies for Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary!  »

Things your Vegansaurus loves: Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary; bunnies.

Things your Vegansaurus advises you do: Foster some bunnies for Harvest Home!

As our pal Anne Martin says, “Opening your home to a single or bonded pair of bunnies for the holidays is a great way for them to get special TLC, and help them get ready to find their forever homes!”

We ask for a fostering commitment of at least one month.  You can specify a fostering end date, but we are particularly appreciative of foster homes that can keep their foster rabbit until they are adopted, which can be anywhere from two to nine months.

Harvest Home needs fosters for lots of different bunnies, in the following four categories:

Adoptable Rabbit Fosters: These rabbits have no special needs, they just need a foster home where they can get daily hop time, fresh salads, and love! These fosters will take their foster bunny to a monthly adoption event.

Special Foster: Rabbit Behavior: These fosters specialize in rabbits that need extra TLC because of their personality or past experiences that have left them shy, fearful, or protective. We would love fosters who have time to spend some one-on-one time with their foster bunny each day, to help them become more comfortable in a home environment. … These fosters will take their foster bunny to a monthly adoption event.

Special Foster: Rabbit Medical Care: These fosters have experience with rabbits, would like to specialize in special needs bunnies, and would be happy to foster a bunny with limited mobility (like a healed, formerly broken leg), congenital problems (like splay-leg), a rabbit that needs a daily oral medication, or a rabbit that needs to visit our vet occasionally for conditions like overgrown teeth, or a weepy eye. Harvest Home pays for all approved vet care, including medications. These rabbits would not be shown at adoption events until they receive a clean bill of health from the vet—they could be returned to Harvest Home at that time.  We can match the medical care foster rabbit to your level of experience.

Special Foster: Sanctuary Foster: These fosters take home a single or pair of rabbits who are in sanctuary care. Similar to adopting, these rabbits can live out the rest of their lives in their foster home, however, Harvest Home will pay all approved medical expenses for the life of the rabbits. People interested in becoming sanctuary fosters can meet the available sanctuary singles & pairs and select the rabbits that best fit their lifestyle.  We have many older bunnies who would love to spend their golden years in a home.

Harvest Home provides all the startup materials necessary for keeping a happy, healthy bun in your home, including a pen or cage, litterbox, dishes, and initial food. You feed your foster rabbit, and give him or her daily out-of-cage fun time.

If you’re interesting in fostering one (or more!) bunnies for Harvest Home, contact Anne. To see some of the bunnies available for adoption right now, including the three cutiepies in this post (Bugsy, Flower, and Dudley), check out Harvest Home’s Petfinder.

[Photos by Ian Elwood via Petfinder]

Help this pit bull and chihuahua dream team, please! JUST LOOK AT THAT PHOTO.  »

Reader Lis lives in the Pittsburgh area, and she has a friend who needs to home two dogs, a chihuahua and a pit bull! They are a bonded pair, so if you adopted them, you could get like an AWESOME family with NO work. It’s like you adopted a kid the day they before they left for Harvard on a full scholarship. Seriously, LIVING THE DREAM.

If you’re interested, or know anyone who might be, holler at Lis! Please note: You must be hella responsible and awesome and pay an adoption fee because these dogs are rad and you gotta want them. Plus, when they graduate, they’ll make you all sorts of money and keep you in the softest (faux) chinchilla fur. HERE’S THE INFO:

I am a vegan living in Pittsburgh area and have a friend who lives near me, currently in a predicament. She is in a financial crisis and must move, and cannot stay in an apartment with the number of animals she has, nor the pitbull she has. The issue is that there are two dogs, a pit and a chihuahua, who are a bonded female pair. They must go together, and are some characters! I fostered these two years back, and the problems always was, people either want one type of dog or the other, usually not both.

These two femme fatales are vegan. Nina was an abused pitbull who is scared of her own shadow, and Dutch is the chihuahua who came along and decided she would take Nina under her wing, and thus is fiercely protective of her pittie. The 8-pound gargoyle and the 55-pound helpless princess of the castle. They are darling. We will transport them for the right home ANYWHERE. I put a picture in here just so you can see their true love.

Hey NYC: Do you have room in your heart for sweet Johnny “Goggles”?  »

LOOK AT THAT FACE!!! This is Johnny “Goggles” and he is on death row at the Manhattan Animal Care and Control shelter. Really, he could be euthanized any day now and reader Kim wants to see him get a home instead! She’s been spending time with him and says he’d make the perfect dog for some lucky household. Kim and her boyfriend have already adopted a dog and cannot afford to take Johnny in as well but they think he’s so wonderful, they’ve actually offered to help cover his adoption fees for someone that can give him a great new home. 

Johnny is three years old, a pit bull mix with a brindle and white coat. Kim says Johnny appears to have been abused or neglected in his past but is still incredibly sweet and loves affection. OMG I’m crying!

Here’s what some shelter volunteers had to say about Johnny’s personality; the first writes:

I’ve nicknamed Johnny “goggles” because of the brown mask of fur around his eyes. It’s just one of the many sweet, silly qualities this very nice boy has going for him. While some of the other dogs were jumping and barking in their kennels, trying to get my attention, Johnny stayed still, hoping to make eye contact and guilt me into walking him next. It worked, and off we went. Johnny has awesome leash skills, though he does zig-zag a little—a funny trait that makes me think he must be so happy to be outside seeing and sniffing so many fascinating things, he can’t decide where to direct his eyes and nose next. He’s social and friendly with other dogs and minds his manners around people. It helps that he’s so handsome, with a gorgeous white and brindle coat that earned him compliments on the sidewalk. Come meet our Johnny, a dog with so much potential to be a best friend and protector.

Another volunteer writes:

Here’s what Johnny Goggles loves: long walks, feeling the leaves crunch under his paws, sniffing the ground (and finding a couple of French fries left behind in a fast food container, yum!), sitting on a park bench next to his person like a king, and having his back and butt scratched endlessly. Now here’s what Johnny doesn’t love: watching so many other dogs come in the shelter and then get adopted, never knowing if and when he’ll have a loving home of his own. Let’s help Johnny, a medium-size guy with serious BFF potential, find his forever family very soon.

His I.D. number is JOHNNY - ID#A916477.

If you’d like to help Johnny, you can contact the Manhattan Animal Care and Control center—Kim suggests going to the center in person if you can because it’s difficult to connect with the center via phone or email. Kim says you can email her if you need further assistance. She even said she’d be happy to meet with you and accompany you to the shelter to save this dog. So nice! She just really wants to see him saved. So if you’ve been looking to adopt, what are you waiting for? This guy doesn’t have much time. 

Oakland! Please take this adorable, affectionate cat off the streets and into your heart!  »

There’s this amazing homeless cat in Oakland who needs a foster or forever home stat. Please read her story below and if you (or anyone you know! Pass it on!) can help, please email Shani. Thanks!

When I moved to Oakland in August there were about 20 stray and feral cats who are thankfully all fixed now. I began feeding them but one in particular caught my eye. She was so beautiful but fearful of me. She would stay on my porch all day sunbathing. The other cats are not nice to her. Slowly I was able to gain her trust. She would allow quick pets but the “love looks” she would constantly give me showed that she was starving for affection. She had a runny nose that slowly got worse. Two weeks ago I was able to trap her and take her to the vet. She is now in a foster home, recovering, and completely changed since being in an inside environment. She purrs loudly, is INCREDIBLY sweet, loves affection, and even rolls on her back for belly rubs. She is very neat with her litter box and a great eater.

If she is forced back outside in the cold, her runny nose will likely come back. She is between five and eight years old and was clearly abandoned by someone years ago. She’s also spayed. She needs a foster home or more importantly, a forever home.

United for Animals is offering to pay for her first vet visit and a month’s worth of food and litter.

Please, please save her from a miserable life on the streets of Oakland, email Shani today!

Megans of the world: unite to save Megan the chimp!  »

Are you a Megan or do you have a Megan in your life? Come forth and be counted! There is a Megan in danger and we must do something about it! There is a poor 22-year-old chimp named Megan stuck in a horrible lab at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette’s New Iberia Research Center:

[Video is not scary, just sad. Can’t see it? Watch it on Vegansaurus.com]

If you want to see what else goes on at the NIRC, there’s some effed-up footage from a Humane Society undercover investigation. Bonus: Not only did the undercover investigator find tons of animal welfare violations—i.e., they are breaking laws—this lab is also getting millions of dollars from the government to do this! 

More about Megan from the Humane Society:

Seeking Justice for Chimpanzees
On Mar. 15, 2011, in an effort to bring New Iberia to justice and have any infants bred illegally sent to sanctuary, we filed legal petitions with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services.

Megan is just one of the government-owned chimpanzees at New Iberia who gave birth to several babies despite a contractual agreement that the laboratory won’t breed government-owned or supported chimpanzees. If successful, our petitions could help to free Megan and her babies from the confinements of the lab. But with your help, Megan, along with her group of eight companions could all be saved sooner.

Please help retire Megan and the other chimpanzees in her group to sanctuary.

Megan was in this annoying program to test her intelligence but that program is now cancelled, so they are trying to decide if they should retire Megan (YES) and her pals to a sanctuary, or send them off to be in even worse, medically invasive experiments (NO)! That’s the thanks she gets after they use her up? Heartless.

Megans and those who have ever loved a Megan, I call upon you! “Like” my Megans United to Save Megan the Lab Chimp Facebook page to show your solidarity and—at the very least!—fill out this form to send a message to University of Louisiana-Lafayette’s president, Dr. E. Joseph Savoie, and the Director of the National Center for Research Resources, Dr. Barbara Alving. Megan and her co-prisoners are called “Group Megan,” so tell them you want to FREE GROUP MEGAN!

You can also donate here to help all the lab chimps in this screwed-up country. And please, tell everyone about Group Megan and Megans United to Save Megan the Lab Chimp! And guys, let’s plan some big things! I want to see Group Megan’s retirement party on the Today Show! We have a Facebook page; what should we do now?!

Help Anne, the abused UK circus elephant   »

Animal Defenders International released some really disturbing footage of Anne, Britain’s last circus elephant, being kicked, stabbed and beaten. ADI secretly filmed the elephant for three and a half weeks over which period, the elephant was beaten repeatedly. You can read more and watch the video at the Daily Mail website. It’s pretty awful. I was so sad, that I made this picture for Anne. Sometimes Illustrator makes me feel better.

From ADI, here are some things you can do to help Anne:

• Write to your MP at: The House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA.
• Write to Lord Henley, the Minister responsible for animal welfare at: The House of Lords, London, SW1A 0WP.
• Join our Street Team and raise awareness in your local area.
• Make a donation and help fund our campaign to end circus suffering.
• For more information, contact ADI. Email us at info@ad-international.org
• For press enquiries, please contact ADI Media Relations Director Phil Buckley on 07716 018 250

UPDATE!: Like the Facebook page to get justice for Anne!