Midwestern Heroes

Let me tell you, it's a helpless feeling, rolling around in my nip crop up here OTRB while my humans (okay and yes, even my *koff*koff* bratty and obnoxious siblings, Allie The Great Grey Menace and Da Boyz Max & Faraday)  experience bad weather.

And this spring has been worse than most! Missouri and Kansas joined the ranks of the tornado-devastated in mid-May, and I had my paws full looking over them! I told Person she could borrow my blog again to tell you all about it:

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Thanks Tyker-dude. Miss you so much little man! (He hated it when I called him that!)

We live north of the swath of devastation that hit both Jopin, MO and Reading, KS but the effects of such tragedies nevertheless had a huge impact on us. Many, many people from our metro area have spent countless hours raising funds and volunteering their time helping out these communities. I'm so terribly proud of the animal volunteers who, mere hours after the tornadoes struck, were on the road with vaccines, crates, bedding and dog and cat food to help out the 4-legged victims of these storms.

The first order of the day was to relocate all the animals in existing shelters to make room for triage stations to treat wounded animals and open space to help families reunite with their pets. (After all, the last thing you want to do after losing your home is to travel over a hundred miles to try to find your beloved pets!)

Our shelter, Wayside Waifs, along with several other Kansas City area shelters, brought back wave after wave of adoptable dogs and cats, freeing up valuable space.  Then they went back, again and again, to help treat the wounded, search for missing animals and help in any way they can. From what I hear, over 300 animals have been reunited with their families. Some, sadly, had no way of caring for their beloved animals and so opted to give them up for adoption so that they might have food and shelter. Other animals were heartbreakingly orphaned as well.

These Joplin babies won our hearts over and became a mission for us as we prepared for a marathon 3-day adoption event we call Adoptathon.  We let the area know that many of these animals were storm victims - and the public opened up their hearts and homes like never before. At the end of the 3-day event, all records were broken as 317 animals found their forever homes.

What a gratifying experience it is - and humbling, too - to be so fortunate to be a part of an operation like that!

Thank you, Kansas City, for a memorable weekend.