This weekend at the Animal Rescue League of Iowa, visitors are welcomed to bring their pets for a social event and make sure they’ll be safer in the New Year. Director Tom Colvin says it’s a visit with a serious purpose. It’s the ‘Home for the Holidays” open house and micro-chip clinic.
He says anybody’s welcome to stop by, see the place, and leave a check to help take care of the homeless animals. It’s also a micro-chip clinic, as he says the shelter’s a big believer in microchipping. They even offer a sale price of 25-dollars to have the procedure done…and Colvin says it doesn’t really hurt your pet to get the high-tech microchip, the size of a grain of rice, I.D. implanted under their skin. “It looks like a pretty big needle,” he admits, but the process is fast and the shelter uses it on not only big dogs, but little kittens, ferrets and bunnies.
When you adopt a pet from the shelter, he explains, you also get a microchipped pet. Colvin says anybody looking to be a good elf can share some holiday cheer — and support — with their local animal shelter or pound.
This time of year they hope people are in a “giving” mood, since a study a few years ago found at least 75-thousand animals a year enter the shelters in Iowa, a lot of animals that need help. It doesn’t have to be money, as he says they all need quality dog and cat food, and don’t forget the other animals — your shelter could use food for rabbits, guinea pigs, gerbils, hamsters, or birds.
They can always use cat litter, paper towels, bleach: the day-to-day needs that without your gift, they’d have to spend money on.