“If you are looking to adopt an animal, then look no further than an animal shelter that is associated with Iams Home 4 the Holidays. What better present can you give yourself or someone else over the holidays than a fun-loving dog or cat? Iams Home 4 the Holidays began in 1999 when the Helen Woodward Animal Center organized 14 San Diego area shelters, finding homes for 2,563 orphaned pets.”
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If you are looking to adopt an animal, then look no further than an animal shelter that is associated with Iams Home 4 the Holidays.

What better present can you give yourself or someone else over the holidays than a fun-loving dog or cat? Iams Home 4 the Holidays began in 1999 when the Helen Woodward Animal Center organized 14 San Diego area shelters, finding homes for 2,563 orphaned pets. Each pet went home with a holiday meal of Iams food. This year’s drive runs from October 1, 2008 through January 5, 2009. During the 10th annual pet adoption drive, the goal is to find lifelong homes for more than one million orphaned dogs and cats through the participation of 3,000 organizations.

Last year, a new World Adoption Record was achieved with 491, 612 adoptions.

Iams Home 4 the Holidays has become a success in that fact that many people do not like the idea of an orphaned animal caged inside over the holiday season.

The adoption of Toby is one of many success stories of an adopted animal from a shelter that participates in Iams Home 4 the Holidays.

Toby has a very fun and loveable personality. He loves to run around our large backyard and play fetch. He’s a big cuddler and loves to give us kisses. He has added so much joy to our life and we love him. We adopted him from a shelter in the South. He was on death row. He was only 12 weeks when we adopted him, and I think he knows that we saved him. We have given him a great life with a nice place to sleep, plenty of toys, good Iams food to eat and lots of love from his new family.

Within the state of Ohio, there are 153 participating shelters. In the Akron area, the following places are participating: Friends of Pets, Heaven Can Wait, One of a Kind Pets and Summit County Animal Control. Mary Ann Carmen, treasurer of Friends of Pets, says they have been involved with Iams Home 4 the Holidays for five years.

Friends of Pets only deals with cats, while their sister organization deals solely with dogs.

Once a cat is adopted from this shelter the adopter receives a kit provided and put together by Iams Home 4 the Holidays. The kit includes coupons and samples of food, along with many other useful items. Although Carmen believes it is not in ones best interest to give a cat as a present over the holidays due to the chaos during this time of year, she does admit they do get a lot of adoptions right before Christmas.

Cats are good company and they improve the quality of life in a lot of people, especially older people, Carmen said. Having a pet lowers blood pressure and I think there are a lot of benefits of owning a cat.

We are the largest rescue group in Summit County. We have 300 cats right now, and most of them have had a hard-luck story, whether they are found outside or are in bad shape. We go to the pound the day they are going to be euthanized and take those cats in. People who adopt cats are doing a huge service to us and giving these little animals a chance.

Carmen believes that Iams Home 4 the Holidays is a good program. Friends of Pets track their adoptions, but more importantly Iams Homes 4 the Holidays supplies lots of good information to people who adopt, and gives great samples of Iams food, Carmen said.

So why not help this great pet adoption drive and adopt an animal to help Iams Home 4 the Holidays reach their goal of 1 million adoptions?

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