National Shelter Appreciation Week

This week is National Shelter Appreciation Week. Take the time this week to let your local animal shelter and its workers know that you appreciate the job they do. Want some ideas? The Humane Society of the United States has some great ideas for you:

10 Ways to Support Your Local Shelter

National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week begins Nov. 5. Here are 10 ways to show your local shelter some love:

1. Donate a Subscription to Animal Sheltering Magazine

Shelter workers just can't get enough of Animal Sheltering—an award-winning bi-monthly magazine chock full of articles to educate, inform and inspire anyone who works or volunteers with homeless pets. Donate a year's subscription to your local shelter for just $15.

2. Learn How to Help Injured or Abandoned Animals

Your local shelter and animal control officers depend on the community's help to reach animals in need. Learn everything you need to know to take action, from how to put together a first aid kit to which community phone numbers you need to know.

3. Be an Email Ambassador

Spread a shelter-friendly message every time you hit send—attach a tagline like the one below to your signature for all outgoing email messages: Love animals? Support your local shelter!

4. Adopt or Foster an Animal

Consider adopting or fostering a homeless animal. Whether you decide to bring home a new pet or foster an animal until she finds a forever family, you'll be giving a critter a safe and caring home while making room for another homeless pet in your community's animal shelter, where space is limited.

5. Say Thank You

Drop a note in the mail or shoot an email to your local shelter and let them know how much you appreciate all they do for animals. If you can, sweeten your thank you by adding an item from the shelter's wish list, a check or a gift card from a pet supply store.

6. Volunteer Your Time and Skills

Whether you end up walking pooches, helping at special events or lending your expertise as a newsletter editor, your shelter can match your schedule and talents to their needs. Not only will you be helping animals in your community, but you also will be building knowledge and skills. Call your local shelter and find out how to start volunteering.

7. Add a Banner to Your Web Page

Warn visitors to your web page about the dangers of puppy mills and pet stores. Add a "Stop Puppy Mills" or "Puppy Buyers Guide" banner to your MySpace page, blog or website, and encourage people to adopt a dog from an animal shelter instead of purchasing a pooch with a puppy mill past.

8. Support Spay-Neuter

Spaying or neutering your pet or offering to help fund a spay/neuter surgery for a friend, family member or neighbor's pet will save animals' lives by helping to lower the number of unwanted animals in your community and reduce the strain on your local shelter's resources.

9. Donate a Dog Bed

No shelter dog should have to sleep on a cold, concrete floor while waiting for a forever home, but providing bedding for the millions of homeless animals in our nation's animal shelters can add up to thousands of dollars each year—not to mention loads of laundry. Help a dog in need by donating a durable, shelter-tested bed to a shelter of your choice through the Kuranda shelter donation program. The beds can increase the overall physical and mental well-being of a shelter's doggie residents.

10. ID Your Pet

Your pet should never go naked—that is, without a collar and ID tags. It's the number one way that lost pets are returned to their owners. Without it a Good Samaritan or animal shelter will likely have no idea how to contact you. Even if your pet is microchipped or your cat never goes outdoors, always err on the safe side and make a collar and tag permanent—your pet's life could depend on it.

Rebecca Simmons is the outreach communications coordinator for the Companion Animals section of The HSUS.