rescue dog Archives - Compassionate Women

Homemade Vegan Dog Food

January 12, 2018 by Jillian 7 Comments

Homemade pinto beans and cooked sweet potato pureed in a blender, with dry steel cut oats stirred in.

My adorable, sweet foster dog Opal has made some vast improvements over the past five months that she’s been with me. Especially in these past couple of months. When I first rescued Opal, her fur was patchy and coarse from fleas and mange. Now she’s getting compliments about how shiny her coat is. She used to be scared of everything, including me, and she didn’t like to run around and play. Now she loves to snuggle, go on walks, and do zoomies around the yard. I attribute a lot of this to being in a stable home instead of living on the streets. But I also think her most recent improvements are due to a change in her diet.

About two months ago, I decided to try giving Opal homemade vegan meals for a week or two to see how it went. It was so easy to do and Opal loved the meals so much, we just made it a permanent change! I had done research in the past about feeding dogs vegan food. I hate processed dog food, there’s so many icky things in it, even in many of the natural brands. Plus, as a vegan myself, I didn’t like buying dog food products made with meat.

I wanted to share how I made the seamless transition to a plant based diet for Opal. It doesn’t take a lot of effort or money, and the effects are noticeable. I’ve also included the recipes to some of Opal’s favorite vegan meals!

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Life Lessons of a Dog Foster

June 26, 2017 by Jillian Leave a Comment

I’m pretty sure I’ve lost count of all the dogs I’ve fostered over the past 8-ish years. Not to say that I don’t remember each and every one of them, and have pictures of each and every one of them. But there’s been so many sweet dogs in my life, and fostering becomes a delicate balance of wanting to both remember and forget.

For me, fostering dogs means giving my entire heart to care for each animal as though I’m keeping them forever, and then having my heart ripped to shreds when they are adopted because it feels like I’m losing my child. But that’s what being a foster parent is. Any kind of foster parent. It’s taught me about letting go and not being afraid to have to go through the whole wonderful/painful process all over again for another dog in need.

With each dog there are snuggles to be had, potty accidents to be cleaned up, injuries to be tended, and countless kisses. Like, so many kisses 😘 Good times, great times, rough times – they’re all worth it. Below are just a few of my special foster babies and the life lessons they have taught me.

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The Shelter Dogs of Beaumont, Texas

January 4, 2016 by Jillian Leave a Comment

You can tell just by looking at this dog that she’s had a rough life – you can see her ribs, the patchy spots of missing fur, she needs a bath, and if you look closely, you can see that she recently had puppies. Yet when I met this dog at the Beaumont Animal Shelter, she was calm and sweet and had such hopeful eyes. I’m not sure what happened to her. In an ideal world, she found a loving home that spoils her and loves her more than anything. But after spending the past couple of months in Beaumont, Texas and volunteering at the shelter, I’m obliged to think happy endings for these dogs are far and few between.

Coming here from Austin, Texas after working at the largest no-kill shelter in the U.S., it’s been pretty traumatic volunteering at a small shelter that still imposes what I consider outdated standards and protocol. I know they have good intentions and want to help the animals that come through their shelter, but they are also struggling in a region that isn’t as open minded and modern in their thinking of how pets and animals should be treated. I first visited Beaumont’s city shelter on my birthday back in May of this year. Here are a few of the dogs I saw —

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Little Ways to Make a Big Difference

August 21, 2014 by Jillian Leave a Comment

I think most people agree that in general, we all like animals and we all want to help them. Working at animal shelters, I got to witness firsthand how amazing and kind some people can be when it comes to helping a cat or dog in need. However, I also witnessed that many people don’t know how to help or don’t think to in the first place. Unfortunately, humans have become so conditioned to believe that we matter more than our furry counterparts that we’re used to seeing animals lying in the road that were run over, we’re used to hearing about all the healthy companion animals that are “euthanized” in shelters every year, we’re used to hunting and killing animals for entertainment, and we’re used to eating animals without giving it a second thought. Kinda crazy when you stop and think about it, right? I mean, we’ve been controlling animals minds and bodies for thousands of years without ever really wondering what the true consequence of that is. We’re finally beginning to see some of those severe consequences.

What’s really going on?

Studies show that this current generation of children in America are the first that will shorter lives than their parents. That seems to sort of go against evolution… And it’s all due to the dairy, meat, gluten, and processed foods they are consuming. And it’s spreading across the world. Asia always had the lowest rates of cancer and heart disease because it’s a traditionally vegetarian area. But as soon as they began adopting Western eating styles, their rates of cancer and heart disease steadily rose.

Another scary fact is that we are running out of water, as well as farm-able land. Why? Because of factory farming. Eating cheap meat and dairy has become so popular that this world must sustain the billions of animals that produce this meat and dairy. That means water. Animals consume a lot of water. They also consume a lot of food. These animals are fed corn and grain (not what they’re supposed to be eating in the first place) and corn and grain need a place to grow. That means cutting down the rainforests and other natural habitats to grow these crops. Statistics shows that if we got rid of factory farming and instead used those resources to grow fruits and vegetables and healthy grains, we could easily feed all the starving people in the world. In fact, we would never have starving people. Oh, and animals on factory farms emit more methane gases than all the cars in the world combined.

That’s all the bad news. The good news is, we can do things in our daily lives to make a difference. And if everybody does little things that make a difference, then we can begin to reverse all the damage that’s been done and literally save the world. If we could save the world and also spare animals from the intense suffering they experience at our hands, why wouldn’t we?

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