A Day in the Life of Fox + How You Can Help Support Shelter Animals

This post is in partnership with Hill’s Pet Nutrition. All opinions are our own!

I’m sitting here writing this with our pup Fox on my lap, typing with one hand so I can scratch him with the other. He does this thing where he adamantly nudges his head under any hand that’s nearby, basically demanding to be scratched. He’s usually pretty determined, so I tend to give in early and deal with doing everything one-handed. Saves me time and keeps our little prince happy.

Frankly, Fox has a pretty sweet life; he gets to sleep on a (fairly expensive) faux-sheepskin blanket that he’s essentially claimed for his own, and then sometime in the middle of the night he crawls up to the bed and falls back asleep on whichever of us is the warmest. When we wake up and start working, he’ll stay in bed until one of us is like “hey, yeah, you need to get up we’re going out for a walk”. Then he gets a long walk and food before crawling onto that very same fancy blanket for some sunbathing by the window.  He’ll spend all day doing that except for when he’s getting treats, scratches, and long walks. On weekends we’ll go for longer outdoor trips or take him around town with us to see friends (both human and canine ones). Like I said, pretty sweet life.

I gotta say it feels incredible to spoil another living creature completely rotten. I think it’s honestly in part because I get all anxious when I think about what his life was like before he came into ours, or what it might have been like had we not met him. He’s a rescue, and while I know that plenty of those who work in animal shelters do a great job taking care of the pets in need of a forever home, I also know that resources can sometimes be scarce, which makes those folks’ jobs and those animals’ lives harder than they need to be.

That’s where Hill’s Pet Nutrition comes in. We’ve spent most of this year learning all about the different initiatives they head in service of giving animals a better life. Given that our own pup is a rescue, we really appreciate such a prominent pet nutrition brand taking a stand for the livelihood of shelter animals, and so we’re pretty thrilled to tell you more about Hill’s Food, Shelter & Love Program!

They started the program in 2002 to help aid shelters with getting proper nutrition for the pets in their care, and since the program’s launch they’ve provided $290 million in food to more than 800 shelters. I literally can’t imagine how much food $290 million can buy but it sounds like a heck of a lot.

The intention is not only to help provide for the animals, but also to relieve the burden and stress on the folks running the shelters and taking care of all the furry friends inside them. Their focus should be on the animals’ quality of life and making adoptions happen, not constantly needing to figure out how to make ends meet. Because if you didn’t know, a lot of nonprofit and municipal shelters rely on donations or grants to access proper nutrition.

There’s also an extension of the Food, Shelter & Love program that helps in times of acute crisis, called the Disaster Relief Program. We wrote all about this program in the thick of hurricane season this year, and you can read more about that right here.

Maybe one day we’ll be able to adopt every animal in the world, but until then we’re happy to know that a piece of our purchase of Hill’s products is helping those little babies out. Just by taking care of our one little dude, we’re helping out all those other furry friends, too! If you’re looking for a way to benefit shelter animals with minimal time commitment, I’d encourage you to look into the Food, Shelter & Love Program as a great place to start!

Oh! And for all you parents out there that want to pass on your passion for pet adoption to your little ones, Hill’s just released a very cute children’s e-book, A Home for Hilly, that you can download right here! It’s such a sweet story omg.

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog :)

xoxo Matt