Today is a wonderful national event called Clear The Shelters. Over 900 facilities are participating to promote pet adoption by offering waived adoption fees for adult dogs and cats. Animal shelters often experience overcrowding in the summer as a result of the explosion of litters of puppies and kittens in the spring, so this event helps encourage people to get out and adopt, alleviating some strain on the shelter system during its busiest season.
My debut picture book as author-illustrator, Found Dogs, is a simple counting book for young children about adopting dogs from the local shelter. Found Dogs was published last month by Dial Books for Young Readers, just in time for Clear The Shelters! I hope families will use it to talk to their little ones about their own dogs' origin stories, or to introduce them to the concept of pet adoption when it's time to add a new (furry) member to the family. Hopefully, for some families, that day is today!
My own dog Russell's adoption was what inspired me to create Found Dogs. I wrote about this in a guest post for the Barnes & Noble Kids blog.
This is Russell Redfur. I adopted him ten years ago.
To celebrate the book's publication, I created some fun coloring and activity sheets featuring dogs and the local shelter where they were adopted. Download them here to print and enjoy at home!
You can find your new best buddy at your local shelter, and you can find Found Dogs on Amazon, or wherever books are sold.