Update from No More Homeless Pets Event

Words can't express how influential the Best Friend's Society No More Homeless Pets Conference was, but I will try my best to describe how great it really was.

The event began on Friday morning (Oct. 23rd) and ended on Sunday afternoon (Oct. 25th) and was held at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. They began the conference with a speaker's panel that consisted of several directors, founders, and managers of animal shelters & other animal organizations. The audience was given the opportunity to ask the speakers questions and get their opinions on current issues in the animal world. Each morning there was a new panel of speakers and the remainder of the conference was broken up into individual workshops. During each time bracket, one would choose from 4 different workshops to attend, which included topics such as Disease Control, Feral Cats, Dog Training, Fundraising, Rescue Centers, & Puppy Mills, just to name a few. The decision of what workshops to attend was hard to make, but everyone who attended the conference will have the opportunity to view all of the presentations online within a few weeks.

Lunch was provided each day and gave everyone a chance to network with the other attendees and speakers. Friday's lunch room was set up with tables from similar states. For example, those from Texas would sit with other Texans as well as Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. This was a great chance to find out who else from your area was attending the conference and why. I met several people from my state and even my city, and we shared our reasons for being at the conference and how much helpful information we were learning from it all.

Saturday's lunch was even better! The tables were set up with one conference speaker at each table, and you got to choose which table you would like to sit at and got time one-on-one with one of the speakers. I chose to sit at a table with Jamie Katz, owner of Woof Worx. Her story was awesome to hear! She began working for a pet store in Bel Air, CA named Pets of Bel Air, when she graduated high school. After working there for several years, she began to question how the store was able to have such a large selection of puppies at any given day of the year. Once she found out how Pets of Bel Air was getting their animals, she began to start a movement of converting the store from puppy mill dogs to rescue center dogs. By this time, Best Friend's Society was stepping in to petition the store's involvement in the cruel act of selling puppies from puppy mills. There was a large lawsuit filed against the store and more information on that can be found on the internet, just Google: pets of bel air lawsuit. The owner was forced to close his doors on the store, and Jamie jumped on the opportunity to start her own pet store. Woof Worx opened its doors earlier this year as the first Best Friend's Society endorsed pet store. They only provide animals from local shelters and rescue groups rather than puppy mill dogs. Jamie also spoke in one of the workshops I attended that described the program that Best Friends and other organization are involved in called Puppies Aren't Products.

I could go on all day about all of the wonderful workshops I attended, but I really suggest that anyone that is interested in helping animals should attend the conference. You don't have to be involved in an organization or have your own rescue center. I met several people that went just because they want to do more in the animal community and didn't know which direction to go just yet. Over 650 people attended this year and I felt so at home with everyone I came in contact with. We all shared so many stories of how we were yearning to do more for animals and how much they influenced our lives.

I took a couple pictures from the conference shown below. Also, if you want more information on the No More Homeless Pets Conference, click here. I will keep you all posted on what I decide to do with all of this new information!