There are many ways you can help at your local shelter, or even a shelter in a different country.

This post will outline the top 6 ways you can help, and many from the comfort of your own armchair.

1. Adopt a dog.

This is the most obvious way to help. If you are looking for a dog, even a specific breed, most shelters will have a dog to suit you and if they don’t you can reach out to them and they may know of a dog in a different shelter or that can be sought on the their social media pages.

For example, CRO Tomar (municipal Canil) have so many dogs looking for homes, there are so many dogs that are looking for adoption there would be a dog to suit everybody looking.

This way you avoid the unscrupulous puppy farms and breeders (we are not saying all breeders are unscrupulous, but some are).

Dog adoption is also cost effective as each dog adopted from CRO Tomar is sterilised and up to date on vaccines and will be health checked by a qualified and dedicated vet.

2. Foster a dog.

Many dogs are available for different types of foster and this can be for a number of reasons.

• Emergency foster –

The reasons a dog requires emergency foster vary from dog to dog.

If a dog is being adopted, shelters will often try to get them into foster care and out of kennel life, so that they can experience life in a home and start the socialisation and care that they will be moving in to.

A dog may not be able to cope with kennel life.

A dog may have suffered the loss of an owner and having lived as a family pet, may not be suitable for kennel life.

• Long term foster –

Dogs that may be available on long term foster generally tend to be older dogs with very little hope of adoption. You could be responsible for giving an old dog the chance to live out their final months/years of life in comfort and love. Remember some dogs enter shelter life young and through no fault of their own never get adopted or the chance to live in home.

• What does fostering entail:

At Tomar CRO The dog gets to live in a family home but is still registered to the canil. All medical bills are covered by the canil, so there are no expensive surprises in store.

3. Donate your time

If you have time available, this can be one of the best ways to support your local shelter.

• Volunteer at the shelter, check with the shelter first and find out what is needed, this could be walking dogs, helping to bathe dogs, spending time with the dogs  or simply just playing with the dogs.

4. Donate items to the shelter.

Shelters are always in need of physical donations.

• If you are having a clear out, old towels, blankets etc are always required.
• If you are planning a kitchen refurb, consider donating your old washing machine/ tumble dryer to your local shelter. Just imagine how often bedding needs to be washed. But please only donate items in good working order.
• Dog food/treats. These items will always be required, especially any speciality foods such as puppy/senior dog foods.
• Collars, leads etc. you can buy these new and take to the shelter or if you have recently lost a dog, for which we send our deepest sympathies, what better tribute to your dog than to pass on their beds, collars, leads etc to a dog that may have never know a loving home.

5. Donate financially

Although most shelters do receive government funding, they are usually running at full capacity or even over capacity. Financial donations can help to fund

• Additional resources. This can be specialist dog food or specialist medical treatment.
• Special events such as fundraising events, awareness raising events, community events.
• Sterilisation drives in the local communities, or even special price sterilisations for those on low incomes.

If you would like to donate to Dog rehoming Portugal, EU and UK please use on of the options at the bottom of this page, 100% of donations goes to help the dogs.

6. Fundraise for your local shelter

When you hear about fundraising, most people generally think of big events organised by associations, but this does not need to be the case. A small fundraiser can raise as little as 10 euros, but those 10 euros will make such a difference to the shelter, especialy if lots of people raise and donate that amount.

If you would like some ideas of how to raise money, take a look at the ideas below

• If you have a child at school,  enquire whether their school would like to hold a fundraising event or nominate your shelter as the yearly charity to donate to.
• If you enjoy baking, hold a cake sale with money going to your local shelter.
• Hold a car boot/garage sale, this will also help clear all the clutter from your house.

If you have any other ideas, please leave a comment below or send some photos of you fundraising with the name of your nominated charity .

I hope I have given you some`ideas of how you can help your local shelter or if you would like to nominate our association for your fundraising endeavours, we are fully registered with registration number 518.796.868