A related organization

Tonight's post is about a fantastic organization, Pets With Disabilities.

Pets with Disabilities is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the adoption of dogs and cats with disabilities. The organization serves as a shelter and an adoption placement aid for animals that have been injured through trauma or disabled by illness. Pets with Disabilities provides invaluable support and resources for the families of disabled pets and for shelters attempting to place special-needs animals into loving homes. For the animals it helps place, Pets With Disabilities is a bridge to a better life; for the few that it cannot place, Pets With Disabilities is a lifelong home.

Check 'em out, and remember to leave a little note of thanks for all the good they do for our beloved critters.

Stylin' Stella!

Well, apparently the world's full of critters who are "less than perfect," and they're all welcome here! This week's featured LTPP (Less Than Perfect Pet) is Ms. Stella Stiletto.

You just gotta love her if only for the name! But you will love her...and her daddy, who's an artist, and takes WAY good care of our orange girl. You gotta love an orange chick whose MySpace page says, "I have no feet and I don't care!"

Cattitude, folks. We know what it looks like, and we love it. Welcome to the land of Who Cares, Stella! You're the unofficial mayor!

A neat related blog

Go on over and check out "The Lehners In France," a wonderfully critter-ridden blog of the most fantastic kind. Here's part of the official description:

"Lehners in France - Nain de la Ville, Dordogne, France

Born in Liverpool, worked in Sales all of my working life. I am now at last happily married (after one very brief disaster) and living in rural France with my husband Bob, a vet, born in Kenya. We live here with our menagerie of mentally or physically deformed pets. This is a diary of our trials and tribulations and the wierd and wonderful experiences we enjoy"

How can ya not want to check this out?

Of Like Minds

Here's a great post from Chris Davis, who shares a wonderful story about a differently abled pet whose visage was just a little too much for some people to take. Ginger, a one-eyed dog who survived awful abuse, nevertheless managed to come to her new mom, Fran, as a service dog.

How could the image of this loving pup be so disturbing to anyone? What's the threat?

This is why we need to have this discussion. Thanks, Chris, for putting this information out there!

Vive la difference!

Looks matter. We'd like to think it's not true, but if that were so, there would be no bazillion-dollar fashion industry, no cosmetics or acne medications industry, no weight-loss industry, fewer re-designs of automobiles every year, and covers wouldn't be what sell books. But there are, and they do.

Our higher selves would like to believe that what's inside is what matters, whether we're talking about people or products...or pets. We want to be people who can see past the surface to inner beauty. But the fact is, we care—deeply—how things look. And that can keep us from connecting with a lot of good things in life.

This blog examines one facet of that reality: the tendency of most people to shy away from choosing animals that have been damaged in some way to be our pets, and what happens to those who manage to get past the fear of the different to welcome these critters into their lives.

I've edited and have an essay in a new book about this subject, titled Almost Perfect: Disabled Pets and the People Who Love Them.


The book celebrates the joy and inspiration "less-than-perfect" animals have brought into the lives of eleven authors in three countries. I'm hoping these stories spark honest discussion—and maybe even change—about prevailing attitudes concerning what makes a perfect pet, and the intrinsic value of these animals. I'm providing this blog as a place for people who care to connect and discuss these ideas. Welcome, and thanks for taking the time to consider this issue.