Sweet Charity

Help Best Friends achieve their laudable goal of No More Homeless Pets with a one-time $25 sponsorship of an animal. Scroll through tons (and tons) of dog photos and bios to choose whom you’d like to sponsor. If it’s a gift, an e-card will be sent to the recipient. You can also sponsor animals from bunnies to barnyard pals to kitties, should Aunt Edna be more of a (gasp) cat person. bestfriends.org/gift

Save lives
Muttshack specializes in mass pet evacuations and rescues necessitated by natural disasters. They offered disaster response during Hurricane Katrina, Gustav, Ike and many others, saving thousands of animals and even relocating entire shelters threatened by disaster. Donate or become a member to support their good work. muttshack.org

Search and ye shall find the good feelings that come with doing good
Enabling a wonderful partnership, the Search Dog Foundation recruits rescue dogs, trains them, and pairs them with firefighters (at no cost to the fire department). These dogs, with their new lease on life, become part of the first response, finding people buried alive in the wreckage of disasters, and thereby offering them a second chance, too. There are many ways to help: sponsor a dog, donate, give an estate gift, or even donate a vehicle searchdogfoundation.org

Push boundaries
Demonstrate compassion without borders: a $100 donation covers the expense of rescuing one dog from death row in a high-kill Mexican animal control center. cwob.org/donatedog.html

Support service dog training
Make a difference in the life of someone with a disability— help raise and sponsor the training of guide dogs for the blind with a donation to this venerable, charitable organization. guidedog.org

Get down with the spay/neuter effort
It’s desperate out there. 5,000,000 (yes, five million) animals are euthanized annually in the United States. Help Wiregrass Alliance’s effort to diminish that number by tackling pet overpopulation through their grassroots spay/ neuter efforts. Sponsor a spay or neuter ($65/$55, respectively) for a family that can’t afford the procedure otherwise. wiregrassspayneuter.org