Fun adoption event at Wal-Mart!

We had a great little adoption event at the Appleton Wal-Mart on Saturday! Thanks to Wal-Mart for letting us bring our kittens and Jack the Jack Russell there, and thanks to Purina for sponsoring this event and donating food, toys and other goodies!

Me with Jack, what a little love-bug!


Me, Nicole and Em V at the event

Shih Tzu puppies on their way soon!

We are getting the most precious Shih Tzu mama, daddy and 6 puppies next weekend from Arkansas!

Puppies Incoming!

We're getting precious babies Big Bear and Woolly Bear this weekend! Look at how freaking adorable they are!!!



Look how uniquely colored Woolly Bear is - an all-gray Lab with gray eyes; never seen that before. I can't wait to meet these sweet babies!

Awesome Brat Fry & Adoption Event at PSP!

Thanks again to everyone who came out to support us last weekend at Pet Supplies Plus! Our brat fry raised nearly $400, which will all go toward our Adoption Center!


Grillmaster James cooks 'em up hot and delicious!


Emily V holds Lucia Skywalker (yes, we thought she was a "he" since female orange tabbies are so rare - whoops! she's a little GIRL!). Her sister, Princess Leia, was also there and met lots of friendly people! They're both still available for adoption!

OARS Celebrates our 300th Adoption!

Hooray for Egan the kitten! This wonderful family adopted both Egan and his brother, Sushi. Wow, I can't believe we've already had 300 adoptions in just under a year! Thanks to everyone who made this happen!

Honeybun Finds Her New Mommy

Honeybun was adopted at our Pet Supplies Plus adoption event this weekend! Hooray for our little OARS Honeybun! Here she is with her new adopter mama and her new sister, Abby.

SOS Spay Neuter Run This Weekend

Thank you to Emily Wiegmann, Amy, Corey, Nicole and Natalie for making this weekend's SOS spay neuter run to Madison a success! We housed the kitties in my insulated garage overnight on Friday and then Emily and Nicole came at 5:45am to load them up and Emily and her fiancee drove to Madison to the clinic! They were back by 5pm and all the kitties - 20 of them - recovered quite well and are now ready for their forever homes! Great job ladies!!!

Jumpin Jack Russell!

My foster dog for Orphan Animal Rescue, Sam the Jack Russell terrier, didn't want me to leave her outside in the fenced area all alone! She wanted back IN! I love her!

She was adopted today to a wonderful family... yey!

Doodle Crossed the Rainbow Bridge

Thank you all for your kind words and heartfelt prayers for our sweet Doodle. She passed peacefully over the Rainbow Bridge last night and is no longer suffering. Doodle has inspired us to save even more homeless pets in her honor.

Doodle Update

Our little Doodle Girl, who we're all pulling for, is still with us...we hope she's now on the upside of her illness...

Here's an update from her foster mom:

"I thought I would find she passed this morning when I woke at 4:30 to check on her - she was still fighting. I gave her fluids and pet her and whispered in her ear "You've been through too much to not make it now - how about a little miracle?". I went back at 7:30 and force fed her some soft food, more fluids and she stood up briefly to greet me. She hasn't used the litterbox in 2 days. She's peeing a bit on her bedding which I change every time I go to her.

I took an early lunch at 11 and gave more fluids and a few syringes of wet food. This time I whispered "Girl, if you can beat this you'll be a queen and live the life you always deserved...promise..."

When I came home from work, Donna was cradling her and I thought it was over...it's not yet.

She stood up a bit more, circled once and plopped back down. I gave a few more syringes of wet food, fluids and rubbed her down with a warm/dry towel from the dryer. I cleaned her eyes and she purred and purred.

She's dry, safe and warm. Listening to NPR and being checked in on every couple of hours.

There's a whisper of hope, it's faint, frail and a little stinky but it's there....."

Doodle, hang in there with us! We'll fatten you up and find you the new loving forever home you deserve!

Saving Doodle

Sometimes in rescue you're called to go above and beyond, to come together, to exhaust yourself, to test your emotional strength. This is one of those times.


Sweet Doodle came to us after a kind stranger found her and her kittens underneath a dumpster. They rushed the little feline clan to the vet, where all were diagnosed with FIV (which, in a nutshell, is feline HIV, when their immune system is compromised).

The kittens will be fine, but Doodle was in rough shape; she had been nursing her kittens and gave them all her milk and nutrients, which with a kitty who's very skinny in the first place, leaves little for herself. She's really dirty and her poor ears were infested with ear mites--generations of them. The itching must have been unbearable for her.

Still, Doodle immediately jumped up and begged us to pet her every time she'd see us - spinning in circles with delight and purring up a storm. What joy it must've been to her to be in a safe place where she had food whenever she wanted it.

We took Doodle into OARS and go her all the care, food and love that she needed for recovery. She seemed to be progressing slowly but steadily.

Then Sunday we lost a kitten who was in the same foster room with her to a strange respiratory condition; not sure if it was a heart defect. Then about a half a day later, Doodle became depressed and lethargic, and has stopped eating on her own.

We are trying to shower Doodle with love and affection to help give her the strength to go on...we want her so badly to survive...she deserves to be strong and beautiful and happy for the rest of her life. She's hanging in there for now...think good thoughts for Doodle please...

I LOVE Our Volunteers!

Some of the wonderful OARS volunteers who helped out at the booth: Nicole, Corey, Amy, Louise, Robin, me and Jennifer.

Wow, what a great event! The Valley Pet Expo was held this weekend in Appleton up at Player's Choice. We had a great volunteer turn-out, it is just awesome to see how many wonderful local supporters we have, all in it to help save more homeless pets!

The event overall was great - we met a lot of wonderful fellow rescuers, learned a lot of exciting new things, and got to play with cats and dogs. Our booth also won second place and we raised nearly $550, which is really needed right now to help us purchase our Adoption Center we are all dreaming of. And, the best part is, we adopted out 4 kittens! Woo hoo!

Crafts for Pets Pawty!

Thanks to all the ladies - and one guy! - who showed up for our Crafts for Pets Pawty at Natalie's house last night. It was really fun! We shared a LOT of great ideas for how to make crafts to sell to help raise funds to purchase our Adoption Center and save even more pets!

Nemo kept us entertained by testing out all the catnip toys. :)

One Wiener at a Time...

Babes selling brats!


The things we do to help homeless pets!

Whatever it takes to raise money for our adoption center...even melting in the muggy sun for hours at our brat fry! Thanks to Kerry, Amy, Emily V, Emily R, Shawn, Nicole, TimA, TimB and Emily V's wonderful parents for joining us to help out today at Pick N Save in Neenah. We made a little over $300 today and talked to a lot of wonderful people, so it was very much worth it!


My hubby Tim helped out with the grillin!

Adoption Event at Pet Supplies Plus!

Thank you to everyone who came to visit and who helped at the Pet Supplies Plus Adoption Event!

We had a great adoption event today! We got applications on 3 kittens, 1 puppy and possibly for 1 of our adult girls. Special thanks to Corey, Amy and Della for helping out today! And thanks again to Pet Supplies Plus for letting us use their back room to host our adoptable kitties and dogs!


Our Black Lab puppy Cooper was pooped out by the end of the day! Here he is, sporting his OARS leash underneath our OARS banner. Such a cutie!

Cooper the Puppy and 9 Kittens Rescued!

Natalie, Amy, Steve and little Cooper!

Tonight Natalie and I rescued 9 kittens and one little Black Lab puppy! We are happy to partner with Lost Companion Rescue out of Waupaca to help them out. They have tons of kittens in need, so we were delighted to have a few adoptions this week that we could help them out. The kittens are irresistible, and Cooper the puppy is precious! So fun!