How to be an everyday animal hero:
We all have the capacity to be kinder to animals and to be animal heroes. What is an animal hero?
For us it’s someone who stands up for animals and their rights, protects them, advocates for them and makes lifestyle changes to better their welfare. Everyone, no matter where you live, what your resources are, your age, or your financial abilities – can be a hero for animals. It’s quite easy!
Here are our tips on how you can be an animal hero every day:
- Stand up and use your voice when you see animal cruelty happening.
- Know who your local SPCA, animal welfare organisation and law enforcement agency is and how to contact them, so you can contact them regarding animal cruelty.
- Adopt, don’t shop and and inform others about this.
- Sterilise your pets and encourage your friends, family, and neighbours to have their pets sterilised too
- Learn more about animals: Visit our #ClickAndLearn page on our website
- Encourage your family to try out our animal-friendly recipes: See our fun, easy and delicious animal-friendly recipes on our website.
- Take good care of your pet(s) – read our guides for more information and remember to download our Responsible Pet Care brochure!
- When choosing holidays or fun family activities choose animal-friendly ones where animals are not used for entertainment purposes, kept in cages, touched, cuddled, used as photo props and more.
- When shopping for clothes – think kinder! You don’t need wool, leather or fur and there are plentiful other materials which doesn’t affect animals that’ll keep you warm and stylish. Animal products and testing of animals are also used in many beauty, personal hygiene, medicinal and cleaning products to name a few. Make sure you use vegan products with the Beauty Without Cruelty seal of approval. Read labels and/or Google the product name along with ‘animal testing’ to be aware of the cruelty associated with many of our every-day products. Choose kinder alternatives.
- Start an Animal Emergency Facebook or WhatsApp group for your street, suburb, township, or immediate community where you can alert one another if pets are lost, you see or find stray, abandoned or injured animals and discuss other animal issues and share information.
- Encourage people in your community not to tie or chain their dogs. Talk to them about how their dog needs to exercise and have the right to be unchained. If the chain is very short or tight, educate them on alternatives and to help them find better, kinder solutions like a new collar, a longer chain or fix a fence so a dog can be unchained.
- Look out for pets who are left without water during the day and be an animal hero by placing a recycled plastic container like an old margarine or ice cream container in their property with fresh, clean water.
- Look out for pets who look sick, hurt or hungry and try to help and assist the family with their pets.
- If you can, get a few neighbours together and start a feeding scheme for stray cats or dogs who are roaming for food. Or even just help an elderly, sick or financially struggling neighbour whose pets are suffering.
- Offer to walk a neighbour or a friend’s dog who might not have time or capacity (due to illness for example) to exercise their dogs.
- When going away for the weekend, a holiday or even just overnight, ensure you have arrangements made to have your pets cared for and offer to do this for others in your community.
We can all #LiveKinder. Let’s be kinder in what we eat, kinder in what we do and kinder in how we treat animals and the planet.