November is Adopt-a-Senior Pet Month. Adult and senior pets give all the love and affection of younger pets…but often without the headache of training and accidents! If you, or someone you know, are looking to adopt, check out the ASPCA’s Top 10 reasons to adopt a senior.

Choosing Halo for your senior pet will get them started off on the right foot in their new home. Halo has several natural products and supplements for older pets to help them reach their optimal health level. Check out the Top 10 Secrets to Aging Gracefully and our informative article on aging and how to care for your senior pet.

Mimi Ausland, the tween rescue star and founder of Freekibble.com wrote about the wonderful Halo-sponsored Kibble Krusader Kontest on Petco’s blog.

Get the Scoop here (you have to read 12-year-old Keith Webster’s winning entry, one of five to win $1,000 worth of Halo Dinner Party for their favorite animal shelter).

Eight year old Spencer Paige and his shelter dog Cuddles made the news after the boy’s entry was selected among five winners in the Halo-sponsored Kibble Krusaders Kontest run by Freekibble.com. We think there’s no better news to report than a young person working to help protect animals! His essay secured a $1,000 Halo donation for the Glynn County Animal Services in Florida.

See the whole story from our News page.

Tune in to The Ellen Show tomorrow (Thursday, October 22) for a heartwarming segment. Here’s Ellen’s introduction: “Today I’m going to introduce you to a 10-year-old girl who is already making an impact on the world. Her name is ANNABELLE HELD, and she started a dog treat business — but instead of keeping the profits, she donates them to an animal shelter in her hometown of Marietta, Georgia!”

Check here for your local show time.

The shelter, Our Pal’s Place, had this to say, “We have always been so proud of and grateful for Annabelle’s tenacious advocacy for the animals and all that she has accomplished through her volunteer work and business! Annabelle helped fund Dixie’s eye surgery with proceeds from her dog treat sales last year and, in total, has donated almost $900 to the animals of OPP. Now she will be a role model for youth animal advocates on national t.v.!”

Tune in, there may be a surprise!

There is just about anything that Susan Hayley would do to rescue homeless dogs. This 71-year-old crawls beneath abandoned homes to save the strays and their puppies she discovers living in filth. This founder of Angel Dog Rescue in Georgetown, Georgia, an area with no animal control and no shelter, built a kennel of her own and fosters almost 20 dogs at a time. Says Palena Dorsey, who runs Sanctuary Animal Refuge in Florida: “She is a petite little thing - yet strong as an oak tree in her determination and commitment to rescue and help the dogs in her area.”

Halo and Freekibble.com joined together in August to donate 1,700 pounds of Halo’s Spot’s Stew dry food to Angel Dog Rescue. “It was a godsend,” says Hayley. “There are so many dogs to feed. And they love it, they all go after it.” The food was shared with Angel Dog’s network of foster parents and a volunteer who feeds strays still roaming the area. All of the foster parents must pay for their own food, as Angel Dog receives no funding and no support from local government.

Unfortunately, there are an overwhelming number of dogs in Hayley’s area who require Angel Dog’s help. “We find them at the side of the road where people dump them, people don’t spay and neuter their animals so there are alot of calls about puppies,” says Hayley. Recently, a little terrier was found in an abandoned home, left by his owners who lost the house to foreclosure. “We only take in dogs who are in danger of not making it,” says Hayley, “those who are really really sick, those most desperately in need.”

Angel Dog got its start following the death of a local stray who was desperately in need in 2005. “At that time I didn’t know much of anything at all, she and the other strays seemed like they were doing ok,” says Hayley. Different residents fed this stray, but she disappeared for awhile. “When I saw her again, she was in bad shape, she was hit by a car, had lost alot of weight, had mange,” says Hayley. “And then got hit by another car. She went downhill really really fast.”

By then, it was too late to save the dog. “I was stunned to see a dog in the condition like this, I never had,” says Hayley. “She was too far gone to be happy and healthy and we had her euthanized. It was so awful.” Since then, Hayley has made it her life’s calling to make sure no other dogs end up like this pup. “I was ignorant,” says Hayley, who founded Angel Dog with a few other people.

With so many dogs and puppies and so few permanent homes in the area for them, Hayley and her group ship many of their charges up north– where there are more available adopters — in their own version of the underground railroad. “It’s called Rescue Railroad,” says Hayley. The dogs are taken from Georgia and handed off to other foster parents as they make their way north, where the dogs are adopted out through one of the northern-based rescues. Says Dorsey of Hayley’s efforts: “Susan has a great heart and soul for rescue and works hard to help as many as she can. Like all rescues she works on a shoestring budget but has made a huge impact in her area.”