This post comes to us from Lisa Whitted. Thanks for writing in with this wonderful story!

I first saw Roscoe while browsing the internet looking at pets for adoption. I wasn’t particularly looking to find a cat to take home, it had been 8 years since I had a cat, but when I came across Rosoce’s picture I knew I had too. When I inquired about him, I was told he was in quarantine and too sick for adoption. I persisted knowing that all he needed was lots of love and nutritous food. After about 10 days the shelter agreed to send him home with me.

He had upper respiratory problems. I immediately started him on Halo’s Spot’s Stew and began making the homemade recipes in Andi’s book. Each day he was getting better. I’ve included a picture from the day I took him home (the others are just cute!) I also started to give him Halo’s Daily Greens vitamins and Halo’s powdered vitamin C.

When I made the homemade recipes, I wasn’t sure how he would do with the vegetables. Without any encouragement he found the new food to his liking. The first time I made Spot’s Stew everything was in the pot cooking and my husband walked in the kitchen and had a taste of the stew and asked if it was dinner. I said no it’s the cat’s food! He had another taste.

Roscoe has been with me now for 9 months and will celebrate his first birthday this week. He continues to eat the homemade food as well as Halo’s Spot’s Stew canned and dry. He is a happy, healthy, energetic, social critter with personality that steals your heart.

In northwest New Jersey, volunteers from the Pet Adoption League open their homes to abandoned dogs and cats they’ve saved from overcrowded shelters, fostering them until a forever home is found. They work closely with 11th Hour Rescue, an all-volunteer group that swoops in to save dogs and cats about to be killed because their shelters just can’t handle all the animals needing a home.

Earlier this year, Halo donated 192 cases of Spot’s Stew to the Pet Adoption League, which they shared with 11th Hour Rescue. “Right now they are overrun with dogs,” says the Pet Adoption League’s Deb Severud, noting PAL has five dogs in their network of foster homes, far fewer than 11th Hour Rescue’s scores.”They are thrilled, and we are absolutely thrilled.”

Both rescues keep the animals they save in a network of foster homes until they are adopted, and provide any needed medical care. On the website of 11th Hour Rescue, their philosophy is poignantly described:

“Approximately 7 million pets will die this year in shelters across the US. Some die humanely with lethal injection, some will be thrown into a gas chamber and die a slow, frightening death, some will be shot, or beaten. They will die with a feeling of abandonment, lonesomeness, and fear. Yet, these dogs are real, they are living, breathing beings that crave love, companionship, and trust, while offering the same in return. They do feel pain, hunger and sadness and we do what we do because we want to make a difference. If we can bring comfort to just one, we will. If we can save just one life, we will. The stories we read and each dog’s story is heart-wrenching, the numbers of those we can’t help are overwhelming, and every day we are haunted by the faces of those we can’t save.”

And at least for awhile, many of 11th Hour’s and PAL’s dogs will have Halo holistic food to feast on. “I had never seen it before, and when I opened up a can, I couldn’t believe it,” says Severud. “I said to my husband, ‘You could pour it over rice and have dinner!’ The food has been a huge blessing, one thing we didn’t have to worry about.”

Since receiving a donation of 100 cases of Spot’s Stew for cats and 15 cases for dogs, St. Francis Society Animal Rescue was judicious in deciding which volunteer foster moms and dads got the Halo food.

“We distributed it to people who might have animals in their care who had health issues,” says the Tampa, Florida-based rescue’s president Sharon Espinola, “because we believe the product is much higher quality than what we are able to buy.”

Many of the dogs and cats who enter the rescue are in bad shape and need the proper nutrition found in Spot’s Stew. “It’s a good, pure food, it boosts their immune systems,” says Avril Stern, treasurer of St. Francis and a former Halo sales manager. “They need to get nutrition right away. I know the Halo product and I recommend it constantly.”

Currently, St. Francis has 140 cats and kittens and 10 dogs in foster homes. Two of the dogs who lapped up their Spot’s Stew are brother who were “horribly neglected,” says Espinola. “They were put in a garage to starve,” she says. Now, Chance, the seven-year-old Chocolate lab, and Deke, a pit-bull mix (they had different moms) are thriving.

Most of the rescued dogs and cats come in with some sort of a skin condition. To help, St. Francis buys at wholesale Halo’s Dream Coat for the dogs and Herbal Earwash for the cats. For animals in really bad shape, the rescue’s volunteers use Halo’s X-tra C.

Stern feeds her two house cats Spot’s Stew, which solved a nasty issue. “One of my cats had continuous diarrhea and she doesn’t have diarrhea as long as she eats Spot’s Stew. I believe in the product.”

Halo is initiating a new even-greater-discount program for animal shelters (in addition to our donation program). Please contact ckeller@halopets.com for details or call us at 1-800-426-4256.

In the network of Adopt A Boxer Rescue foster homes scattered around the Northeast live about 70 homeless dogs eating like kings, thanks to Halo’s recent donation of 5,808 cans of Spot’s Stew.

“The Halo food is invaluable, its high quality helps us to nurture our many sick and neglected dogs back to health,” says Kim Barnett of Madison, Ct., a dog behavior consultant currently fostering two dogs (see photos) for the rescue. “And the food absolutely enables you to open your home to more dogs. Everyone considers their financial condition when they consider fostering a dog.”

The donation couldn’t have come at a better time for the all-volunteer group, says Barnett.

Adopt A Boxer Rescue had been receiving several tons of top quality all-natural food every month from a wholesaling company that could not sell its torn or out-of-date bags, Barnett says. Just before Christmas, the company decided to sell the food to Amish farmers who have puppy mills — inhumane breeding facilities that keep dogs caged their entire lives for the sole purpose of producing puppies.

Ironically, Adopt A Boxer Rescue saves many boxers from the mills, dogs who are ill or who can no longer produce puppies. “They (the farmer) will call us and say, ‘Do you want to come and get this dog in the next half hour before I shoot it?’” Barnett says, noting that many of the dogs saved from the mills are unable to walk well because they have spent their entire lives enclosed in a wire-floored cage. For the company to begin selling the food to the Amish puppy millers “was an emotional slap in the face,” Barnett says.

However, the dogs are more than content with their new menu. There is Eve, the rescue’s white boxer who has a genetic defect preventing her from swallowing properly; when Eve was rescued she looked like a tiny, hairless rabbit. “It’s been a long haul to get her to get weight on,” says Barnett, noting that Eve would oftentimes throw up due to her ailment.

Eve now dines on three large cans of Spot’s Stew a day. “It’s doing wonders for her,” says Barnett. “You want to feed a dog like Eve the least amount of food possible, so the higher the quality the less she needs to eat, and because of the consistency it is easier for Eve to swallow the food. She is getting maximum nutrition in an easy-to-swallow formula.”

Each year, Adopt A Boxer Rescue finds permanent homes for some 400 dogs, and have helped thousands of pups get a new life. The group has dogs up for adoption in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.