Guest post by Stanley Katz

Betty White managed to grow very old, but somehow even in dog years, not old enough. But now we know her secret and it wasn’t a daily dose of kale – it was her deep love of animals.

The best way to honor Betty is to help those animals who need our help and there are plenty. I know, I’ve met them.

I’m a very lucky pup.

I come from well cared for show people- my birth parents were both champion prize Labrador retrievers who lived with a loving, and attentive breeder in Texas. My fancy pedigree assured I’d cost a pretty penny when it came time to be adopted by my new parents in NY.

But all those hifalutin papers meant nothing when it came to falling head over heels in love with me. One look at my soulful brown eyes, sweet personality, and my metronome-like tail were all my new Mom Sally needed to love me forever.

But over the years I’ve met a whole lot of canines whose tails did not begin as sweetly as mine did. The sweetest most happy-go-lucky dogs you ever met. The tentativeness and wariness were long gone. Replaced by love and trust.

There’s no trace of the lives they once lived. Or the horrors they endured.

But in the shadows of the dog park, off our leash and away from owners,  we’d all huddle together, and there deep, dark secrets would be revealed.

The stories were enough to make the fur on my body stand up… dogs chained to fences and left to die, left lying in the frozen mud, wandering the streets scrounging for food, neglected,  locked in sheds, malnourished, diseased, disfigured.

Dogs just hours away from being euthanized.

Each and everyone was rescued from a shelter by families with a big heart, the only requirement needed. The dogs I’ve met in the parks have happily ever after endings.

But not all do.

Please honor Betty White. I challenge you.

Save a dog and donate whatever you can. Or adopt. It will fill your heart either way.

#BettyWhiteChallenge