Christmas Musical Feeds Hungry Dogs

by Mary Haight on December 18, 2008

: Image by chokolets via Flickr

Here’s an idea that feeds hungry dogs and is worth duplicating. Linda Parker, a music teacher at the Lydia Rippey school in New Mexico, taught her 3rd grade class how to help raise funds for a community need: the economy has put families is such a financial bind that they are having a tough time providing for their dogs.

Since many schools have canned food drives at this time of year, Parker simply put “dog” in front of “food drive” and tied that to the children’s musical about a dog who wants to learn to sing and gets an audience with Mrs. Claus. Magic happened and more than 700 cans were collected by the school. Parker also got a local food bank involved so efforts multipled and distribution wasn’t an issue. See G Jeff Golden’s article in the Daily Times for photos and more. Who said there were no more really good teachers? Got any stories to share?

News Bites

As I was unintentionally ice-skating down the driveway with my dog the other day, my ears perked up when I heard Leah Hope of ABC 7 News mention a great tip she got from a professional dog walker: to keep traction, take old pantyhose and cover your shoes with them. She said it works! We have an ice storm coming, so I will put this tip to the test.

There are a lot of stories around about how, even in this economy, spending on pets is up, so I thought I’d find the real numbers. The American Pet Products Association is reporting that spending is up 5% over last year, up 26% from four years ago, and is on track to reach $43+billion in 2008. It’s not surprising then that CNBC’s 3 minute segment “Mike on America” provided a real life example of these numbers. A very successful niche player in the pet casket and urn business, Hoegh employs 8 people making between $20 and 30K per year, has distributors in all 50 States, and reports that business has quadrupled in the last three years. See www.hoeghpetcaskets.com