Pet Pardons Reaches 10,000 Pets

As many of you know, I'm the Co-Founder of the facebook application, Pet Pardons. When asked about my proudest accomplishment thus far, my answer is just that: Pet Pardons. 

This week, the 10,000th animal shelter pet was posted on the app, representing a massive milestone for Chris, myself, and so many deserving rescue pets. With each life saved, with each pet adoption, and with each shelter pet smile... all of the craziness is worth it. 

I'll share more about that special pet in a minute... but first, I'd like to give you a quick look behind-the-scenes at Pet Pardons...

In December, 2010, fellow Co-Founder and friend, Chris Hoar, and I launched the Pet Pardons app. The idea was simple: utilize the sharing power of facebook to save the lives of pets on death row in animal shelters.

In creating the app, we wanted to give animal shelters, animal rescues, networkers, and volunteers the ability to easily post pets in need of help. We wanted to give the public the ability to get involved in saving those lives. And most importantly, we wanted to give these deserving shelter pets the chance to live.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well... in theory, yes. But trust me, when it comes to the day-to-day operations, things can get a little... um... crazy...

Each day, Chris and I work tirelessly behind-the-scenes at Pet Pardons, busting our asses to save as many lives as possible. Contrary to popular belief, there's no "Pet Pardons Corporate Headquarters." We don't meet in some fancy office, with big desks, lush couches, and computers that always operate as promised. 

Chris lives in California; I live in Mississippi. We work from our own crappy couches, using crappy, crashing laptops and even crappier, busted cell phones. This makes things... well... interesting...

My cell phone has a little, um... water damage-ish. It dies daily... and right now, I can't afford a new one. But as you can probably imagine, this makes it pretty difficult for Chris to reach me about issues with the app, and he can get a little irritated at times. Well... sorry dude. I'm pretty irritated too. My cell is a piece of shizz. 

When things go wrong, as they often do, Chris and I scramble to make things right--and fast. But of course, there's a 2-hour time difference between Chris and myself... and my 2 hour gain isn't always appreciated by Mr. Hoar in the early morning hours...

I try to remind him that I hate mornings enough for the both of us, but that never seems to help my case. The interruption in sleep can make Chris a little pissed, which makes me a little pissed. Or a lot pissed. This man acts as if I invented the time difference?!?! 

But instead of being professional and serious, I choose to tell inappropriate jokes to make him laugh. That's the only way we get through most days, considering that our "job" is to look at images of pets on death row in the animal shelter. Laughter keeps us sane.

So, clearly, things don't always go as planned. There are days when all of the facebook apps crash for no apparent reason... which is always super-fun for us. There are other days when those ever-present facebook errors decide to be extra-awesome by temporarily disabling most--or all--of our app's features... and we really appreciate that.

When this happens, Chris and I bust our asses a little more... and with a lot of effort and some offensive cuss words... we somehow manage to make things right again. 

And even though I give him a hard time, I'm honored to work with Chris on Pet Pardons. We're great friends who truly love what we do, and we're inspired by the lives of the shelter pets we're able to save each day, as well as the amazing pet adoption stories.  

Because to date, 10,000 pets have been posted on Pet Pardons, and more than 5,000 lives have been saved because of our work. That's huge. 

So, back to that special 10,000th pet. Her name is Emma, a brokenhearted American Bulldog awaiting her fate at Nacogdoches Animal Shelter in Texas. Emma was surrendered by her owner when he was called to serve overseas in Iraq. Now, Emma is waiting... in a dog shelter... with a dream of the pet adoption that will save her life. Please... help us save her. Click the link to Advocate for Emma NOW!


CLICK HERE TO ADVOCATE FOR EMMA!

*From the bottom of our hearts and those you've helped save, thank you for using Pet Pardons to make a difference in this world. These shelter pets need you, and you're always there for them. That's nothing short of incredible.