Last night, a devastating fire hit Ritchie County Animal Shelter in West Virginia, one of the shelters Homeward Trails works regularly with. The building that housed cats, puppies and kittens burned entirely, killing more than 50 cats and kittens, several puppies, at least one mother dog and a few small dogs. The shelter also lost all of its supplies.  They now have no food or medication for the animals who did survive. The shelter staff is devastated, as are we at HT. Please help if you can!

The most immediate need now is to replace the destroyed food, vaccines and cleaning supplies. You can donate money by going to http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/WV22.html and clicking the donate button about 2/3 of the way down the page.

Homeward Trails will be driving donations to the shelter on the morning of this Friday, January 15th as well as in the following weeks, so direct donations of dog food and crates can be dropped off at Dog Paws and Cat Claws University in Arlington. Space is the van is limited so if you can make a financial donation, please do so.

As the staff focuses on the clean up effort, any cats or kittens, puppies or small dogs that come into the shelter will have nowhere to go. And thus, they will be turning to HT for help in getting the animals to safety. As we assess our situation at HT, we may be coming to you soon to ask for emergency foster support.

Please donate through Paypal if you can! And please let us know if you would like to foster a dog that is still at the shelter. The dogs at this shelter survived because they are kept in outdoor pens – so they are cold, but alive. And boy, we would love to get them out during this very difficult time so that the staff can focus on regrouping.