Ever wondered what 200 dehydrated cow penises looks like? Wonder no further.
Ever wondered how much joy they can bring to a shelter full of dogs, on a dark December night? Here’s a picture worth a thousand words:
When three boxes of bully sticks arrived in the mail from our friend Handsome Dan‘s holiday bully stick drive, adoptable Dora the Explorer and I couldn’t wait to get our hands on them. We opened the packages, counted the sticks, and sniffed them with enthusiasm. Well, Dora sniffed them while I wrinkled my nose.
215 bully sticks! We couldn’t believe it. Handsome Dan and his mama, being the generous beauties that they are, organized a bully stick drive for the Providence, RI shelter where they do most of their work, on Handsome Dan’s facebook page. They had hoped to receive enough to offer one to each dog at two Providence shelters — about 100 sticks. Instead, they received about 600 — a Christmas miracle! In the end, they were able to supply bully sticks to the homeless dogs of Rhode Island, but also the dogs of Animal Farm Foundation in New York, the shelter dogs of Portland, Maine, all the dogs at the Philly SPCA, and the 200+ dogs at Austin’s new state-of-the-art facility, the Austin Animal Center.
So on my birthday, I set off with a pal from Love-a-Bull to deliver yummy snacks to Austin’s homeless dogs. After all, nothing says “happy birthday” to a vegetarian like handling 200 dehydrated cow parts, right?
The new facility is beautiful, sparkling, and meticulously planned. Although it houses more than 200 dogs — the largest shelter I’ve been to — there is no chaos, no excessive noise, and no mess. Dogs all have climate-controlled indoor-outdoor runs, and cats have cozy, private indoor nests. When we were there last night — a random Tuesday just before Christmas — there were dozens of volunteers walking around, socializing the dogs.
Still, the dogs were thrilled to receive a special holiday treat from Handsome Dan, and most of them took to their chewy task with great seriousness and enthusiasm. Here are a few photos of the delivery.
If you have the pre-holiday blues and are looking for a little pick-me-up, consider bringing some treats to the homeless dogs at your own municipal shelter. Be brave — handing out a yummy snack to dogs waiting for homes will be so much more fun than you think.
Happy holidays, little ones of the Austin Animal Center!
For more info on adopting Dora the Explorer, click here or contact us at info [at] loveandaleash [dot] com.
Love and a Six-Foot Leash 
Wow! That’s a whole lotta cow parts, lol. What a great holiday treat for those dogs.
What a sweet thing to do…and on your birthday, no less! 🙂 I hope that in addition to cow weiners, those pups get forever families for the holidays….but in the meantime, I’m sure the weiners will do. 🙂
Love this! So great of Handsome dan to share with you guys! I am also incredibly impressed by the shelter…sounds like a really nice place (if one has to be in a shelter…)
Glad you got to bring so much joy to these shelter pups on the holidays, it must have been absolutely wonderful to do.
What a wonderful job Handsome Dan and his Mom did! A Christmas Miracle for sure!! But are you serious about what a Bully Stick is?? I’ve been treating my dogs with them forever and hating the smell but had NO IDEA that I was handling cow penis. Were you serious about that? I guess I always thought they were ligaments or something like that. Merry Christmas to you and yours. I’ve followed all your foster dogs with euthusiam and so happy when each finds there forever home but I find myself especially fond of little Dora and the cute little snout of hers. Here hoping that 2012 brings her the best placement ever. And of course a special hug and kiss to Sir Chick, whom I think I have a crush on! Good thing I probably won’t ever meet him in person as I would really need to hug him and since he’s not crazy about hugs from strange people that would probably not work out very well.
Diane
Yes, I’m totally serious! Sorry about the early morning gross-out, but bully sticks are stretched and dehydrated cow penises. It’s icky to be sure, but just keep in mind that what’s best for all animal lovers is if every part of the animals that die anyway is used and celebrated — even these parts!
Handsome Dan and his mom are amazing, and so are people for donating 600+! Thanks for such a meaningful post! You really are inspirational!
Yup, that’s what they are. Bull penises. Also known as “pizzles.” TJs sells them, too. Personally, I think they’re gross!! 😉
Haha, you beat me to it! Odd for sure but I’m with Aleksandra – better then being thrown away!
Little… dusty in here. Wow. What a great way to spend your birthday!
Word I learned after purchasing bully sticks: pizzle. Hah.
Yay for bullysticks! Hope some of those beautiful dogs get homes for the New Year!
You’re amazing, and this post brought a few tears to my eyes – I love this idea!
Delivered ours yesterday and I was blown away with how rewarding it was… all the barking and carrying on immediately stopped because everyone was happily munching in their beds : -) I’m posting about it friday – I got some great pics! Thanks for helping some come our way : -) Happy day after your birthday!
This is SO awesome! Now that I know what Bully Sticks really are, I am glad I didn’t buy them for the Pits on my Christmas list. lol!
Yay for Handsome Dan! Yay for Christmas miracles! Just like the story of Hanukkah. Wishing homeless doggies lots of love, comfort and warmth in the new year!
Amazing!!! What a wonderful idea. These pups are so cute!! Sad, though, that so many are not in their forever home yet….but you brought a ray of sunshine (in the form of a dried up cow penis!) into their lives. Kudos!! And Handsome Dan rocks!!
Hooray for you guys delivering some love to the shelter! The new shelter is fantastic, isn’t it? I visited on opening weekend, and I have been trying to work up the nerve to volunteer but I’m not quite there yet.
I am a vegetarian also and can’t quite bring myself to buy bully sticks.
What a fantastic idea! You’ve inspired me to do something for pups in shelters here in Chicago!
THANK YOU so much for this…reading it made my heart happy. What a wonderful idea, and a great way to spread a little love and cheer for all these dogs!
Omg! All the pibbles! All the cute pibbles 😦
That is awesome! First of all, Izzy’s eyes would have popped out of her head at the site of all those!
What a great idea and I’m sure a fulfilling day to be able to deliver those!
So glad that Handsome Dan’s drive was able to provide for so many homeless dogs. I know minion dogs live Bulky sticks but had no idea that’s what they’re made of!
Thanks for the idea and inspiration! I will bring bully sticks to my weekly dog walking gig at Minneapolis Animal Care and Control this week. (I too am a vegetarian, but my 12 pound fluffy Shih Tzu LOVES munching on bull penises — I like to think that she imagines she’s “getting even” for all those times she was forced to breed in her previous life before being rescued!)
So happy! I am sure you made these dogs’ day. Even if it meant a little stinkiness on your birthday, I am sure those huge smiles were worth it. Thanks for making the sacrifice to make these doggies so happy. You’ve made my day a little brighter now too just reading about it. 🙂
This is amazing! Such great photos, such a great donation, and i LOVE the idea of a bully stick drive! What a wonderful idea…. I love it!!
Happiness is a dog with a bully stick. What a great feeling to bring so much cheer in a blue bucket!
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what a wonderful thing to do! I will definitely keep that in mind for next year! This year we decided that Sophie has enough toys and we took the $ we would spend on toys and donated to our local lab rescue. Happy holidays!!
This is so fantastic!! We’re going to visit our local rescue and give out some goodies to the pups there to spread some holiday cheer! 🙂
That is so awesome! Im going to do this next year!
They all look so happy to be getting a treat!
Love those sweet photos 🙂 Bully sticks don’t last an hour around my house, looks like those guys enjoy ’em too!
Such a great thing all around!!!
-Corbin
Yay! I love to see all of this shelter love. The Austin shelter looks like a state of the art facility.
“After all, nothing says “happy birthday” to a vegetarian like handling 200 dehydrated cow parts, right?” I was thinking the same thing. Ha 😉
what an awesome thing to do….give out bully sticks
Benny & Lily
It’s so sad that pittie/staffy types occupy so many shelters. 😦 I watch a doco on this from the UK the other day – http://ma-tvideo.france2.fr/video/iLyROoaf808V.html
Though, of course, you may have just taken pictures of the faces that appealed to you. 😉
It seemed like our shelter was about 60% pit bull type dogs and similar mixes, and 40% other things — mostly labby looking dogs, shepherds, and a few little chihuahua types.
It’s still a lot though, eh?
Here, it’s probably similar, but we have a lot of working breeds (and mixed breeds) too – like Kelpies, Border Collies, Cattle Dogs, etc. I’d say, staffies and working breeds, make up about 80% of shelter admissions (in the shelter I worked at). There was the odd little dog, odd purebred, but it’s mostly bigger rambunctious dogs that got to the annoying teenage years.
In more regional communities, the working dogs coming through are much higher.
Regardless, very happy with your work with the bully sticks. 🙂 It seems like they were well received.
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What a sweet idea! How generous all around! You made their stay at the shelter just a tiny bit brighter so they could be distracted for even just a few minutes. Merry Christmas!
“Nothing says “happy birthday” to a vegetarian like handling 200 dehydrated cow parts, right?”
This was post was so funny and sweet. Just like you! Happy belated birthday!
Absolutely wonderful! What a perfect way to celebrate the holidays!