Let’s see a show of hands … how many of you lead a very full life and struggle every day to balance work, family, friends, activities, and hope to carve out a little down-time for yourself? How many of you love animals and wish you could find a way to get involved or, if you are involved, to do a little bit more but cannot fathom adding more to your busy schedule? I am certainly raising my hands on both of those. And even though it seems like every aspect of my life involves helping animals in some way, there’s always one more animal to help and more to do, right?

So, how can you maintain balance and sanity in your world and fulfill your heart’s longing to do more for animals? The answers can be surprisingly simple. Here are just a few simple things that you can do each day or even just once a week to make an impact:

• When you are shopping, check the labels on cosmetics, bath & body products and household cleaners to make sure you are purchasing cruelty free products. Check out Leaping Bunny for a listing of cruelty-free companies.
• If you consume animal products, consider making one day an “animal-free day”, such as Meatless Mondays or Tofu Thursdays! If you reduce your intake of animal products by even one day per week, collectively this could have a big impact on the number of animals kept in confinement.
• As you clean out closets, consider donating old and clean linens to your local animal shelter. The comfort of a towel or blanket can go a long way to helping a homeless pet feel comfortable while they wait for a new home.
• If you have a social media page, join a few animal protection pages (especially those that are local to your community) and share posts about animals that are in need of help or a good home. Simply by taking a few minutes every day to pass along information could result in a homeless pet finding a new home, or funds being raised to care for a pet with significant medical costs.
• If you are able to listen to online radio shows at work, check out All Paws Pet Talk Radio, Animals Today Radio, Animal Wise Radio, The Real Dr. Doolittle, Dog Talk or Cat Chat with Tracie Hotchner, or search for online shows about animals. Listening to these stations may provide you with some simple ideas on how to get involved. Please check out my weekly segments on All Paws Pet Talk Radio, along with other radio interviews on how to help animals.

For more ideas, have you grabbed a copy of my book Defending the Defenseless: A Guide to Protecting and Advocating for Pets? It is chocked full of ideas and raising awareness of how we can all get involved.

I always love to hear of other simple ways that we can get more people involved to help animals, so please post some of your ideas so that we can all benefit.