Event encourages residents to educate themselves on fostering animals who need loving homes
Coldwell Banker Realty welcomed the Malibu community to the city’s first Homes For Dogs adoption event on Sunday, Oct. 8. The event brought families, animal lovers, and pet owners out to the Malibu Country Mart courtyard.
Since 2014, Coldwell Banker has hosted their Homes For Dogs project across the nation, partnering with pet rescue organizations to find homes for sheltered and at-risk pets. This past weekend marked the first-ever Homes For Dogs in Malibu as Coldwell Banker Realty Malibu and Pacific Palisades collaborated to host the event.
The event was appropriately organized and led by Dani Montalto, Coldwell Banker Realty Sale Support Administrator, who has a proven passion and experience in animal rescue. Her personal connections within the animal rescue community helped bring the event together.
Coldwell partnered with Orange County-based Cage to Couch and Malibu-based Boomer’s Buddies Rescue to host the day’s meet and greet with adorable animals as well as an item donation collection, raffle, and a “Howl-o-ween” dog costume contest.
Also represented at the event were Tesla Malibu and The Fauna Foundation.
Montalto called the event an exciting experience, and said the collaborative effort to get animals adopted is something she was happy to be a part of.
“The event is going really well. It’s been very successful,” Montalto said. “We’ve been getting a lot of interest and questions about the animals available for adoption. We’re hoping to continue to raise money for future rescues so that these beautiful rescues can continue to do the very important work that they do.”
The event promoted the adoption and rescue of animals with specific backgrounds and trauma experiences, and encouraged the community to educate themselves on the importance of fostering animals who need loving homes.
Cage to Couch is a nonprofit organization, founded last year, that provides medical care and loving homes to rescued laboratory research survivors and other animals who have suffered neglect, abandonment and cruelty and abuse, including seniors and those with special medical needs.
The group’s vision is a humane world where humans do not impose suffering on animals.
Cage to Couch co-founder Liza Franzen said meeting Malibu residents was a positive experience and the event was a great opportunity to educate the community about the cruelty and abuse animals suffer as part of laboratory research programs.
“We started out thinking we’d have 1 or 2 rescues a month, but just as we started we rescued 42 dogs and we’ve been snowballing since,” Franzen said.
Franzen expressed the importance of events like Homes For Dogs in terms of fundraising, calling communities to consider donating toward the organizations that save the lives of animals.
Boomer’s Buddies Rescue is a dog and cat rescue that is committed to taking on cases such as severe medical, trauma, behavioral cases, and animals needing hospice care. Founded in 2017, the nonprofit organization approaches animal rescue by catching animals who have oftentimes cycled through shelter programs or families who are unable to support medical care for these pets.
Boomer’s Buddies Rescue Founder and President Jessica Davis began the organization in honor and recognition of her own rescued dog, Boomer. She works with shelters across Los Angeles and Orange counties in checking the status of animals who may be phased out of shelter care and that is where the rescue does its part in helping alternate these pets through medical or behavioral treatment and into a loving home.
She called the opportunity to showcase the beauty in these rehabilitated animals an honor.
“This is my community and this is my passion project,” Davis said. “I am excited to be here and speaking on these animals’ behalf.”
Davis recognized the desire of potential pet owners to seek breeders for their potential pet, but urged visitors to consider adopting animals who are equally special and deserving of love and care as animals who are bred.
“I think it’s important for communities to know that we are the problem; it’s us and not the animals. We have to fix the problem at the roots,” she said. “Our shelters are completely flooded with animals, the worst it’s ever been. We need compassionate people to foster, rescue, or adopt, or the problem will never stop.”
The event produced a lot of awareness, interest, and smiles and the organizers hope it will create ripples of change in the rescuing of animals who need homes.
Residents and community members are urged to support animals who desperately need help by adopting, rescuing or fostering animals through organizations like Cage to Couch or Boomer’s Buddies Rescue, but also for those who can not or are not considering taking in an animal to consider supporting rescue programs through generous donations.
For more information on how to get involved and support the rescuing and fostering of animals, visit CagetoCouch.org and Boomersbuddies.com
