This weekend I went to the Celtic Fling, a great Celtic festival held at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire grounds on the Mount Hope Estate & Winery in Manheim, PA. 

The Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League was there with a few of their gorgeous babies. They had a really cool way of getting donations: Each dog wore a vest with a pouch on either side. The public had a chance to interact with the dogs, petting them and spending time with them, and could leave a donation with each dog. 

It turns out the vests are handmade by two MAGDRL volunteers, Jody Cohen and Terry Lanphear. The vests, as well as lots of other donation and "adopt-me" apparel, are available at ThankfulPaws.com.

Jody tells us the vests are a lot more effective than a donation jar or can. "Wearing the donation apparel lets your dog -- and you -- walk through the crowd spreading the word about your organization," she says. "Children -- and adults too -- love to put money into the clear plastic pockets. After all, who could resist a dog asking for donations?"

Before Petfinder, I was an editor at People.com, so I've got a secret interest in all things celebrity. I've also got a mental tally of celebrities who adopted their pets, and I'm always happy to add another one to the list.

So I was thrilled yesterday to read the new issue of the New York Post's Page Six magazine and learn that cover girl Gabrielle Union is the proud mama of three dogs:

Bubba, a mastiff-American bulldog mix; Pink, a pit bull-Dalmatian mix; and Bobby Hurley (named for the basketball player), a Maltese. (Read the full story here.) 

Oh, and if anyone wants live like a celebrity, it's easy to find a mastiff-American bulldog mix (like June, left, at Friends of Linden Animal Shelter in Linden, NJ), a pit-Dalmatian mix (like Chablis, center, at Pet Paws for Love in Garfield, NJ), or a Maltese (like Billie, right, at Metropolitan Maltese Rescue in NYC) on Petfinder!   

You can help spread the word about adoptable pets by posting them to your Facebook mini-feed.

When you're logged into Facebook, just do a search for Posted Items and then download that application. It will let you post any URL to your mini-feed, including Pet Notes pages.

The app also has a "Share on Facebook" button you can drag to your bookmarks bar, so that when you're looking at a cute pet, you can just click the button and it'll add him or her to your mini-feed automatically.

The New York Times today ran an article about a topic we've been hearing more and more about lately, both in the news and from our shelter members: the impact of economic hardship on pets.

(The photo at right, from the article, shows a couple from Georgia who lost their home and can't afford to keep two of their three dogs.)

The Times quotes our founder, Betsy:

"Obviously, it's a crisis for local shelters; I worry about what it means for our society," said Betsy Saul, a founder of Petfinder.com, a Web site that showcases animals for adoption at 11,000 sites in the United States.

Ms. Saul recently polled her member organizations to gauge the problem and found that half of her respondents had seen pets turned in because of home foreclosures in the last six months.

Read the rest of the article here.

This just in from a Petfinder.com reader:

We were growing increasingly concerned: Perseus, our new cat, had not been using his kitty litter box.

Then one evening we heard someone in the bathroom and found Perseus perched on the toilet doing his business.

Our three shelter dogs are amazed and love to run in and watch him.

The moral of the story? Adopted pets are full of (wonderful!) surprises.

A terrible, totally unexpected thing happened to me last year. My 17-year marriage broke up and I couldn't put it back together again despite trying everything short of brute force.

I had to leave the home that I'd hoped to have as my forever home, a five-acre sanctuary for various aging pets. When I finally I drove away, I had to leave behind my three shelter dogs, my closest, dearest companions (that's Buster, my 13-year-old Great Dane/Border Collie mix, in the photo). I went north to find an apartment, a job, a new life ...

Well, I wrote a Happy Tail about Archie after I brought him home from the Taunton Animal Shelter. I thought you might enjoy an update on his progress.

Archie had been a stray, and when I met him at the shelter, he was a timid little guy. Once I took him home, it didn't take him long to warm up to me. Because I work out of my home, I'm around all the time, and he follows me everywhere.

Here's a picture of Archie sitting in his office chair, which is right next to mine. He is the funniest little guy -- very clever. He's fun to play with. He's very good at tug of war. He's great at fetch, and he learned the meaning of "come" very quickly.

He also knows exactly what to do to get my attention. For example, as soon as the phone rings, Archie tries to get into the trash. I guess what I'm trying to say is, this shy little guy turned out to be quite a character. He's ALMOST perfect.

As the marketing manager for Petfinder, I work out of the New York office of Animal Planet, where staffers volunteer every week to read with local elementary schoolers.

To celebrate the end of the school year, some of those students came to the offices on Friday, where they were treated to a presentation about pet care by Petfinder's public relations coordinator, Cary Moran.

Next, they got to met a real live Petfinder alum, Gwin. A 2-year-old corgi/sheltie mix, Gwin was adopted by Monica Hirsch and her daughter, Nora, from the Mercer County Humane Society in Princeton, WV -- and she's more than just a perfect pet, she's a certified therapy dog!

I recently visited my mother and her dog, Sashi, adopted from the Providence Animal Rescue League.

Sashi is now 13-1/2 and has been  taking medication for arthritis for the past several years. Last week she temporarily lost the use of her hind legs. The vet said it was due to spinal inflammation and gave her a steroid shot, which got her walking again, and she continues to improve.

Then I read Julia Szabo's NY Post column about her arthritic dog's stem cell regeneration procedure.