October is Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month. We'll be celebrating all month with adopted-dog Happy Tails, ways to find the perfect dog for you, tips for the first 30 days of dog adoption and more. We hope you proud dog adopters will join in as well. After all, what better way to encourage adoption than to celebrate your adopted dog?

Here are some fun, easy ways to celebrate Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month with your dog:

1. Bring dog-themed goodies to your local shelter or rescue group. Thank the staff and volunteers at your local adoption group for all the lifesaving work they do. Bake some cookies in the shape of dog bones (and don't forget to bring some treats for the shelter dogs, too!).


2. Show off your pet-adopter pride. Visit the Petfinder store for a t-shirt,
   or our friends at the Animal Rescue site for a "Rescued and loving it"
   doggie bandana.
   


3. Throw a "Gotcha Day" party. Celebrate the day you "got ya" dog with a party, and ask your guests to bring something to donate to your local shelter or rescue group.


4. Tell others about Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month. Promote one adoptable dog a day on Facebook or Twitter, or write an op-ed about dog adoption for your local paper. (Check out 10 ways to help pets for Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month for more ideas.)
   


5. Attend an Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month dog walk or other event. You can find an event near you in our event calendar.


6. Make a donation to your local shelter or rescue group. Contact your local adoption group and ask what they need, or donate cash in honor of your adopted dog.


7. Sign up as a foster parent or shelter volunteer. Celebrate your adopted dog by helping other homeless dogs find homes. Sign up to walk dogs once a week during lunch, or take on a foster dog whom you can help find a home for.
   
   
8. Photograph local adoptable dogs for their Petfinder profiles. Pictures are worth a thousand words -- and good pet photos can save lives!
   


9. Post a picture of your adopted dog on our Facebook wall. We may pick it as one of our favorite fan photos!
   


10. Adopt another shelter dog! Check out our dog-adoption checklist for tips on finding the perfect pup for your whole family, then search Petfinder for an adoptable dog near you!

Last week was Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week, and we worked with individuals, adoption groups, bloggers and the media to raise awareness about the pets who too often have the hardest time getting adopted -- all to help these extra-special pets find homes.

It worked!

Thanks to everyone who helped us spread the word, many of the pets who were nominated by their shelters or rescue groups for our Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week Gallery got adopted. Here are a few of our favorite adoption stories from the week.

Mabelline, an older Pug who needs daily medication and dislikes big dogs
"Mabelline came to us in March of 2010," Terri from Arizona Pug Adoption and Rescue Network in Mesa, AZ, writes about the 8-year-old Pug who needs daily eye drops. "She is a friendly, outgoing Pug, but does not like large dogs. She went to many adoption events and, of course, everyone who wanted to adopt her turned out to have large dogs! Finally, a woman who adopted a white Pug from us over a year ago saw Mabelline online and emailed that she wanted to adopt her!"

Mabelline is now enjoying life in her new home. She and her new Pug sister Pinkee "had a few spats at first over treats, but seem to have worked everything out," Terri says. In fact, Mabelline's new mom reports that she's caught the two snuggling in the same bed.

With the leaves changing color and the air getting crisp, it's a great time to take a nature walk with your dog. Our friends at Discovery News have tips for keeping hikes fun and safe for everyone. Here are a few of our favorites (read all eight tips here):

• Make sure your trail is dog-friendly. Some parks are dog-friendly throughout; some have designated trails for people with dogs; and others don't allow dogs at all. Also, be sure to check the park's leash rules; even if off-leash walks are permitted, you may want to keep your dog leashed in case you come across wildlife or a dog who is not dog-friendly.


• Make sure your dog stays on the trail. Your pup might be tempted to run after a squirrel, but off the trail he's more likely to run into larger animals (such as bears and coyotes), not to mention poison ivy, poison oak, fleas and ticks.
  

Berry, the black, senior German Shepherd who played the canine form of the character Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, has been relinquished to German Shepherd Dog Rescue in the U.K.

Fox News recently reported that 10-year-old Berry and his 13-year-old canine companion, Porridge, were given up by a professional stuntman who didn't have enough time for them anymore. (Read the full story here.)

The news comes on the heels of Petfinder's Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week, which highlighted the pets who can be the hardest for shelters and rescue groups to find homes for, including senior pets and pets with darker fur colors. (See which pets are the hardest to place here.)

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant know a lot of stuff, and they want to make sure you know it too. Their popular Stuff You Should Know podcast features the senior writers for HowStuffWorks.com holding forth on everything from zombies to quicksand. 

And now, Josh and Chuck have added the Petfinder.com Foundation to their ever-growing list of stuff you should know about.

Both huge pet lovers, Josh and Chuck decided to make a special video for the Petfinder.com Foundation to raise awareness about the work the Foundation does and what people can do to help. (Watch it after the jump.) The video features Chuck's dog Buckley and focuses on the Foundation's programs and simple things everyone can do to help find a forever home for every adoptable pet.

Please take a moment to watch the video
and share it with your friends and family --
you can help spread awareness and save the lives of homeless pets everywhere.

Special-needs pets often have trouble finding homes -- and the challenge is even greater for pets with special needs who are no longer young.

So when Sheltie Shack Rescue in Riley, KS, took in Gracie, an 11-year-old Sheltie, they knew her chances of being adopted were slim: A retired breeder, Gracie was not only old, she was also totally deaf.

She had been in another home for a year and was then relinquished because the family said she didn't fit into their lifestyle. Sheltie Shack's volunteers knew they needed to cast a wide net to find a special person for this special dog, so they listed her on Petfinder.

That special person was Beth Arnold of Gurnee, IL. When she saw the pooch on Petfinder, it was love at first sight. "My husband and I hesitated to bring another dog into our home, as we already had three, but there was something telling us to do it," Beth says.

The day I found a lump on my cat Toby's jaw, my heart sank. Cancer, I thought. But the truth is, pets get many types of lumps and bumps that are benign or easily treatable. My pets have had lumps that turned out to be allergies, acne, fatty tumors and even -- on my cat Kura -- an inverted nipple.

The important thing is to talk to your vet. Together, you can decide which, if any, diagnostic tests to perform what is the best treatment plan for your pet.

Here are a few lessons I've learned while going through the process with my own pets:

Get any lump or bump checked out by a vet. If it's malignant, catching a tumor as early as possible gives your pet the best shot at beating the cancer. If it's benign -- or something else entirely -- your vet may have suggestions for treating it and can offer advice on what to do if similar a lump appears again.

"A vet will want to know when you first noticed the mass, whether or not it is changing, and whether it's bothering your pet," veterinarian and Pawcurious blogger Dr. V tells us. "They will also want to know about any masses removed or biopsied in the past."

In honor of Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week, we asked fans on Facebook to finish this sentence: "My 'less-adoptable' pet rules because ..." Here are just a few of our favorite answers.

1) "Andrea Pauly Duchess, my new kitty, was at the shelter for eight years after being abandoned. She had an eye removed due to infection and no one wanted her, poor darling girl. She is 12 years old and loves to play and snuggle. I cannot imagine my life without her!" -- Andrea P.

2) "Because as a screaming, biting, cursing macaw, no one saw her potential. Harlie now makes visits to senior homes and nursing facilities and is always a big hit! She is beautiful and funny and smart and loved, and she was hours from euthanasia when I brought her home." -- Sandra R.

3) "He turned out to be the best dog I ever owned. And no one wanted him because his vet bill was in the thousands because of someone beating him with a baseball bat." -- Joanne A.

4) "She is adorable and hilarious and probably the best dog ever. And we found her on Petfinder.com. Good thing we did, because I'm guessing the average, normal person (apparently, not us!) would not have loved her and her behavioral anomalies as we do." -- Jane J.

All this week we've been talking about the many great less-adoptable pets in shelters and rescue groups. But the truth is, any pet is less-adoptable if potential adopters can't see his or her wonderful qualities.

And the easiest way to show off a pet's sparkling personality is with a great photo. That's why one of the best ways you can volunteer is by taking photos of homeless pets for their Petfinder profiles.

Gizmodo has the story of (and a video about) Teresa Berg, a professional photographer who volunteers with Dallas-Fort Worth Dachshund Rescue Foundation. Berg's photos helped the organization double its adoption rate.

"We would cut foster care from three to six months down to eight weeks," Berg told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth. "That made me feel good." She now trains others in the art of photographing shelter pets.

Pets who especially benefit from thoughtful photographs include cats and black dogs. After the jump: Some of our favorite blog posts with tips on photographing shelter pets.

Here's another great lost-pet reunion story from our partner, HomeAgain. This one is about a special-needs dog in honor of Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week.
You can help lost pets get home again: Sign up to receive lost pet alerts when a dog or cat goes missing in your area.

Want to have a nationwide network of 650,000+ PetRescuers keeping an eye out for your pet if he or she gets lost? Register your chip with HomeAgain and you'll get that plus many other unbeatable benefits.

Register your pet's microchip with HomeAgain now. (Not ready? Learn more here.)

Chip was lost and needed his seizure medication -- from Kristen from Waycross, GA

Chip, our special-needs Lab, got loose one evening around 9 p.m. He had gotten loose once before -- in the daytime -- but we were able to find him within minutes. Not this time.

It was a dark night -- not a lot of streetlights in our area -- and Chip is old. He does not hear very well anymore and is almost to a fault friendly with all people and animals.

I searched with the help of family for hours before I finally came home, emotionally exhausted, and called HomeAgain to report him lost. Everyone else continued the search. By this time it was well after midnight.

Chip takes medication for seizures and it is imperative he take all his doses on time. His next dose was coming up in six hours. I was panic-stricken as I talked to the HomeAgain lost-pet specialist and answered simple questions about Chip's appearance and his last known location.