1. Go Vegan - Choosing a vegan diet is the ultimate form of activism. You are leading by example and sending a clear message that you will not stand for animal cruelty (not to mention environmental destruction). Not only will you help animals by not contributing to their abuse, but you will become healthier and have a clear conscience. That’s a great start if ever I’ve heard of one.

You don’t have to live a life of denial to be a vegan. There is an amazing array of vegan food and if you cook you can create beautiful dishes that will wow your family and friends. You can make vegan versions of most meat dishes with a little thought and creativity. Go on, give it a try. Need some inspiration to go vegan and never turn back? Watch Earthlings today and share it with family and friends.

2. Volunteer – If you love animals and want to help in a hands on way, look up some local animal shelters in the Yellow Pages/online and give them a call to see whether you can volunteer. Volunteering with animals, or even in the office of an animal rights organization is an incredibly rewarding experience and a great help. Check out our page on volunteering for more info.

3. Leafleting - Contact your local animals rights organization or go online to sites like Peta or Animals Australia and order some leaflets on an animal rights issue you care about. If you have a decent printer, you can download literature straight away. Once your leaflets arrive you can walk around your local area and post them in letter boxes. You could also leaflet in public areas like shopping centres or universities. College students are often very open to change.

Look out for our post on leafleting .

4. Write a Letter - I set myself a new year’s resolution this year to write at least 1 letter a week regarding an animal rights issue (goodness know there are enough issues to choose from). You can write to the editor of a local paper regarding a local issue (such as the circus or rodeo coming to town) or write directly to a company that tests on animals urging them to rethink the cruelty they inflict. Getting the word out about animal rights can really make a difference and it is something you can do right now.

5. Spend Time With Your Pets - For those of you who have animal companions it is important to make time for them every day. Not only for the basics like feeding, grooming etc, but also exciting and fun dog walks on the beach or in the forest.

Living with animals is not just a matter of caring for their basic needs (although you must do that too), but giving them the best quality of life possible. Give them as much one on one play time and cuddle time as possible.

If you haven’t yet had your pet neutered, book in the appointment straight away.

6. Join/Start a Local Animal Rights Group – Do some research to find out whether there is a local animal rights group in your area. If you can’t find anything take steps to start your own group. Check out this page for tips on how to do this.

7. Online Activism – If you are active in any online social groups like Facebook or Twitter, add links to animal rights organizations in your profile. You can also add links in your email signature. You can join animal rights online groups on Facebook where you can meet like-minded people and share ideas. This is also a great way to spread the message to your online friends who don’t know much about animal rights.

8. Go Shopping – We all love an excuse to shop and this is the perfect opportunity. Invest in some T shirts, buttons, stickers, bags or other accessories that have an anti-cruelty message. These are available from many charities and online retailers, but why not check out PETA’s store for starters. I love their stuff. It looks good and sends an important message.

9. Help Wildlife – Let’s not forget our wild neighbors. If you have a garden buy/make a bird table and hang bird feeders. This is especially important in the cold Winter months. Not only will you be helping wildlife, you can also get the fantastic opportunity to watch your local wildlife from the comfort of your own home. Plant native flowers and plants to attract butterflies and insects.

If you have some spare time and really want to help out you can join a wildlife rescue group such as WIRES here in Australia. Becoming a wildlife carer could be incredibly rewarding.

10. Boycott Companies that Test on Animals – Many cosmetics and household products are tested on animals. Luckily there are some great animal friendly alternatives. Make sure you write a letter to the companies you are boycotting to let them know why and to urge them to change. You can also spread the word to family and friends to try and get them to join you.

Check out this website for a list of Australian products not tested on animals.

BUAV also has lots of information on how to stop companies testing on animals.

Do you have any other ideas of how we could help animals? Add your comments below.

Welcome to StartanAnimalSanctuary.com My name is Catherine and since I was 16 I was sure I wanted to start an animal sanctuary.

I always loved animals and me and my best friend Melissa both went vegetarian at age 10, much to the dismay of our meat loving parents (I call them meat pushers)! When we turned 16 we were finally old enough to volunteer at our local animal sanctuary the Crowborough Animal Welfare Society in East Sussex, UK and we had a blast. Once we had learned the ropes we often took charge of all the morning duties, including cleaning out around 70 cat litter trays, mucking out Dennis, the Shetland pony and Annabelle the Jersey Cow, cleaning out the dog kennels and creating homes for new arrivals.

Whether it was creating a chinchilla play room out of an old stable, or scrubbing out water troughs in the field, we loved our voluntary work. In fact if we could we would have forgotten about school and spent all our time there.

The owner of the sanctuary Jo was a remarkable lady. She had started the shelter by working two jobs, including a night supermarket job and was spurred forward by an incredible desire to help animals. Melissa and Me learned so much from Jo and she instilled in me the desire to one day start my own sanctuary.

When I was 24 I moved to NSW, Australia where I married my husband David, who soon also adopted a veggie diet.

I read as much as I could about animals and as I learned more about animal rights, I realized if I really cared about animals I had to turn vegan. It was an easy and essential change. One of the things I hope to achieve through the animal sanctuary and this blog is to help people make the change and go vegan. It is the only thing that can really change the world for animals.

One of my favourite organizations is Farm Sanctuary, based in the USA. They have huge shelters in New York and California and do an amazing job. If you haven’t already I urge you to head over and check out their website. One day I would love to visit (and hopefully volunteer) at Farm Sanctuary. There are also some amazing sanctuaries here in Australia.

So David and Me have set out our 5 year plan by the end of which we plan to open an Australian Farm Animal Sanctuary. Not only do we have a huge amount of research to do, we also have a huge amount of saving to do.

If you would like to follow our journey feel free to check this blog regularly, or add your details in the subscribe widget in the sidebar.

All the Best

Catherine x