National Canine Advocacy Group

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National Canine Advocacy Group

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We advocate for the well-being of dogs everywhere, creating a world where they have a good life, free from neglect, abuse, and suffering.

OUR MISSION: We inspire community-led advocacy and advance public knowledge to prevent and alleviate the suffering of dogs everywhere. OUR VISION: A world where every dog has a good life. OUR CORE VALUES:

Integrity: Do what you say you are going to do, in the way you said you would do it, and by when you said you would do it.

Collaboration: Empower people to work together to solve problems and implement solutions.

Compassion: Take action with kindness, caring, and helpfulness. Dedication: Be relentless in your pursuit of what is important to you. Adaptability: Nimbly adjust viewpoints and approaches as situations change.

08/25/2026

What happens when you love your dog, you’ve asked for help, you’ve tried different approaches — and nothing seems to be working?

In the final episode of our behavior series, I talk with Billie Groom, founder of the Institute of Canine Psychotherapy, about what “we’ve tried everything” can really mean.

Sometimes the question isn’t whether you’ve tried enough.

It’s whether there’s something you haven’t understood yet.

🎥 When You’ve Tried Everything With Your Dog — What Comes Next?

08/25/2026

This is worth watching.

A growing number of veterinary practices are owned by large corporations and private equity firms — and you may have no idea yours is one of them because the name on the building often doesn't change.

Some of the big names behind veterinary practices include NVA, VetCor, PetVet Care Centers, Thrive Pet Healthcare, Banfield, VCA and BluePearl.

So what do I want you to do with this?

Ask your vet: “Who owns this practice?”

You can also look up your clinic at PrivateEquityVet.org, which maintains a searchable database of thousands of corporate and private-equity-owned veterinary practices.

If yours is one of them, consider walking out and finding an independently owned veterinarian.

Choosing an independent vet does more than support a local business. Every dollar we spend with corporate and private-equity-owned practices helps make veterinary medicine an attractive investment. Moving those dollars back to independent practices sends the opposite message.

Private equity follows the money. We decide where the money goes.

08/23/2026

🐾“I’d love to adopt an older dog, but I’m afraid I won’t have enough time with them.”

That fear keeps some wonderful older dogs from being adopted. But how much time might they actually have?

A large U.S. study using veterinary records from more than 13 million dogs calculated remaining life expectancy — how much longer dogs who have already reached a particular age live, on average.

The results surprised me:

🐾 Age 8 → 5.9 more years
🐾 Age 9 → 5.2 more years
🐾 Age 10 → 4.5 more years
🐾 Age 11 → 3.9 more years
🐾 Age 12 → 3.3 more years

Of course, these are averages. Breed, size, health and genetics matter, and none of us knows how much time any individual dog will have, whether a puppy or an older dog.

But that's also the point.

We tend to look at an older dog's age and mentally start a countdown. An 8-, 9- or even 10-year-old dog isn't necessarily nearing the end of life.

A dog who has already reached age 10 has, on average, another 4½ years of life expectancy.

That's not “hardly any time.”

That's walks. Car rides. Vacations. Holidays. Lazy Sundays. Thousands of dinners and bedtime routines. Years of being someone's dog.

So maybe the number on an adoption profile deserves a little less power over our decision.

Age tells us how long a dog has lived.

It doesn't tell us how much time they have left. ❤️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Source: 2023 U.S. canine life-table study using veterinary records from more than 13 million dogs.

08/22/2026

As many of you may know, the remains of 117 dogs were recently excavated from the property of Miranda’s Rescue in California and the search for additional dogs euthanized and buried on the property continues. Based on the numbers that have been published by various sources, there are likely hundreds more deceased dogs buried on the property. 😢🐾

It’s horrifying. And there are serious questions about how this could have happened, how long it went undetected, and whether the shelters that sent dogs there had any idea what ultimately happened to them.

Those questions absolutely need answers.

But I keep coming back to a different question:

❓**Why did so many dogs need Miranda’s in the first place?**❓

Miranda’s became a destination for dogs other shelters struggled to place — the dogs running out of options.

And that makes what happened there more than a story about one rescue. It is also a story about how far downstream we are willing to go to deal with a problem that begins much earlier.

Think about the progression.

1️⃣Prevent an unwanted litter, and perhaps six dogs never enter the pipeline.

2️⃣Fail there, and now you need owners for six puppies.

3️⃣Fail there, and you need resources to help those owners keep their dogs.

4️⃣Fail there, and you need shelter kennels, staff and veterinary care.

5️⃣Fail there, and you need adopters or rescue partners.

6️⃣Fail there, and a shelter desperate to report a live outcome may transfer a dog hundreds of miles to an organization willing to say **yes**.

7️⃣And if that final safety net fails, they can end up at Miranda’s.

There were many opportunities much further downstream to prevent what allegedly happened there. Better oversight. Better recordkeeping. Better transfer practices. Better follow-up. Those failures matter, and there should be accountability for them.

But every step downstream gets more complicated and more expensive.

We spend tremendous resources trying to save dogs once the system has failed them.

What if we put the same urgency into preventing so many dogs from needing the system in the first place?

Miranda’s is an awful story about what can happen at the very end of the pipeline.

Maybe it should also make us look much harder at the beginning.

❓Where upstream do you see the greatest opportunity to make a difference?

08/18/2026

Apparently Spot gets a lot of fan mail.

So he thought it was time to clear something up.

He's already taken.

He has a human. And while the service isn't always perfect, he's decided to keep her. 😂

This may be my favorite Spot Speaks yet.

08/14/2026

Isn't she soooo cute? Sure, but she turned out to be a sofa monster!

And yes, her ball was involved.

But what I learned from Peach wasn't simply how to manage an unwanted behavior. I learned how much changes when we stop seeing a dog as a collection of behaviors we need to control—and start building a relationship with an individual we're learning to understand.

That relationship doesn't magically eliminate difficult behavior.

It changes the place we start from when difficult behavior happens.

The behavior can be the problem without the dog becoming the problem.

That's what this week's The Broken Leash is about.

08/05/2026

Has anyone ever told you you're weird? 🤔🐾

Spot won't get out of the car.

Missy digs the same hole every single day.

Then she climbs into it like she's just completed an important construction project.

And don't even get me started on the staring through the sliding glass door. 😂

Every dog has those little quirks that make us laugh—and before long, we can't imagine them any other way.

This episode of Spot Speaks is for everyone who's ever looked at their dog and thought...

"You are such a weirdo." ❤️

Now it's your turn...

What's the funniest thing your dog does? 🐶

07/31/2026

When challenging behavior costs a dog their home, it's rarely because of one bad day.

Most families don't make the decision to give up a dog overnight.

More often, behavior challenges gradually become overwhelming until they feel like they've run out of options.

That's why this episode of The Broken Leash isn't about blaming dogs—or the people who love them.

It's about understanding how families reach that breaking point and why looking further upstream may help keep more dogs in the homes where they belong.

If you've ever loved a dog, worked in animal welfare, or wondered why families sometimes make heartbreaking decisions, I hope you'll watch and join the conversation.

As always, thank you for caring, thank you for sharing, and thank you for being part of the solution. Together, we can keep more dogs with the families that love them. ❤️🐾

07/30/2026

I'm excited to share that the State of Colorado has officially proclaimed July 2026 as Pet Surrender Prevention Month.

This proclamation is a direct result of efforts by Animal-Angels Foundation to have Pet Surrender Prevention Month recognized in every state. We are proud to be the first state in the country that has done so. Without Animal-Angels' guidance, this wouldn't have come to fruition.

While July is coming to a close, the message behind this proclamation is one that matters every day of the year.

Too often, families who love their dogs find themselves facing challenges that feel impossible to overcome—housing restrictions, rising veterinary costs, or behavior issues that become overwhelming. Pet surrender prevention is about helping families before they reach that point.

Keeping pets with the people who love them isn't just good for families—it's also one of the most effective ways to reduce shelter admissions and improve animal welfare.

I'm grateful to the Governor's Office for recognizing the importance of this issue, and I'm excited to continue working through National Canine Advocacy Group to advance practical, upstream solutions that help keep pets and people together.

Thank you to everyone who supports this mission. Every conversation, every share, and every effort brings us one step closer to a future where fewer families have to make the heartbreaking decision to surrender a beloved pet. ❤️🐶

Animal-Angels Foundation

Address

Denver, CO
80210

Telephone

+17204431084

Website

http://canineadvocacy.org/

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