Katherine Heigl is making headlines and no, it’s not for her upcoming movie “One for the Money,” but for her initiative to save homeless canines.

The 33-year-old actress recently blogged for iVillage’s CelebVillage series voicing the importance of adopting pets and saving them from being killed each year.

Heigl, along with her mother Nancy, founded the Jason Debus Heigl foundation, in honor of her late brother. Started around four years ago, the organization fights to change policies, raise awareness and stop the killing of adoptable dogs throughout Los Angeles.

The actress is on a mission and nothing is going to stop her. In addition to being an animal lover and an activist, what really inspired her was the film “Hachi: A Dog’s Story,” which illustrated the connection between humans and dogs.

“The message of “Hachi” is one of true unwavering loyalty, devotion and love — and that’s just from the dog’s perspective. This emotional and spiritual connection between humans and companion animals comes as no surprise to me since I have had the great privilege of fostering just such relationships throughout my life. But I wondered if it came as a surprise to others,” she writes.

“I began to think about the abandoned, the forgotten, the abused animals Nancy and I fight so hard for and asked myself, “Who is responsible?” Is it just the abusers or the reckless or the thoughtless that we should be pointing our fingers at, or are we as a society and community culpable too?”

For Heigl, having a pet is more than just feeding and taking them for a walk, but it’s about loving them as a companion and having them love you back.

She is reaching out to protect these beings, “There is a crisis going on for our beloved friends and they need us. We can help, we can make a difference, we can change the outcome for millions of voiceless, innocent creatures who have done nothing more to deserve their outcome than be the product of a neglectful society.”

According to Heigl, four million pets up for adoption are being killed in shelters each year, because of overcrowding. She is trusting people will open their hearts and do the right thing.

As she says effortlessly, “These remarkable creatures have put so much trust and heart into the human race: Now all we have to do is deserve it.”

Excerpt from "Man’s best friend"
By: Chauburji as published in "The Nation" newspaper | January 05, 2012 
 
The other day I watched the movie ‘Hachiko’ at home, surrounded by my sniffling family. I was perhaps too egotistic to admit that I too was bleary eyed and affected by the story of the dog, who waited every day for years, outside the railway station, for his dead master to return and died at the spot – loyal to the end.

One wintry night, while we slept inside the house, my mother and father went out for a walk on our rather longish drive, accompanied by the dog. As they approached a dense cane thicket bordering the drive, Delilah bounded forward with deep throated growls and then ran back to tug at my mother’s clothes. Perturbed at this behavior, my father flashed his torch around to discover a fully grown cobra in the middle of the drive, just a few yards ahead of them. My parents were certain to step on the snake and suffer the consequences had the dog not given them adequate warning.

‘Lilly’ was a black mongrel, which strayed into our lives when I was about ten years old, when one of our domestic help found her cowering under the hedge and brought her shivering to my mother. In a family that already had a couple of dogs, she grew up on left-overs and relative neglect, into a large ugly black thing. I do not recall what prompted the decision, but one day she was put in a vehicle to be abandoned some forty miles away from Lahore near Sheikhupura.  

Ten days later, we saw a shadow of the former Lilly totter up the drive to collapse with a wagging tail at my mother’s feet. Her front paws were a bloody mess and she had a nasty wound in her side, but she had set an example of canine loyalty by returning to the family that had so callously abandoned her. How she had managed to find her way back from forty miles, across the maze of city roads and through hazardous traffic is enigma. Her return changed her status in our household and she became a pet that she had always deserved to be, till the day she died of old age – happy, contented and much pampered.

A befitting way to wind up this week’s column will be to write a few lines in tribute to the canines, which perform public service every day. These include those that act as the eyes and ears of sightless individuals and those that rescue victims from beneath tons of snow and collapsed concrete. Then there are the dogs that keep citizens safe by doing police and detective work and others who provide therapeutic companionship to terminally sick patient’s in hospital wards. No wonder that the species is rightfully called ‘man’s best friend’.

The writer belongs to a very old and established family of the Walled City. His forte is the study of History.