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Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS) is charging no fees for its next 52 adoptions to commemorate the retirement of Baltimore Raven Ray Lewis.

Lewis, who wears No. 52, will end his playing career when the Ravens season ends.

The free adoptions started yesterday,

BARCS is located at 301 Stockholm St. — across from the stadium in which the Ravens play — and is open from 2 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

You can look at animals available for adoption here.

Dogs and cats over a year old can be adopted at Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter for free during the month of July.

The shelter – after waiving adoptions fees on cats in June — decided to expand the promotion through the end of this month.

Local shelters partnered on the promotion, aimed at finding homes for 500 cats in June.

Together, the found new homes for over 700 cats, 405 at BARCS alone.

“This campaign proved so successful in saving the lives of cats that BARCS is going to expand it, waiving all adoption fees for cats and dogs over one-year-old for the entire month of July, too,” BARCS said in a press release.

BARCS, the largest companion animal shelter in Maryland, took in 738 cats and 386 dogs in the month of June.

For more information, visit the BARCS website.

It was five years ago when strange things started happening at the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

Somehow, the same group of dogs were escaping from their pens at the shelter at night and proceeding to raid the food area, where they ate, played and partied all night long.

The shelter at first suspected staff wasn’t propertly closing the gates. Then they thought maybe it was a practical joke.

Finally, to find the answer, they installed three cameras. The first couple of nights, nothing happened, but then the cameras caught a greyhound mix named Red in the act — first freeing himself, then freeing his friends from their cages.

In Great Britain and Ireland, they call the mixed breed “lurchers,” and they’re known for their stealth and cunning.

Red certainly fit that bill — and better yet, shortly after shelter staff brought an end to the late night parties, Red got adopted.

Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS) is waiving adoption fees for dogs and cats six months and older for the entire month of December.

Included with adoptions are spaying and neutering, rabies vaccination, DHLPP vaccination, bordatella, de-wormer, flea preventative, a general examination, a food sample, a month of free veterinary care insurance, and Felv testing for cats and kittens.

Baltimore City residents are required to purchase a $10 pet license.

Puppies and kittens under six months old will be available for adoption at just $65 until December 31, 2011.

BARCS is also making gift certificates available for people who would like to give the gift of an animal to some one else. They are $65.

To adopt an animal from BARCS, stop by the shelter (behind M&T Bank Stadium), call 410-396-4695, or visit its website.

Bob Barker has made a new public service annoucement for PETA, aimed at calling attention to the suffering of animals used for product testing.

Many animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in product tests for cosmetics, personal-care products, and household cleaning products — even though non-animal tests are available.

On top of that, the results of animal tests are often unreliable or not applicable to humans, PETA says.

Barker urges consumers to research before they buy, and suggests visiting PETA’s website to order the organization’s free cruelty-free shopper’s guide.

“The price is never right on products tested on animals,” Barker says.

Reynolda — though it lacks any leash-free areas — is a great place to spend time with your dog.

You don’t want to take him or her to Reynolda House, an art museum now featuring an exhibit by famed railroad photographer O. Winston Link.

And you might want to avoid the  formal part of Reynolda Gardens.

But most of  the rest of what used to be the vast country estate of R.J.Reynolds, the history of which we told you about in this earlier post, is fair game for dogs on leashes, including at least one restaurant and the K-9 Doggie Bakery and Boutique.

Not all the shops, galleries and restaurants in Reynolda Village welcome your dog inside, but we noted at least one that put out a basket of dog treats on its doorstep.

 The sign said “take one.” 

 Ace, before I could pull him away, helped himself to three.

Our favorite part of Reynolda, though — well, mine anyway, Ace might prefer the complimentary dog biscuits — is the nature.

There are miles of trails that wind through open meadows and shady groves, and alongside the remnants of what used to be a lake.  Lake Katherine, as it was known, is more of a marsh now, but a great place to spot birds.

The trails are a great way to work up an appetite, or walk off a meal — and there are two restaurants on the grounds of Reynolda, at least one of which is dog-friendly. Simply Yummy, allows dogs in its outside seating area.

As for the other, the Village Tavern …  well it’s a bit fuzzy. The employee who answered the phone, when I asked if dogs were allowed in the outdoor seating areas, answered, “If they’re sublime.”

“Sublime?” I repeated. When I asked him to elaborate, he put the manager on the phone, and she referred me to corporate headquarters, where a member of the staff said only service dogs are allowed

There is no admission to get on the  grounds of Reynolda, and it is open during daylight hours year-round.

The Baltimore Humane Society will hold its first annual Catsino Night this coming Saturday (June 11).

It’s an evening of faux gambling aimed at raising money to help find homes for the surplus of homeless cats that fill area shelters around this time of year.

The event is being held at Mia Carolina Restaurant, 4844 Butler Road in Glyndon, from 7 to 10 p.m.

Included in the $150 ticket is an open bar, food and gaming chips.  To purchase tickets, or for more information about Catsino Night, please contact Jen Swanson, Director of Development, at jswanson@bmorehumane.org or call 410-833-8848 ext. 207.

The Baltimore Humane Society (formerly known as the Humane Society of Baltimore County) is offering free kittens during the month of June as part as the “Baltimore 500 — A Race to Save Lives.” That program is a project of the BAWA (Baltimore Animal Welfare Alliance) consisting of the Baltimore Humane Society, Maryland SPCA, and Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS).

The Humane Society of Baltimore County was founded in 1927 by Elsie Seeger Barton.  As a privately funded non-profit, it receives know funding from the county, city, or federal governments, and is not affiliated with the Humane Society of the United States.

Here, verbatim, is an ad I saw yesterday on the “free” section of Craiglist:

I have a

-small bag of dry dog food

-4 cans of wet dog food

We where expecting to be given a dog and bought this the day before but then they decided to keep the dog that we wanted.

This must go to some one that REALLY needs it. I will not give it to you if you come up in a fancy car and new brand name clothing, you have the money go buy it your self.

Im giving this away for free so that it can help some one out, if you are in need of some dog food then please feel free to message me, and then we can set up a time and day.

Thank You and God Bless

In our eighth month of bouncing about this expansive and expensive country, Ace and I seemed headed for our most frugal stretch yet – thanks mainly to lucking out and finding some free housing upon our return to Baltimore.

For the first time, in our continuing effort to see America while spending less than what we were while sedentary and housed – about $1,500 for rent, food and utilities – we were looking at a three digit number instead of four.

Now, thanks to my stupidity, and with an assist from Verizon, we’ve blown it, and somebody has some explaining to do.

Before we left on our journey, I canceled my home Internet service (through Verizon) and signed up for wireless mobile broadband (through a different part of Verizon), allowing us to get online no matter where we were for $59 a month – the package they suggested for a heavy user.

It worked pretty great. There were only two or three locations in our 22,000 miles of travels, where service was non-existent or spotty.

I was so pleased, I even eventually sent Verizon the payment they were seeking from me for home Internet service for the month following the date I moved out of my house. It was basically a choice between paying the money I didn’t really owe, being regularly harassed by the credit agency to which they turned the matter over, or spending far too much time on the phone, holding and then some, to try and straighten it out.

All was going smoothly with my wireless mobile broadband — or so I thought until last week, when Verizon informed me that for the past two months I’d gone over monthly limit, and that I owed them more than $400. Read more »

For the rest of 2010, adoption fees are being waived at BARCS (Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter) for all dogs and cats over six months old.

Included for free with any adoption during the holiday special are spaying and neutering, rabies vaccination, DHLPP vaccination, bordatella, de-wormer, flea preventative, a general examination, a food sample, a month of free veterinary care insurance, and Felv testing for cats and kittens.

Normal adoption procedures apply, and Baltimore City residents will need to purchase a $10 pet license. Puppies and kittens under six months old are available for adoption at $65, through December 31, 2010.

People who would like to give the gift of an animal to some one else can purchase a BARCS gift certificate for $65.

To adopt an animal from BARCS. stop by the shelter (behind M&T Bank Stadium)  Monday through Friday from 2 to 6 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., call 410-396-4695 or visit BARCS  online.

BARCS is hosting a Holiday Open House at the shelter this Saturday, December11, and Sunday, December 12 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring cookies and punch and, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., photos of your pet with Santa. Photos are $10 each for a digital print and the proceeds will benefit the animals at BARCS.