"Give A Hoot About Animals" Writing Contest

Read this winning entry for the "Give A Hoot About Animals" contest! Learn more about the contest here.

Grand prize winner, ages 5-8

Riley M., age 7, Renton, WA 

Two years ago I came up with an idea to help animals.  I call it Animal Savers Inc, or ASI for short.  My mom joined my group too.  The first thing we rescued was a bunny.  Our cat attacked him.  We put him in a box with a towel and some water.  My mom drove him to the vet the next day.  The next animal we rescued was a bird.  He was lying in the middle of the road, with cars driving right next to him.  We thought he was dead but when my mom picked him up he was alive!  He almost got run over and would have died if we hadn't seen him.  We took him home and put him in a box until he felt better.  Then we let him go and he flew away.

This summer I discovered that there were tadpoles in my Grandma's swimming pool.  The pool was going to be cleaned with chemicals and all the tadpoles would have died.  I asked my mom to help me save them because I'm not allowed to get close to the pool by myself. We used a big net to catch them.  I had to separate them into four different containers for the babies, the medium tadpoles, the big tadpoles, and the hoppers.  Babies are very tiny and don't need to be fed much.  Medium tadpoles are actually really fat because their legs are growing inside their body.  Big tadpoles have their back legs, and hoppers have all four legs. 

I liked touching them because they were slimy.  We had so many tadpoles that my mom had to keep buying more containers.  My mom wanted to quit, she said we had enough tadpoles to take care of.  But I told her "Animal Savers never quit!" and told her to imagine if she was a tadpole and she was going to die.  We had to feed them frozen lettuce and give them clean water.  We also kept track of how many were in each tank.  We buried the ones that died.  We had to work every day!  We ended up rescuing over a thousand tadpoles.  My mom told me that usually over half of all tadpoles will die before they become frogs.  But we released over 700 frogs.  When the pool cleaners came there wasn't a single tadpole left in the pool.

The last animal we rescued was our dog Dodger.  We adopted him from the Humane Society.  He's deaf and we had to teach him sign language.  He even came to school with me one day and I showed the kids the signs that he knows.  He's a really great dog and I love him. 

I'm an Animal Saver because I feel bad about them dying. Animals are just as important as people, they have feelings too.  Every time I save an animal it makes me feel happy.