Brevard & Transylvania County needs your help TODAY. Please Vote for Little Bitsy. County could win 1 Million Dollars for Sheltered Animals

Could This Dog Win $1 Million?

Link to vote but only vote once a day or Little Bitsy will be disqualified  You can do a search using Little Bitsy to go right to her. Thanks in advance for voting and most of all for helping sheltered animals  http://www.cutestdogcompetition.com/vote.cfm?h=08C91FF88447651C43B224AF9FFC1E6E

Transylvania County's Little Bitsy is nipping at the heels of a $1 million prize that will be used for animal rescue efforts in Transylvania County, but she's going to need your help to win.

Local residents Sylvia and Barney Evans recently adopted Little Bitsy from local animal rescue volunteer Evelyn Bridges, who found the Rat Terrier mix after she had been hit by a car.

Now that she's all healed, Little Bitsy finds herself as a front-runner in the All American Pet Brands Cutest Dog Competition. In order to be eligible for the $1 million grand prize, she must first win one of 12 weekly competitions; 10 of those have already passed.

"We've only got two more weeks," said Bridges. "Little Bitsy has been in the top five for the past five weeks, out of over 60,000 dogs. She's receiving over 2,000 votes a week, but the other weekly winners have had four or five thousand.

"If we could just get the community to vote for her, we could win."

The prize money will be used for animal rescue efforts in the county. Bridges, a passionate animal advocate, works closely with the Transylvania County Animal Shelter and animal rescue groups such as TAAG, Friends For Life,

Animal Lighthouse, the Animal Compassion Network and others to help place animals in homes.

According to Bridges, last month she and other volunteers and friends pulled 31 animals from the local animal shelter.

Eight puppies were flown by the Pilots And Paws program from Greenville, S.C. to Orlando, Fla., and were then driven by volunteers to Port St. Lucie.

Bridges' husband, Marion, recently drove another seven dogs from Brevard to Minneapolis.

"Chuck Byrd and the staff at the local animal shelter work diligently to help us rescue the animals, Bridges said. "They do a great job with limited resources. But our shelter is a kill shelter. Owner turn-ins are the first to be put down. Strays are kept for five days, unless they get full, in which case it's first in, first down."

For Bridges, saving animals has been a life-long crusade. She conducted her first animal rescue almost 50 years ago, when she brought home a stray mother dog and four pups.

"My father, Charlie Powers, showed me by his example how to love animals, and that it was my duty to take care of them," she said.
Bridges is the first to admit that her passion can get expensive, which is why winning the contest is important.

The animals must be spayed, neutered and vaccinated before they can be transferred, not to mention the cost of feeding and housing them.
In fact, that's how Silvia and Barney Evans first met Little Bitsy. They volunteered to keep Little Bitsy while she became healthy enough to have surgery on her injured leg. Ultimately, the leg healed itself, but by that time they were so attached to Little Bitsy that they decided to adopt her.

To vote, do a Google search for "Little Bitsy Cutest Dog," which will take you directly to the voting page. First-time visitors will have to give an email address and password. You can only vote once per day.

If she wins one of the next two weekly competitions, she will receive $500. The public will vote once again for the top four out of those 12.

The finalists will receive $5,000, and the one chosen as the winner by the judges will get the $1 million grand prize.

Regardless of whether or not Little Bitsy wins, Bridges plans to keep right on rescuing animals.

"I have six rescue dogs in my home, and one rescued cat," she said. "I stop for every dog or cat I see on the side of the road. That's how I met Little Bitsy. It's my passion; it's what I want to do."

Bridges is in the process of forming a 501-C3 non-profit, Charlie's Angels Animal Rescue, named in honor of her father.

If you would like to know more about Bridges' rescue efforts, you can e-mail her at ebridges@citcom.net. Monetary support can be sent to the Charlie Powers Memorial Animal Fund, c/o Evelyn Bridges, Steve Owen And Associates, 49 Pisgah Highway, Suite 4, Pisgah Forest, NC 28768. By Sean Trapp
Staff Writer

Posted via web from jaykaiser's posterous