Miranda Lambert’s lifelong devotion to her four-legged friends led the country superstar to start the MuttNation Foundation in 2009, with the goal to end pet suffering and homelessness in the U.S. and abroad. Because the singer-songwriter/activist is one of the most in-demand country entertainers working today, she’s often approached to become involved in other fund- and awareness-raising efforts, and has to pick and choose carefully which causes she’ll support. But it’s a pretty safe bet the recipients of her goodwill will have furry paws and cold noses.
Miranda’s lastest involvement is with the Pedigree Feeding Project, and their “Choose the Next Community” initiative, which, thanks to Miranda’s fans, will result in animal shelters receiving a supply of dog food at no cost, allowing them to spend the money they save on other worthwhile programs to help the pet population.
“We get a lot of calls to be part of and partner with,” Miranda tells The Boot. “But I’m really a stickler for something that fits with me and what I do. When we got the call from Pedigree telling us about the Feeding Project, I jumped right on it because it really coincides with all the work I’ve been doing for animals all this time. Pedigree is a great brand you kind of think of as high-end dog food, but they’re also really doing a lot of work in shelters.”
To start the program this year, thousands of fans submitted the names of communities they felt would benefit from the feeding project, then those were narrowed down to five communities. From those five, two will be chosen, with at least two participating shelters in those communities receiving their core dog food needs at absolutely no cost for at least a year. The five communities chosen were Detroit/Flint, Mich., Erie, Pa., Wasau, Wis., Jackson, Miss., and Jacksonville, Fla. The winning two communities are currently being determined and will be announced in the coming weeks.
“When they’ve done this in the past, it has saved shelters up to $100,000 a year by not buying food,” says Miranda. “So they can use that money in other ways, building new facilities or improving their facilities, or doing adoption drives or spay-and-neuter clinics.”
Blake Shelton, Miranda’s husband, knows all too well his better half’s animal-loving ways. “I never know what to expect when she goes to town in Tishomingo, [Okla.],” Blake told The Boot and other reporters at a press conference earlier this year. “When she comes back I never know what’s going to be in the car. I can tell you — I’m not kidding when I say 20, maybe 25, maybe 30 times — she’s come home from the grocery store and there will either be a dog or a cat in her car. And they’re not always puppies, it might be a big a– pitbull in there and I’m going, ‘What the hell, you can’t just …’ ‘Well, it licked me so it was nice,’ and I say ‘Yeah, but you don’t know if it has rabies or what.’”
Join Pedigree on Facebook here, and click here for MuttNation Foundation’s Facebook page.
Miranda Lambert returns to the Locked and Reloaded tour on May 9, in Bakersfield, Calif. See a list of her upcoming concert dates here.
On May 7, Annie Up, the sophomore album from Miranda’s trio Pistol Annies (with Angaleena Presley and Ashley Monroe) will be released. The lead single from the album, “Hush Hush,” is out now.
Untitled
Annie Up
Four The Record
Mama's Broken Heart
Jewel: Greatest Hits
