The Compassion Revolution - media roundup
Click to viewKatherine Heigl, Nancy Heigl and The Jason Debus Heigl Foundation Announce The Compassion Revolution!
This was an amazing day for all of those who love to help animals. Katherine Heigl, along with her mother Nancy and The Jason Debus Heigl Foundation came together for a huge press conference to announce the Compassion Revolution. It will set a precedent for groups and individuals to come together in the name of helping animals in the Los Angeles area.
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Heigl Launches Pet Initiative, Talks Daughter’s Dog Reaction
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- On the 24th anniversary of her brother, Jason Heigl’s, death Katherine Heigl and her family took a moment to honor their late loved one by launching a new initiative aimed at helping out the problems with the exploding pet population.
“I said to my mother, ‘I think it’s a really grace-filled way to honor him,’” Katherine told Access Hollywood at the Jason Debus Heigl Foundation press conference in LA, where she and mother Nancy addressed the media, with their plans to address the pet population crisis. “My mother began the foundation in his name as a way of creating a legacy for this child of hers that didn’t live long enough to do that himself and he also happened to be a real advocate for animals and children and the repressed so it works out kind of beautifully.”
The star of the upcoming film, “Life as We Know It,” who is known for her tireless work for animals, work that includes making lengthy car trips to drive abandoned animals to no-kill shelters, said having the event on such an emotional day for her family makes dealing with their loss a little easier.
“It’ll never change how this day feels to us come September 23 every year, but it can change a little bit the course of - it has a significance now… of beauty - a grace to it, that we are grateful for,” she explained.
On hand at the event was Katherine’s beautiful daughter, Naleigh, who she has been sharing her big love of animals with.
“Mostly they just lick her face,” Katherine said of the attention her own dogs give the tot. “The bigger ones she doesn’t like because they lick her too much and she can’t like get away from them.”
Katherine explained that her daughter, who she adopted last year from Korea, is still learning how to play nice with her four-legged friends.
“My thing with her is you don’t ever want to get aggressive towards the animals; she’s in a hitting phase - like, she’ll take wooden spoons and hit me with them, or hit whoever, hit a dog - and we’re really trying to teach her, ‘No! That’s not acceptable. You can’t hit the dogs, ‘cause that’s when something bad will happen, that’s when they react,” Katherine said of their growing pains. “So we’re teaching her you know, ‘Gentle pets, nice dog, good boy’ and she’s really great about it.”
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Katherine Heigl and Husband Hit Ruff Patch Over Expanding Family
Thu., Sep. 23, 2010
by Marc Malkin
Katherine Heigl is in the doghouse with hubby Josh Kelley.
Nothing's terribly wrong, but… Heigl wants to adopt more pets. Kelley? Not so much.
"I pretty much now defer to my husband, who has put the kibosh on any more," Heigl told me earlier today. "He says, 'You know, Katie, we have 12 heartbeats in this house already and that's a lot of responsibility.' But it's hard. It's really hard to say no."
That 12 would be Heigl, Kelley, their daughter Naleigh and-ready for this?-six dogs and three cats.
Heigl was at the Four Seasons Hotel this morning to launch the Jason Debus Heigl Foundation's new Compassion Revolution campaign to reduce pet overpopulation without having to euthanize animals. The foundation has donated $1 million to L.A.-area groups for spay and neuter programs.
"Our goal is that people can actually go to an animal shelter and not feel this horrible sadness and burden that if they don't take that dog home that the dog may end up dead," Heigl said. "The idea is that eventually it won't be so hard to say no because you know that these animals are actually in a safe place, in a shelter that is not going to euthanize them for space or room for the next batch coming in."
Also on hand this morning were Heigl's mom, Nancy, Los Angeles Councilman Tony Cardenas and Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan and his dog Coco.
Meanwhile, wait till ya hear what Heigl had to say about kicking ass in her upcoming action flick One for the Money and getting Josh Duhamel in his underwear for Life As We Know It. I'll have all of that for you tomorrow.
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Katherine Heigl Pledges $1 Million to Help Animal Shelters
Friday September 24, 2010
by Melody Chiu
It's more than just puppy love. Katherine Heigl is behind a $1 million initiative to help no-cost spay and neuter programs in the Los Angeles area.
The Jason Debus Heigl Foundation, named in memory of the actress's late brother, will work with the Cesar Millan's Millan Foundation, the City and County of Los Angeles and various other organizations on the project, called the Compassion Revolution.
Heigl, who herself has six dogs, three of them rescues, told PEOPLEPets.com at the press conference to announce the pledge that she and her mother had felt hopeless and overwhelmed by the pet population crisis in L.A. Over 50,000 of 80,000 shelter animals in Los Angeles County were euthanized last year, according to the Heigl Foundation.
"How can we change the results for these animals?" she said. "[Shelters are not only] euthanizing sick, old dogs. It's gotten brutal, you know. It's inhuman, really."
The Heigl Foundation wanted a solution - training and education on how to reduce the pet population compassionately, instead of having to put down healthy animals. Heigl says that her upbringing influenced her when it came to the importance of spaying and neutering.
"When I was growing up, my mother and father had zero desire for any one of our animals to have a litter," she said. "I think it's a lot of work, it's a lot of energy. Then, as an adult, because of the way I was raised and because I had the means to do it, [spaying and neutering] goes without question.
"But there are a lot of communities that don't have that education, weren't raised that way and don't see their pets that way," she added. "They have no idea that a litter of 10 means a litter of, like, 400 in the future. We can tell them and educate them, and provide a way for them to spay and neuter their pets."
For more information on the initiative, visit compassion-revolution.com .
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