In this series:
"Life With Bonnie" star Bonnie Hunt on making a difference.
Breckin Meyer loves to make a difference with "pound puppies."
Comedian George Lopez helps folks back home
Emmy-winning talk show host Wayne Brady on helping
Moderator of "The View" recalls a poor boy
Papers lead readers to improve their cities
Never Give Up! By Dick Vitale
It's so Raven to help others

My pet cause

A sitcom star loves to make a difference with "pound puppies."

By Breckin Meyer

There's no doubt you can make a difference in one day. And you may find that one day leads to many others. At least that's the case with one of my "pet" causes, the Los Angeles-based Amanda Foundation, which helps pound animals -- dogs and cats that often are literally on death row -- get adopted. (In Latin, Amanda means "worthy of being loved.")

Four years ago, my wife, Deborah, and I were looking to get another dog. We already had a former pound puppy, Scarlett, a 50-pound 9-year-old mixed breed who favors her Jack Russell side. While considering another dog, I noticed that a friend of mine always had a different dog with her whenever I'd visit her office. She told me she was volunteering for the Amanda Foundation. They needed her to take a different dog to her office every week. The idea is that by interacting with her co-workers, the dogs learned to develop the people skills they need to get adopted. So my friend was essentially acting as a day-time foster parent for a future pet.

That's when we called the foundation. We were impressed with how the folks there routinely take in dogs and cats that aren't likely to be adopted, like older mixed breeds. It seems everyone wants the puppies; the older dogs are in the most danger of being euthanized. The foundation pays to get the pups their shots, spay and neuter them if needed, and train them so they become better candidates for adoption. All the people there are volunteers, and they take the pets out and about so they get lots of playtime. At the pound, they really don't get time out of the cage.

So Deborah and I decided to adopt one of their dogs. His name is Monkey, and he looks like a baby black Lab. He's 4 now. The Amanda Foundation put us through a lot of scrutiny, too, to make sure Monkey was going to the right home. They came to our house and made sure it was gated and well-kept. They asked us questions to find out whether we would be good pet owners.

And this really impressed me: Before they gave us Monkey, they made us sign papers stating that, if it didn't work out, we'd give him back to the Amanda Foundation, not to a pound. That way, the foundation is sure its pets won't be euthanized.

Well, adopting Monkey certainly has worked out for us, as using the foundation has for so many others who have adopted pets. Think about it: You get a dog that has had some training and knows how to properly interact with people. The dogs often can walk the right way on a leash, and sit and stay on command.

But you don't have to be a pet owner to make a difference at a place like the Amanda Foundation. I have a friend who lives in an apartment and can't have pets. But she volunteers at Amanda to play with the dogs. It's a dream: You go there and play with dogs all day. You get all the joy of being a pet owner without having to pay for dog food or vet bills.

Sounds like a great deal to me.

Contact the Amanda Foundation online at amanda-fnd.org. Outside the Los Angeles area, contact a local animal shelter.
Meyer's new show, "Married to the Kellys", airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo by: ABC/Robert Trachtenberg