Ellen DeGeneres and Freekibble Want Every Stray Pet to Have a Halo

In September of  2008, Ellen DeGeneres had a special 12-year-old on her show with a love of animals. The girl, Mimi Ausland (featured in Tonic), with her parents' help, created the websites Freekibble.com and Freekibblekat.com to help the many animal shelters facing food shortages. For every trivia question created by Freekibble and answered on the sites, 10 pieces of dry food are donated to a shelter.

Since then, Freekibble has exploded. With the help of its 350,000 loyal monthly followers from 137 countries, Freekibble has donated 3.8 million meals to over 100 shelters, rescues and pet food banks across America. Not to mention that Freekibble and FreekibbleKat are two of the top five most visited animal rescue sites in the world, with over 100,000 combined daily visits.

Today, Ellen has taken her commitment to Mimi and Freekibble to a new level. She and Halo, Purely For Pets, the holistic pet food company Ellen part-owns, are now the exclusive providers of the donated food.

"I am very proud to say that Halo is the only pet food that Freekibble is donating to animal shelters because they believe in the food so much," says Ellen. "I believe that all pets — not just our own pets — deserve the best food; shelter pets, everyone deserves to have it."

This unique, fun approach to feeding homeless pets has had a very real impact, sometimes helping shelters with absolutely no food, other times saving the lives of very ill animals who need good nutrition to heal.

"There are tens of thousands of dogs and cats in animal shelters across the country, all needing to be fed a good meal," says Mimi, 14. "Just like us, the quality of food they eat is so important. We're really excited to be working with Halo to feed shelter dogs and cats the very best, all natural and nutritious food — it will make them happier and healthier while they wait to find a family of their own!"

Photos courtesy Freekibble.com.