Community Animal Rescue & Adoption - CARA

If you love animals with the passion that we do at CARA, then it’s not hard to understand why the Blessing of the Pets may well be the highlight of the entire event that we call CARA’s Dog Days of Summer. Pastor Susannah Carr, we love you and we are so incredibly thankful for your words of love for all of God’s precious animals. The animals of the world need this blessing now more than ever. Thank you for making this event so very special. ♥️

Blessing of the Pets June 2026 / Jackson, MSCARA's Dog Days of Summer Blessing of the Pets

CARA'S 17th Annual Dog Days of Summer 2026 - Part 4

CARA'S 17th Annual Dog Days of Summer 2026 - Part 3

CARA'S 17th Annual Dog Days of Summer 2026 - Part 2

CARA'S 17th Annual Dog Days of Summer 2026 - Part 1

Happy Sunday, friends! I don’t know what all of you guys will be doing today, but I can assure you the CARA Team is trying to rest up after our exciting day yesterday!

I want to say something before all of our usual posts and pics from this great event start being posted, and there will be a ton of exceptional photos this year, compliments of our extended Minnesota family’s sweet Jackie, who traveled here from Indiana for that purpose!

Y’all see this beautiful woman on the right? I know most everyone knows Denise Cantrell. But what you may not know is that she is the literal backbone of all of our fundraising efforts. She is also our Vice Chair (thank you Lord), but somehow she manages to coordinate and pull off every event we do to try and raise funds to support these animals we love and care for. And she does it flawlessly and beautifully. She will tell you it’s a team effort, and I will certainly not discredit that statement. It absolutely takes a dedicated team to pull off events like our Dog Days of Summer yesterday, and we have a darned good one.

But what I will tell you is that no fundraising team can be successful without an amazing leader. And Denise leads us all with a passion and somehow keeps us all where we need to be in the planning process. She misses nothing, ever. I am in awe of her ability to stay on top of every, single detail the way she does. The planning for this one starts 6 months out, and you can’t imagine the details and work that goes into it.

Denise, we love you beyond measure, appreciate you more than I could ever convey to you, and I cannot imagine what we would do without you. You are a warrior and I thank God for you every day. Congratulations, my friend. You nailed this event again this year! You are our rockstar!!!!!!! 🤩

As tired as I know we all are from today, I cannot let the day end without giving a HUGE shoutout to our 2026 Dog Team! There are many thank you’s to be spread around, many pics to come, so much that we are thankful for tonight. But today, our shelter pups were rockstars and they were setup to shine by this incredible, wonderful, beautiful team of handlers. Some are volunteers and fosters who do this rodeo every year, some are our staff that I would put up against anyone’s staff in any shelter anywhere at any time. We are truly blessed beyond measure and I want this team to know how very proud and grateful we are to every, single one of you. Today was a huge success and I can say that because of YOU GUYS!!!! We love all of you and we are so very thankful for all of you! ❤️❤️❤️

Yep, it’s late. Trust me when I tell you that our DDS Team is exhausted from the day spent getting set up, and yeah, probably a little delirious as our event day draws much closer. As in just hours.

But do you know what this is? This is the pile of pretty that will let everyone know tomorrow who the ten CARA dogs are. They have all promised to be their best tomorrow as they represent their shelter comrades who all share one common dream… A home of their own with people who love them. And these ten babies have happily stepped up for the challenge.

We do hope you’ll make a point to come up the hill after the parade to our pavilion and meet these sweethearts who are putting on their bravest faces for an extremely stimulating event. Our incredible dog team of handlers will be ready to talk to you about any of our pups. And by the way, these dogs are rock stars, no doubt about that. But our dog team of handlers make this big event successful and fun for our babies every year. There will never be a proper way to thank these folks for devoting their Saturday to help promote rescue dogs and showcase some of ours while they do it. We love all of you guys and we are so grateful! ❤️❤️