Pillow Talk

Most homeless dogs in shelters sleep on a hard concrete floor with only a towel to soften the surface.

But, not in New York's three municipal shelters in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island!

New Yorker Susan Brandt launched the Mother's Comfort Project to give some of the animals a little comfort while they are housed at Animal Care and Control of New York City.

That comfort comes in the form of beds stitched together and delivered to the shelters. Volunteers put each bed into the dog's or cat's cage and quickly show their gratitude.

The project was conceived by Rational Animal, a New York City-based nonprofit Brandt founded in 2002 to foster public awareness of the need to aid animals. The Mother's Comfort volunteers gather at a rented sewing studio in Brooklyn to construct the beds. While sewers stitch the bed components together, non-sewers cut fabric or padded batting, or deliver fabric to the studio or the beds to the shelters. Brandt estimates that the project has made and delivered about 4,000 beds.