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There is no better feeling in the world than to give something back. Especially when it helps our our four-legged friends. Last year awesome geek lady Anne Wheaton put together a geek celebrity pet calendar to benefit the Pasadena Humane Society and raised a ton of money to help homeless pets. I was lucky enough to be a part of that calendar with my late dog Fionnie. This year, Anne has put a brand new group of celebrities and their pets together to continue the effort!

In the calendar this year is Tricia Helfer and her two cats, Cesar and Bella, James Gunn and his dog, Dr. Wesley Von Spears, Gates McFadden and her cat, Rudy, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting and her dog, Norman, John and Beth Rogers and their dog, Rufus, Jonah Ray and his dog, Ruby, Tara Strong and her bunny, Stasha and her dog, Latka, Beth Reisgraf and her dog, Los, Jenny Lawson and her cats, Ferris Mewler and Hunter S. Thomcat, Ed Brubaker and his dog, Roscoe, Margaret Cho and her dogs, Gudrun and Bronwyn, and of course, Anne and Wil Wheaton and their cats, Watson and Luna.

We spoke to Anne about the mission, how it all started and how you can help! Head over to TeamWheaton.org to check out a video and donate to help homeless animals!

Legion of Leia: This is the second year you’ve done the calendar. For those who aren’t familiar, tell us about what it is and how it came about?

Anne Wheaton: I created this calendar for the first time last year to promote adopting pets instead of buying from breeders. The calendar was given to people who donated on our behalf to the Wiggle Waggle Walk, which is an annual fundraiser for the Pasadena Humane Society. We raised $50,750 for PHS and the flood of pictures and stories I received from people who had their own rescue pets prompted me to create rescuepetsareawesome.tumblr.com so I could have a place to share them with everyone. I was so happy with how the calendar turned out and since my photographer, Pixie Spindel, shares my passion for rescue animals and captures the bond between the pets and their owners so well, I couldn’t wait to get started on the next one!

Legion of Leia: The calendar raised a lot of money to help benefit homeless animals last year and a lot of wonderful changes happened at the Pasadena Humane Society. Can you tell us about them?

Anne Wheaton: My husband and I started doing the Wiggle Waggle Walk 5 years ago, after our dog (who I found abandoned in the bushes near a bus stop when she was 4 months old) had died unexpectedly from cancer when she was just 8 years old. A few weeks after her death, I got a pamphlet in the mail from PHS about this annual fundraiser and decided to participate in her memory. I wanted to raise money to help an organization that helps so many animals so dogs like ours would be able to have a place to be cared for and an opportunity to be adopted, instead of just being dumped on the streets. We raised $15,000 in a week just by promoting online what we were doing and why. On the day of the walk, PHS asked us to walk a shelter dog to promote adoption and by the end of that walk, we adopted that dog and have been participating in the Wiggle Waggle Walk every year since.

Legion of Leia: You’ve got rescue pets and you’re now on the board of directors. Is there anything you want to say about the benefits of rescue and what PHS is doing for the community?

Anne Wheaton: I have owned rescue pets my entire life. When we started to doing events with PHS, I learned so much about what they do for animals and for the community. Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA is an organization that has been around for over 100 years. In the beginning, they took in animals and even children! No children anymore, but they do provide excellent care for animals, including wildlife, and provide animal control services for 9 local cities They offer a wide variety of services and programs to the community, including behavior and agility training classes to teach your pet how to be a good member of your family, low cost vaccination, micro-chipping, spay and neutering services, and boarding.They even have a food and supply store open to the public and the proceeds from sales go right back into the care of the animals in the shelter. When I was asked to become a member of the Board of Directors, I was honored, and accepted, the opportunity to do even more to help such a wonderful organization.

Legion of Leia: Fionnie dog and I had so much fun with you and Pixie at last year’s shoot. Are there any stories that stand out from the shoots this year?

Anne Wheaton: I had this rescue pet calendar idea in my head for 2 years before deciding to actually do it. I had been a hairdresser for 17 years and wanted to do something new and this was the first project I did when I retired. I was so nervous about how it would be received that I referred to it as “my little secret project” for the 8 months it took to put it together. I would post pictures of myself with each person who was in the 2014 calendar online, but never said what exactly it was for. No one could figure it out because each person came from a unique background but the connection they all had was being a rescue pet owner. Last year, it was a learning experience for me and for my photographer. It was fun but a bit stressful as we figured out how to work with animals. Pixie took about 150 pictures per shoot, and I had to go through and choose a couple of favorites which she would edit (mostly photoshopping pet hair off of clothing) and I would decide on the final one from there. I was so focused on getting just the right picture that I didn’t really notice the shots that were actually pretty funny. This year, it was way less stressful because we knew what to do, so we had a lot of fun with it. So much so that we saved a few shots from each photo shoot that we called “outtakes” and my husband, Wil, put them together in 3 different outtake videos that I will release each week throughout September.

Legion of Leia: There is an event in Pasadena to help out, and it involves beer!

Anne Wheaton: It is going to be on Wednesday, September 24th from 7-9pm at the Stone Company Store in Pasadena. Wil and I will be pouring the beers, which will include original Wootstout, Wootstout 2.0, and White Sage IPA, which he brewed with Stone. Also being poured that night is Quadrotriticale, Suede, and Mocha Milk Stout. A portion of the proceeds of this event will be donated on our behalf to PHS Wiggle Waggle Walk. Hooray for beer and pets!

On a final note, here I am with the late, great Fionnie in last year’s calendar. Viva la Fionnie!

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Jenna Busch

Jenna Busch is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Legion of Leia and has hosted and written for sites like Nerdist, ComingSoon.net, Metro, Birth. Movies. Death., IGN, AOL, Huffington Post and more. She co-hosted Cocktails With Stan with the legendary Stan Lee and has appeared on Attack of the Show, Fresh Ink, Tabletop with Wil Wheaton, in the documentary She Makes Comics, on NPR and Al Jazeera America, and has covered film/TV/gaming/comics for years. She's currently a co-host on Most Craved. She's been published in the comics anthology Womanthology, is a chapter author for Star Wars Psychology: Dark Side of the Mind, Game of Thrones Psychology and Star Trek Psychology and more, and owns a terrifying amount of swords and 20-sided dice. There are also those My Little Pony trailer voice overs that give one nightmares.