Want to help your favorite shelter win $5,000 or $10,000? Nineteen shelters will win cash prizes and one will win a shelter makeover valued at up to $1 million. This will cost you nothing.

All you have to do is sit in front of a computer, sign up for a free membership on the Zootoo.com Web site and vote for your favorite shelter. More than 900 shelters across the country are entered in the contest sponsored by the Web site that bills itself as the "Facebook" for pets and pet lovers.

What do you have to do to earn points for your favorite shelter? Simply registering with Zootoo will earn the shelter 100 points. You also can earn 100 points by volunteering at a shelter and 100 points for referring a friend. You get 40 points by adding a video review, 20 points by reviewing or rating something on the Zootoo site and eight points for commenting on pet news.

The site keeps a running tally on the shelters entered in the contest.

No. 1 on the contest list earlier this week was the Washington Area Humane Society in North Strabane. Contestant No. 21 was the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, which operates shelters on the North Shore of Pittsburgh and in Elizabeth Township.

The Washington County shelter had 1,179,156 points. The SPCA shelter serving Erie County was a distant third with 396,251. The Humane Society of Harrisburg Area was sixth with 342,398 points.

The Western Pennsylvania Humane Society had 209,318.

One of the Top 20 point-winning shelters will get a shelter makeover valued at up to $1 million. The winner will be determined by a panel of judges.

The No. 2 shelter will win $10,000 and 18 shelters will win $5,000.

The Western Pennsylvania Humane Society is an "open door" shelter, which means it accepts dogs, cats, rabbits and other animals every day. In 2007 it found new homes for 5,874 animals.

A total of 6,050 animals were euthanized by the shelter because they were deemed "unadoptable." Another 1,514 were brought in by owners who asked that they be euthanized; 163 animals were euthanized, though they were deemed "adoptable."

The Washington Area Humane Society is a "no kill" shelter that takes in about 4,000 animals per year.

Both shelters have paid humane officers who investigate and prosecute cases of animal abuse and neglect.

Just go to www.zootoo.com to check it out or to give points to a shelter. You might want to look at the Web sites of these top-contender shelters. Go to www.wpahumane.com and www.washingtonpashelter.org for more information, including animals currently available for adoption.

• "Sunday might have been a tough day for the Patriots, but it was a great day for dogs. Not to mention alpacas, horses, carrier pigeons and oxen."

So begins the news release from American Humane about the animals used in the Super Bowl commercials.

More than a dozen of the high-priced commercials featured animals, according to American Humane. During the commercial shoots, most of the Super Bowl advertisers had safety representatives from AH's Film and TV Unit on hand to supervise.

The organization gave its "No Animals Were Harmed" credit to all of the Super Bowl commercials it monitored. That includes Anheuser-Busch, Bridgestone, Disney, FedEx, Pepsi and Vitaminwater.

My favorite was the Budweiser commercial. With the theme from the "Rocky" movie playing in the background, a Dalmatian put a young Clydesdale horse through a rigorous workout. At the end, the proud-looking draft horse in full harness is led out to the Bud wagon to join the team, while a happy spotted dog looks on.

My second-favorite was the Bridgestone tires ad. A squirrel runs into the middle of the road to chase and eat an acorn and fails to notice that a speeding car is headed toward it. The squirrel freezes and screams in terror. The driver stops the car just in time.

American Humane is a 130-year-old organization dedicated to protecting children and animals from abuse, neglect and exploitation.