This Thanksgiving, Hilary Swank is giving thanks to her four-legged friends.

The Oscar-winning actress will be co-hosting the Cause for Paws telethon, which works to find shelter dogs their forever homes, along with Jane Lynch on Thanksgiving.

“We’re really celebrating dogs and the joy they bring to our lives,” Hilary explained when she called in to On Air with Ryan Seacrest on Tuesday. “It’s an entertaining family show. We’re showcasing a bunch of dogs, approximately 50-60 dogs that are up for adoption, for people to call in and say, ‘Oh, I love that dog and I’d like to bring them home to my household.’”

But for every dog that finds a home via Cause for Paws, there are millions more in need of a human companion, Hilary adds.

If you can’t rescue a dog from the show, you can type in your zip code from PetFinder.com and find a dog near you to rescue. Really the importance of our show is really a platform to tell everybody how many dogs we have in shelters. In the United States alone, we have nearly 8 million dogs and 4 [million] of them never make it out of the shelter. It’s shocking and knowledge is power and the more people know these numbers and know that 25 percent of those dogs are purebred …we’re just going to help connect them to their new four-legged family member.”

And she would know! Hilary, 39, is the owner of two rescue pups. In fact, “One of my dogs is sitting here nudging my elbow,” she reveals. “His name is Kai. He’s a Jack Russell-Dachshund mix that I rescued from Change of Heart Rescue in The Valley. And then I have another dog named Rumi, who’s a Golden Retriever I rescued from East Valley Animal Shelter in Los Angeles.”

Cause for Paws: An All-Star Dog Spectacular airs on Thanksgiving at 8 p.m. on FOX and Hilary’s film The Homesman is in select theaters now!

Source: http://www.ryanseacrest.com