New friends might not know this, but for many years I ran a very large no-kill animal sanctuary. We used to pull dogs from all over the United States and find them homes. Many places in this country still have amazingly high kill rates. We targeted shelters that were over 90% kill and tried to help them see that lives could be saved.
Some of these places didn’t care at all. Some of these places cared very much, but were helpless for many reasons…or there would be a small group of people doing everything they could to save these lives. Some of these people drove 22 hours straight to get dogs to us, in places that were 97-98% kill. It’s hard to believe that there are places like that still existing in this country but there are. Many of them. More than you would believe. Some making no effort at all to find homes for animals, basically just serving as a killing center. Some don’t even hold your lost pet for more than 24 hours before killing them.
I am tempted to go into stories of such places, there are so many. There are tales of horror that I still lose sleep over, and there are beautiful tales of people who did their best, and struggled daily to save lives, in a system that was terribly, horribly, and almost irreparably broken.
Ernie found himself in one such place. Continue reading…
I would like to say something here for all my canine friends. Never, ever, ever, ever, allow your dog to be taken away by an ACO (animal control officer).
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.
Below is an email sent by Pets Alive to the Middletown Council to consider instead of a city wide insurance requirement for renters. We hope that they might consider this option instead of the current plan, or working in conjunction WITH the insurance plan:
I think that most of you have followed the story of Gloria. Gloria was a cat that was abandoned at an ASPCA mobile clinic about a month ago. The ASPCA turned her over to the ACC in NYC. After three weeks the ACC put her on the kill list and Pets Alive pulled her. We discovered the following morning that this cat had a very severely broken leg.
This week, Pets Alive will be heading down to Arkansas to help out another rescue. The story is a sad one. This organization has been around for many years. They have done their best, with very little, in a rural area. In this area, for many people, animal lives are not highly valued and dogs are often dumped on the side of the road when they are not wanted. The kill rates in local shelters there top 95%.
This week, there was an amazing article in Forbes Magazine.
Some of you have asked me in person, or in email how is it we could work with the ASPCA on the Arkansas rescue when we have vilified them in the past, especially over Oreo.
You may remember when I did the first
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