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Goodbye my friend….R.I.P. Patrick Whitacre

 (Note: PIUTW = Place I Used to Work)

IMG_60191-266x300Today at PIUTW, we lost our canine behaviorist.

Today I lost one of my closest friends.

Today the dogs of the world lost an amazing advocate.

I’ve started and stopped this blog a dozen times because I don’t think there is any way that I can get the words to come out right.

To try to explain to you all how much he meant to me personally, how much he helped me, how much he meant to our organization, how much he meant to the dogs here.

There wasn’t a dog here that wouldn’t see Pat coming and start wagging their tails.
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On the euthanasia of horses…

The death of a horse, specifically the euthanasia of a horse, profoundly impacts and affects me.
I think that people that have never loved a horse, or have never witnessed one dying can never fully understand this.

To me the horse is the most beautiful animal on earth.
I’ve always been lost in horses, as many young girls seem to be.
Many outgrow it.
I never did.

To watch a horse move – is breathtaking.
When they have their mane blowing in the wind and their tail out and they run across a field, there is no way that I could ever not stop to watch. When I am 98 and in a wheelchair, I will still stop that chair, and suck in my breath and be amazed at how a horse moves. I will stare and not allow myself to move until the horse has ceased moving.
How majestic.
How beautiful.

I’ll never forget the first time I smelled a horse.
Or touched their velvety nose.
When they blow into my nostrils and invite me to be a friend to them….or when I’m riding one and we move together through the woods.
I am 46 years old, and it is still a thrill, and still special …every single time.

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The sweet tale of JoJo’s salvation

 

Pets Alive gets hundreds of rescue requests every month. From owner surrenders, to other shelters, to mass mailings, to just about any method of social media available – we get asked to help save the lives of animals. We do help whenever we can and we do read everything that comes our way and try to do something to help the person or people that are trying to save a life. It has gotten so unwieldily though that we spend hours wading through emails, so much that we have had to ask people to not add us to cross posting, as it bogs us down and we can often get over 60-70 emails on the exact same animal! Many people get majorly offended when we ask them to take us off all of these cross posted emails, but the only way we can be effective is if we can have policies and procedures in place for people to reach out to us and ask for help with a specific animal, which we can then review. Cross postings just are not an effective way to get the word out or for us to review and handle a request.

We also get all of the CACC mailings with the pictures of the dogs and cats that are scheduled to die the next morning and we look at those and help pull those animals whenever we can.

That is how I came across one of the saddest looking dogs I had ever seen. His name was Jojo.
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Why shelters SHOULD adopt out black cats at Halloween!

Every year I see big discussions from shelters about closing down their black cat adoptions near and at halloween. Halloween and black cats. Sigh. We do things differently at Pets Alive! We will be promoting cats on Halloween for $31 and black cats for $13 (all black cats over 1 year old). People started telling us all about the Satanic cults out there that adopt to kill the animals. Many shelters won’t adopt out cats at ALL during the ENTIRE MONTH OF OCTOBER!! I want to shake these people. I presented a scenario. Please review: Continue reading…

Why transport isn’t the answer

Anyone that follows Pets Alive knows that we accept in a lot of animals from transports. We take dogs in from many other locations, all across the United States. So I am sure that when you hear me say that transports are not the answer, it may be a surprise to you.

Transporting animals from the south to the north, from Puerto Rico to NY, from kill shelters to no kill shelters doesn’t solve any problems. It doesn’t fix the crisis shelters are in, it doesn’t form any long term solutions, and it doesn’t stop the killing for long. 

Transport in most situations simply saves the lives of the animals on that specific transport. It doesn’t solve any problems “long term”.

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The Itty Bitty Kitty Rescue

 

A healthy 3 week old kitten arrived at the ACC, and 45 minutes later was killed for “having no mother”.

No adopter or rescuer was given the opportunity to save this kitten.

On Mother’s Day, a mother cat and her two tiny kittens were on the ACC kill list. What in the world?

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Why choose death when there is a LIFE alternative?

So in the past two weeks Pets Alive has pulled 108 cats, kittens, and mamas from the NYC ACC (Animal Care & Control), including this little bottle baby today.

After we found out about a kitten being euthanized there with no opportunity for rescue to pull, we decided we weren’t going to stand by and watch any more kittens die.

Why should we? There is no need to. Kittens are super highly adoptable and they are adoptable easily for the next year or so. So even if it took us a while to place them we were still going to be able to do so. PLUS we had just opened some brand new rooms for cats and had plenty of space. What better way to use it than save the lives of kittens? Lives that had barely started and were already at risk of being snuffed out at the ACC.

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78 Wallkill Rottweilers

 

There is a lot of confusion about the Town of Wallkill rottweilers. The media outlets recently covered the story. We want to explain the role that Pets Alive has had and not take credit for anything we have NOT been involved in. There are so many different stories out there and so many misquotes it is getting difficult to see what is factual.

We heard about this situation the first week of March. That is when the complaint was made and the police moved in to assess the situation. After going on the property, they must have seen that they had to pursue much more serious legal action against Sylvia Pinneta and at that time they were authorized to remove only dogs that were in absolute CRITICAL states of needing medical attention, after giving Sylvia the opportunity to do so. From what I understand she was asked to seek medical attention for the dogs that the police department felt needed it most and I believe that perhaps she refused, and as a result they were able to then confiscate those dogs. (again, all of this is between her and the police and I can not speak to what happened, so please understand that I have no knowledge of the legalities involved in this situation).

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Rescuing Robert

 

princessWith rescue work you have really busy days – like helping to unload 100 dogs from a mass rescue, document them, get them settled, fed, warm, up on pet finder, into your database, vetted and cared for – and then there are other days when you can sit in your office all day paying bills or answering the phone and emails.

Today was a busy rescue day for Pets Alive. Today is a day that I will always remember as the day we rescued Robert.
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The Quick Kill Bill, and a question – WHY?

 

407358_3247471955066_1514951918_2968732_1578087749_nIt has been a very “up and down” couple of days and for many that read the normal Pets Alive twitter and Facebook, we haven’t been up to our usual light hearted tweets and posts.

I learned a long time ago that the thing that keep all of you coming back, and following us, and supporting us, is to feel good about what we do and why, and how, and to show you all that goodness. It makes us feel good too.

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