Messages in Six Months of May

Aiken County Animal Advocates

THE VOICE OF PAWS

(Palmetto Animal Welfare Services, Inc.)

By Joya DiStefano

This Aiken County Animal Advocates Columns was posted in the Aiken Standard on 07/10/2014

Let’s face it; there is nothing sexy about preventing a problem.  You can’t look in the face of the kitten or puppy that was never born and heave a sigh of relief that you don’t have to be concerned about an unwanted life that never happened.  There are no heartrending pictures of the consequent neglect, or abandonment.  There are no pleading fur faces peering through cage wire.  I know this is true, because I watch the money roll in for the PAWS rescue programs that can press that emotion button over and over again and have people from all over the county, state, and country pressing PAWS donate buttons to save another lucky puppy or dog from certain death.  They deserve it.  It feels good to do something that essential to life. 

PAWS offers another way to feel good that can be illustrated in six months of May, May being the beginning of the “summer surge months” in national shelters and Aiken County Animal Shelter is no exception. There are three ways for an animal to be impounded: an officer picks it up, a citizen brings it in, or an owner gives it up.  There are three ways for an animal to get out alive: an owner picks it up (RTO), someone adopts it, or it is transferred to a 501(c)(3) rescue.  Everything else dies in the shelter. 

As reflected in the chart below, the numbers are coming down and it is very likely because PAWS and the SPCA are spaying or neutering everything we can get our hands on.  Since April alone, PAWS SNYP Program (Spay/Neuter Your Pet) has referred over 170 animals to the SPCA for surgery.  Since we began our joint effort, 136 surgeries have been funded meaning literally thousands of unwanted litters that will not happen in six more Mays.  But we can only continue with your help. Please contribute to PAWS-SNYP and here’s why:

According to county shelter data, this May there appears to be a huge change. Although live release has remained relatively steady for four consecutive years, since May of last year, the number of animals killed is down 63%.  Owner surrenders are down 30%, officer pick-ups are down 30% and total animals received is down 15%.  Even citizen drop-offs are down 10%. This is all in the first of the summer high intake months.

Five years ago this month, I had the privilege to incorporate Friends of the Animal Shelter, now well-known as FOTAS, and 2009 was also the year that I started accumulating data. Aiken County Animal Services and the miserably inadequate pound it operated was a huge problem.   Well over five-thousand cats and dogs were impounded annually and more than 9 out of 10 left in big black garbage bags. 

Once founded, FOTAS immediately went to work on the shelter population with volunteer recruitment, foster programs for puppies and kittens and a transfer program that sent many fortunate candidates north.  For the first three years all available energy went towards saving animals and raising money to help the county build an adequate county animal shelter. It wasn’t until the spring of 2012 that a big shelter fundraiser in Columbia offered a way for area rescues to earn spay/neuter funds.  FOTAS jumped on it.  

That summer a pilot program was launched in Wagener, logistically the best place from which to send animals to Columbia.  Wagener also was blessed with a committed mayor and great volunteers. When the Columbia funds were gone, the new SPCA’s high-volume clinic stepped in to help and the spay/neuter assistance program began to expand.  A year later FOTAS and I parted company and Palmetto Animal Welfare Services, Inc. (PAWS) was created to permanently eliminate the need for area shelters to kill companion animals because there are too many of them to accommodate.  Unwanted litter prevention is the heart of PAWS mission.

February 2014 the beautiful Aiken County Animal Shelter opened its doors. It is a facility in which we can all finally take pride.  It was designed to accommodate the problem the previous facility was inadequate to address; not to expand its intake capacity, nor its holding capacity.  Out of concern that the numbers might explode with the perception that the county was now in the animal warehousing business, I continued to track the data.  It was a delightful surprise to discover that the situation is actually beginning to improve.   

We are very proud of what we are accomplishing, and we cannot do it without your help.  We have no heart-wrenching photos of the absence of homeless pets for our SNYP Program.  What we can offer are the thousands of animals who will not have to die for lack of homes and lack of space.  Please help us by sending a check to PAWS – SNYP, P.O. Box 392 Aiken, 29802 or go to our website paws4nokill.org.  We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit registered in South Carolina. Give what you can so we can do what we do.  God bless you for caring.

A retired organizational problem-solver and radical educator, Joya Jiménez DiStefano is an artist, Servant Leader, co-founder of FOTAS, and founder of PAWS, Inc.

www.PAWS4NoKill.org 

info@paws4nokill.org

facebook.com/PAWS4nokill.org

twitter.com/Paws4NoKill 

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P.S. Hows this for heartwrenching?

Not Another Litter!!

Please help stop this! 

DONATE NOW:

PAWS fundrazr Spay/Neuter Campaign

Changing the World Begins with a Dog

Aiken County Animal Advocates

THE VOICE OF PAWS

(Palmetto Animal Welfare Services, Inc.)

By Joya DiStefano

This Aiken County Animal Advocates Columns was posted in the Aiken Standard on 05/17/2014

“Rescuing a dog will not change the world, but it will change the dog’s world.” The significance of this slogan from the Weimaraner Rescue of South Carolina, located in Aiken County, is clear to all of us involved with rescue.  

Ask any of the local shelter staff and volunteers with the SPCA Albrecht Center or the new Aiken County Animal Shelter who see thousands of homeless pets every year. Or talk to Shelter Animal Advocates, Molly’s Militia, Happy Tails, L.E.A.S.H. Squad, and Home for Good Dog Rescue, or “breed” rescues like Weimaraners, they may tell you that, if done right, the change only starts with the rescued animal.

I am a romantic and an idealist.  I like to insert “pragmatic” as a modifier, just to suggest that I have evolved, but I will admit to the belief that whatever my current occupation, and there have been quite a few, I am always changing the world.  So when I saw the slogan about rescuing and world changing, it got me wondering.  I think the process can, and should, be bigger than that. I also think Weimaraner Rescue and other local rescue organizations are making it happen.  I’ll give you the guided tour through my reasoning.

P.A.W.S. (Palmetto Animal Welfare Services, Inc.) gets many, many calls from residents throughout our very large county who are responding to our offer of low-cost spay/neuter for their pets.  In the course of these conversations, we hear about the many previous or current litters.  I always ask, “What did you (or will you) do with the puppies (or kittens)?”  Answers vary, but they say that they find (most of them) homes.  

Of course no one says, I just take them to the county, or dump them, or call the county and say that they were dumped.  Those folks probably don’t bother to call PAWS.  In short, free dogs or cats are very easy to come by.  And we all know where many of them end up, and then some of the “lucky” ones get their world changed by being rescued. This is the world as we know it.

Now go to the SPCA website (letlovelive.org) or Home for Good Dog Rescue (homeforgooddogs.org), or Weimaraner Rescue (weimrescuesc.org) and look at their adoption guidelines and processes. 

The SPCA specifically tells people about the considerations and cost related to owning (read: providing a good home for) a pet.  No Christmas puppies, no indulge-your-kid’s-whim.  They address the costs for routine vet visits, vaccines, heartworm prevention, food and supplies.  That’s monetary costs; then there is the time to train, exercise, and be a good companion to your companion animal. Then there is the adoption process itself; you would think that a child was being placed in a home.  Actually, for many of us, that is exactly what it is like.  And that is where our world begins to change.

If you look closely at the adoption criteria for these rescue groups, you will find basically the same ethic running through the process.  They want to know what kind of family and home the applicants are prepared to provide.  They are not charging a lot of money, as if they are dispensing some rare commodity, they are stewarding a precious life, for which a great responsibility is felt.  They want to know about lifestyle and living arrangements and habits and temperaments.  They are prepared to do everything in their power to assure a good fit for the animal.

Home for Good, screens, checks references, arranges meet-and-greets for the prospective families and their dog-interest.  SPCA follows similar protocols. And with their “Phideaux University,” they have prepared their charges to be ready for a well-prepared and discerning human.  

Weimaraner Rescue, knowing the propensities of their breed, goes out of the way to make sure that appropriate education and training are part of the mix.  Even Aiken County Animal Services, with their new shelter and their passionate and highly experienced adoption coordinator, has begun basic prescreening for animal adoptions.

So, you ask, how does this change the world?  Here’s where being a little bit of a pragmatic idealist and romantic helps.  Imagine a world where, life by life, home by home, family and community by family and community, we begin to think about how we need to treat those who have a right to depend on us.  

Imagine if we learn to tune in to the simple and simply magnificent needs and talents of our dogs and cats, and then we commit to providing for them with love and compassion, what we might also commit to for our children, our elderly, our poor and needy.

The devotion to love, compassion AND responsibility that our rescues bring to the world, not only will change the world, it already is.  Onward!

A retired organizational problem-solver and radical educator, Joya Jiménez DiStefano is an artist, Servant Leader, co-founder of FOTAS, and founder of PAWS, Inc.

www.PAWS4NoKill.org

info@paws4nokill.org

www.facebook.com/PAWS4nokill.org

twitter.com/Paws4NoKill 

pinterest.com/paws4nokill

instagram.com/PAWS4SNYP

Good-Bye Herbie Brown

Aiken County Animal Advocates

THE VOICE OF PAWS

(Palmetto Animal Welfare Services, Inc.)

By Joya DiStefano

This Aiken County Animal Advocates Columns was posted in the Aiken Standard on 03/07/2014

I took the Camp Rawls-Cooks Bridge route back from Wagener and a leisurely conversation about rescue and spay/neuter.   Passing the brand spanking new Aiken County Animal Shelter on the corner of May Royal and Wire Road, I decided to stop, say hello to my friends, and have a look around.  

The adoptable cats building (C.A.T.S. – Cats at the Shelter) in its new place looked real good.  It fits.

The activity on the front walk involved the new county adoption coordinator, Annette, finalizing an adoption photo-op, as I stepped into the spacious foyer with its long reception desk and gorgeous graphics. 

My footsteps echoed in the new emptiness.  I made my way down the hall to find the staff multi-tasking, doing their jobs and settling into the new digs.  Chief Bobby Arthurs, aided by his wife, was finishing up a day’s work organizing his new office.

Our conversation moved from the miracle of the new facility to our continuing partnership in community outreach and support for responsible pet ownership.  We talked of food donations and humane enclosures for low-income pet owners.  We revisited our awareness of the needs in the farthest reaches of the county and the challenges of the many organizations attempting to address them.  At some point the subject of Herbie Brown came up.
  
“FOTAS sold Herbie Brown,” Chief Arthurs said, and made a face like he was trying on shoes that were too small.  I was stunned.  Sold?  Yes, quietly and out of state.  And I was thinking how fortunate the shelter had been to have Herbie’s marvelous generator while they went a week without power after the storm.  Who is Herbie Brown, you ask?  Allow me to explain.

Before there was a FOTAS, there was a transfer program that saved shelter dogs by shipping them north.  The transfer program was the inspiration (and perspiration) of the FOTAS president and it relied entirely on the generosity of one man and his horse transport business up and down the east coast. 

 As FOTAS grew so did the desire to contribute, and one very large early donation was tagged for the transfer program.  The decision was made to secure a means for transporting shelter animals without having to rely solely on the kindness and schedule of the horse business.

The idea for refitting an old Air Stream RV came from a fantasy that my husband and I had shared for a means to travel with our overly large family of dogs.  The Air Streams are easy to tow, register, and insure and can be pulled with almost any vehicle.  The way we found the 1979 Land Yacht model that became FOTAS’ Herbie Brown began the fairy tale. 

My husband and I were travelling in Europe when a friend notified me about the ’69 Air Stream in Harlem, GA for $3,500.  We could have it for $3,000 if we paid cash.  So to find a ’79 in better shape for $2,500 in Lexington, SC; and have it serviced and delivered by the seller, was justification enough to name the trailer after the man’s deceased uncle and original owner, Herb Brown.  “My uncle liked to help people,” the seller said, feeling his uncle would be pleased with the RV’s fate.

The transformation of Herbie Brown into the signature “Rescue Waggin’” that it became symbolizes animal welfare efforts in recent years.  

One volunteer assembled the team that gutted the RV and rewired it.  A young man, unemployed and soon to be a new father banged out the dents, sealed the leaks, and laid the subfloor.  Moore's Discount Carpet’s provided the vinyl flooring and the best floor man to lay it.  The king of handy-men designed and built Herbie’s pens in Windsor.  FOTAS' unemployed database manager did the painting from the materials donated by Sherwin Williams. The housing for the generator was done by Eric at Premier metals.  The finishing touch was the artwork done by Sign Works.  

Herbie Brown FOTAS Former Transport Vehicle

Herbie was a star and the gift of a team of craftsmen stretching from Lexington to Wagener to Windsor to Aiken and into the Valley.  Each contributor gave what he could and put his whole heart into the project, knowing it was Good.  Herbie sported the thank you to the list of these contributors on both rear corners.

In his brief career with FOTAS, Herbie Brown made the spay/neuter transport program an event in Wagener and the Valley; he paraded with the Veterans on Memorial Day and in the Wagener Christmas parades; and, he was a star attraction at Steeplechase and Woofstock.  By his very presence, Herbie Brown signified a community rallying behind a worthy cause: an adequate appropriate public shelter, at the very least.

That he will not stand beside the new facility, the creation of which he helped inspire; that he will not await the grateful participants in low-cost spay/neuter programs; that he will not proudly proclaim the signature success of a public/private partnership in the many ways we gather, is unfortunate and very sad. 

Herbie Brown and what he represented will be missed no less than he was celebrated…and cherished. 

Update July 2014:

Herbie Brown was recently replaced by FOTAS

FOTAS New Transport Vehicle

A retired organizational problem-solver and radical educator, Joya Jiménez DiStefano is an artist, Servant Leader, co-founder of FOTAS, and founder of PAWS, Inc.

www.PAWS4NoKill.org 

info@paws4nokill.org

facebook.com/PAWS4nokill.org

twitter.com/Paws4NoKill 

pinterest.com/paws4nokill

instagram.com/PAWS4SNYP

Becoming a no-kill county one foster home at a time

Aiken County Animal Advocates

THE VOICE OF PAWS

(Palmetto Animal Welfare Services, Inc.)

By Joya DiStefano

This Aiken County Animal Advocates Columns was posted in the Aiken Standard on 12/20/2013

The artistry of an Annette Van Der Walt animal photo makes the subject so lovely, so real, so compelling that you can almost feel its presence in your home. One of those portraits can save an animal's life and has many, many times. Annette does not subscribe to the pity-me approach in her pictures, oh no; she captures an image that sings, “I am special! Adopt me and I will make your life special, too!”

You merely need go to Annette's Facebook page or the page for Shelter Animal Advocates Aiken Foster Network and see a fiercely focused endeavor. Two friends and cohorts reorganized their rescue efforts last spring to save Annette after she lost her husband of more than 30 years and was buried in an avalanche of grief. 

As the weeks passed, December and Kenny Clark, owners of BarkMart in Graniteville, and Mary Lou Seymour, a passionate career rescuer, advocate and community organizer, needed their friend, Annette, back on the team. And back Annette came, born to rescue; and the team got to work.

“Dogs were dying in my county,” recalls December. “Too many dogs, dogs that people overlook. We wanted to give them a voice.” The team gives them more than a voice; they give them back to life, whole, healthy and ready for that precious second chance because of the foster-care network that they are building for no-kill rescues that pull county dogs.

Shelter Animal Advocates Aiken Foster Network builds life-saving bridges between animals in the Aiken County shelter who are unable or less likely to be adopted than the lucky few who find their way to the county shelter's “Adoption Floor,” and a network of rescue organizations dedicated to saving the tough cases.

These animals (mostly dogs) have either tested heartworm positive, have health or behavioral issues, are too old or too black (yes, there is a nationwide bias against black dogs and they are, therefore harder to place and die more often) and are more likely to be routinely euthanized or else their time has just run out in a high-kill shelter.

Last month 333 animals came into our Aiken County Animal Shelter; 63 percent died there, 23 percent were dogs and 40 percent were cats.
In November 2003, 316 animals came in and only 23 of them were adopted. In November 2008, 404 were received, 69 adopted and 361 were euthanized. In November 2012, 306 came in, and 229 (75 percent) were destroyed. 

What this tells us is that little has changed regarding intake in the past 11 Novembers, but a growing array of rescue efforts have made a big dent in what ought to be a shameful and unnecessary statistic.

Annette, December and Mary Lou are not only Shelter Animal Advocates, they are disciples of a movement that is quietly transforming shelter practices across the country, sponsored by the No Kill Advocacy Center (nokilladvocacycenter.org). 

At first glance, given traditional practices in “open” high-kill shelters typically run as a component of community “animal control,” the no-kill movement can appear radically idealistic; that is, until you look at the case facts across the country.

We even have some shining examples here in South Carolina, most notably in Spartanburg County where they have a “save rate” of 90 percent. That means they have virtually eliminated the routine killing of healthy dogs and cats in their county shelter.

How, you ask? The “10 Points of the No-Kill Equation” does a good job of summing up the road to success:

  1. Feral Cat Trap/Neuter/Release (TNR) Program 

  2. High-Volume, Low-Cost Spay/Neuter

  3. Rescue Group's Transfers
  
  4. Foster Care

  5. Comprehensive Adoption Programs 
      (including off-site adoptions)   
  
  6. Pet Retention Programs

  7. Medical and Behavior Prevention/
      Rehabilitation Programs 

  8. Public Relations/Community Involvement

  9. Volunteers

  10. Proactive Redemptions

With the efforts Aiken County Animal Services has begun in recent years, primarily through their partnership with Friends of the Animal Shelter Inc. (FOTAS), and the opening of the new County Animal Shelter next month, the time has never been better for the county to rally to the No-Kill challenge.

The team from Shelter Animal Advocates is doing their part and invites animal enthusiasts, and animal novices throughout the county to get involved. The support this group offers to those willing to provide guaranteed short-term (roughly two weeks) foster care is amazing.

“Our goal is to deliver healthy, socialized, highly adoptable dogs to our rescue partners. We follow ‘our dogs' closely when they leave our care, and only work with partner rescues who will update us on the dog's progress towards final adoption,” said Mary Lou.

The group provides everything you could think of to achieve the goal of matching great dogs with great homes: good quality food, vaccines and medicine, toys, leashes and collars, all treatments for parasites, training, 24/7 support, veterinary care, transportation and a support network. The foster volunteers get to choose the dog they will foster and become the guardian angel that stewards the lucky candidate to its new life.

Shelter Animal Advocates are leading the way for Aiken County to join Spartanburg and Greenville county shelters in the No Kill Nation. 

If you are an animal-lover, and you want a dose of real purpose in your life, they have made it very easy to become part of the transformation. For more information, call Mary Lou at the Aiken Foster Network hotline: 803- 275-0841 or email her at MaryLou@paws4nokill.org. You will be on the right side of history. 

A retired organizational problem-solver and radical educator, Joya Jiménez DiStefano is an artist, Servant Leader, co-founder of FOTAS, and founder of PAWS, Inc.

www.PAWS4NoKill.org

info@paws4nokill.org

www.facebook.com/PAWS4nokill.org

twitter.com/Paws4NoKill 

pinterest.com/paws4nokill

instagram.com/PAWS4SNYP

The County Vet Tech’s View

Aiken County Animal Advocates

THE VOICE OF PAWS

(Palmetto Animal Welfare Services, Inc.)

By Joya DiStefano


“The one thing about this job,” she began, “is that you can never get up thinking you are going to the same old job.”

Sandy Larsen is a senior vet tech at the Aiken County Animal Shelter.

She may arrive at the gate early in the morning and find a box full of kittens or puppies or a dog tied to the fence.

The gate is on heavily trafficked Wire Road, where the speed limit is 55 mph. Sometimes the box is empty, or the leash chewed in half. Maybe the temperature dipped into the 20s that night. This is how a workday may begin.

Sandy remembers when the shelter was built and meant to hold 100 animals.
The number impounded at the shelter this October was 467; the previous October was 485, and the October before that was 491.

In the last 10 years, only October 2007 saw the intake number under 400 at 362.
Otherwise, the average for Octobers is 450 animals, the last three years being the highest of four in 10 years.

Intake is much higher from April to August.

What does a veterinary technician do in this environment? Nearly everything, except bring the animals to the County Shelter.

If Sandy’s week starts on Monday, she is up at o’dark-thirty to come and get the been-here-too-long-pet-of-the-week and take it on television.

She has not missed a Monday in years. Her spot airs at 6 a.m.

“Sometimes I have even brought that box of abandoned puppies or kittens to show what some people will do.”

SANDY LARSEN

At the shelter, first task daily is to check the dogs on “the adoption floor;” the current shelter does not actually have a separate wing like the new shelter will provide.

There is a wire gate separating the “5-day holds” from the adoptable animals, all sharing the same air, the same open drainage trenches, the same smells and sounds.

“We check the floor for kennel cough and diarrhea, and medicate accordingly,” said Sandy.
Next, the 5-day holds are reviewed so see who might be eligible to move up to the adoption floor on a space-available basis. These candidates will be checked for heartworm.

If positive, they are not eligible for adoption and will be euthanized if a rescue cannot be located who will take them.

If negative, they get wormed and shots and another chance at a good home.

The strays with mange, the cats with upper respiratory infections (URIs), the dogs disabled by age or injury find their final rest in the compassionate hands of a vet tech like Sandy.
The two county vet techs field calls from the foster families calling with health concerns for puppies or kittens in their care.

And before the county added a custodian position a year ago, they supervised the county inmates who work cleaning and feeding and dong the routine maintenance, if anything can be called routine in such an overcrowded, understaffed facility.

Three days a week, people who’ve adopted puppies and kittens bring their pets back to be spayed and neutered.

The vet techs assist the county vet with surgeries Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They order and maintain records on all medications, for the sick, surgery and those being fostered.

They do paperwork for intake, adoptions, transfers and disposal. They help volunteers keep the Petfinder website up to date. And for 6.5 hours a day the doors are open to the public.

The dog-walker volunteers arrive and want to know who got adopted since they were last there.

“What happened to Jake, or Millie, this one, or that one? They know all the dogs so well,” Sandy said with appreciation.

Things have changed in Sandy Larsen’s world since Friends of the Animal Shelter helped establish the volunteer, foster and transfer programs beginning in 2009.

Referring to the recent adoption special for November, “Back-in-Black really helped with adoptions,” Sandy said.

A lot has changed for a shelter staff that saw only 265 animals re-homed out of 5,717 impounded in FY04.

In FY13, 1,581 animals were either adopted or transferred out of 4,794 impounded. Or put another way, in 2004 less than 5 percent of the impounded animals were saved; last year it was 33 percent.

Tired after another long day in another busy week, Sandy turned to a particular heartbreak.
Hard to bear that people will abandon helpless pets, unwanted and unnecessary puppies and kittens, but worst of all for Sandy are those who sacrifice their elderly pets saying, “I don’t like this dog anymore.” “I just don’t want it,” because it can’t do what it once could, because it doesn’t suit their needs.

“We live in a world where everything is so disposable,” Sandy says sadly thinking that, if she retires, she may give one or two of these seniors a very loving home.

Aiken County and our animals are blessed to have public servants like Sandy Larsen.


A retired organizational problem-solver and radical educator, Joya Jiménez DiStefano is an artist, Servant Leader, and co-founder of FOTAS, Inc.