Have you ever experienced losing a pet?

[Dennis Money]

As a pet owner, life long pet lover, an animal advocate, and a former manager of the SPCA of Wake County I know what it feels like to lose a pet. I also know what it feels like to find a lost animal and not be able to locate the owner. Conversely, I have also experienced the "high" that you feel when you see a pet and its owner reconnect. It is an amazing feeling--a high that you never want to come down from.

The emotions I speak of combined with the financial impact on the pet owner, the community, and the nation are but two of the reasons I am starting a non-profit organization to address the issue of lost and found animals. Our goals will include quickly reuniting lost animals with their owners, but even before that happens we must educate. There is important information that everyone in our community, pet owner and non-owner alike, should know. Small details that could determine if you will ever see your pet again if it is lost.

One such detail is what our state says is an appropriate hold time for stray animals. Every state determines how long a shelter must hold a "stray" animal before it can be adopted to a new owner or be sacrificed. In North Carolina that mandatory hold time is three business days! If your pet were to show up at a shelter in this state they only have to hold it three full days after which time it is termed "abandoned" and legally becomes the property of the holding institution. If you had the presence of mind to check the local shelter(s) but decided to wait a few days because "he has gotten out before, and he always comes home," it is conceivable that your pet could have been there but is now gone. There are some communities that extend that 3-day rule, but they are few and far between, and their "extension" is an additional two or three days at best. As the owner, you are usually able to reclaim your pet after the 3-day window if it is still in the facility. The harsh reality is that 55-60% of the animals that enter a shelter locally are not reunited with their owners, not adopted by new owners, and are not redirected to area rescue groups. Locally 55-60% of the animals that enter the shelter system never have that opportunity. Their lives end there! And as bad as that sounds, nationally the numbers are closer to 70%!

There are many shelters across our state and I would guess that most of them are challenged by the numbers of animals that come through their facilities. There are considerably more animals than there are adopters,
and given that space and resources are finite numbers, something has to be done with the excess. There are dozens of animal rescue groups in the Triangle Area and very probably a few hundred across the state who
take it upon themselves to help in this effort, but that still isn't enough. Low cost spay/neuter programs have helped tremendously, but still in Wake County alone over 10,000 animals each year are viewed as excess. Over 10,000 animals each year are sacrificed for the greater good of our local community. Nationally, that number is estimated to be between 3 and 4 million, but could be much higher!

I mentioned earlier that I am a former shelter manager for the SPCA of Wake County. I understand, intimately,
the process. I understand the reasons. I also applaud animal shelters, animal control departments, and rescue groups for the work they do. I also admonish the general and pet owning public for making this work necessary. Regardless of what we think or feel about sacrificing animals, these individuals and organizations have accepted the challenge to help the animals and to help us in the community to the best of their abilities--which often means to the limits of their resources.


Will you help us to help you, to help our community, and to help our nation?

We are starting a non-profit that will address the issue of lost animals by creating awareness of the situation and by implementing programs that will more quickly reunite lost pets and their owners. We recently started a community aluminum recycling program to help fund our organization's efforts and, we would appreciate your involvement and support.

Let us know your thoughts. If you are interested and able we would appreciate your help. But simply giving your feedback will help us to address a situation that has been impacting each and every one of us for a very long time.

[Terri Voltz]

Dennis, I have been a dog owner/lover for years. I liked your article. I did not know that Wake County had a 3 day rule. I thought the shelter near us was a "No Kill" shelter, although I do know that after so much time they run out of options.

I have seen some organizations that created a phone chain when a lost pet was located within a certain area code. This may be something your non-profit can help introduce in our area. Also, tell me more about your aluminun recyling program. I would like to help.

Terri

[Dennis Money]

Hello Terri, Thank you for reading my blog, and thank you for your comments and the phone chain idea.

I don't know where you live, but we have a number of shelters here in Wake County. The two largest are the SPCA of Wake County (in the South Raleigh/Garner area) and the Wake County Shelter (in East Raleigh). There are dozens of animal rescue groups in the area that can loosely be called animal shelters. Two rescues, Safe Haven for Cats and Second Chance Pet Adoptions, both have adoption facilities and are a more true fit for the term shelter. The SPCA, Safe Haven, and Second Chance are all no kill facilities.

Our recycling program is very simple concept. Local governments are requiring that we all recycle. We are asking our friends, our neighbors, our volunteers, and anyone who will listen to go one step further and save their *aluminum cans for US instead of giving them to the city. We ask our recyclers to save them in large plastic bags, and when contacted we will gladly make arrangements to pick up the bags.
*All cans are not made of aluminum. Fruits, vegetables, and meats are typically packaged in tin cans. Beer, soda/soft drinks, energy drinks, and most brands of canned cat food, are packaged in aluminum.

There are a number of ways in which a person can help our effort.

We are looking for:
Recyclers willing to save their cans.
Volunteers with trucks or trailers to haul the cans.
Volunteers to serve as Area Leaders to coordinate the pick up days.
Promoters who will share our mission with the aluminum discarding public.
We are also searching for retail locations where we can display appropriately sized signage explaining our mission and our program.

If you'd like more information don't hesitate to call me. I can be reached at Guardian Angel Home & Pet Care 919-981-4706.

Thanks again for your time and interest.
Best regards,
Dennis

[Dennis Money]

Who out there believes in Karma?

I posted this blog on Friday, July 30th, and on Saturday, July 31st I found another cat! Friendly, well cared for, even had a collar... but no tags! It was 10:00 pm and even though I was in a neighborhood other than my own I started knocking on doors. I did not find his owners that night. On my way home I stopped by Quail Corners Animal Hospital--they offer 24-hour emergency services, and were the closest place I could have the cat scanned to see if it had a microchip. Darn it--No chip either!! Immediately upon returning home I posted the kitty's information on Craig's List under lost & found. I returned to the N. Raleigh neighborhood yesterday afternoon and posted flyers around the subdivision where I found the cat. I was preparing to contact the SPCA of Wake County, the Wake County Shelter, and the News and Observer to place ads and lost reports this morning.

At 7:53 am my phone rang, and a woman said "I saw your sign, and I think you may have my cat." She explained that she started to worry when the cat didn't come home on Saturday, and that now, a day and a half later, her daughter was becoming frantic.

After a few questions I was able to determine that the cat that I had probably was her cat. I went to meet her at 9:30 this morning, and it was obvious that the cat was hers. Family reunited and everyone happy!

I am happy to be one of the many who invest their time, their energy, and their money to make these reunions, because I don't want to see these animals end up wandering the streets to become sick, injured, or even possibly dead. Lost animals like this one might make their way to a shelter or into an animal rescue group but then more time, more energy, and more money would go into feeding them, housing them, caring for their injuries or illnesses, and then finding them a new home. In many, many cases this potentially huge investment of time and resources could be saved, or at least minimized, if $10 had been spent for an ID Tag, or $40-50 for a microchip. This kitty could have been home within an hour of the time I found it if it had proper identification!

Please take a moment to make sure that your pets have some form of identification on them, and please make sure the information is current. Your happiness and your pet's life could depend on it!

[Leslie Flowers]

Ha Dennis, you KNOW I do!

I have a question. What is a fair amount of time for animals to be held? And what can we do to extend the 3 days? Petitions? Voting? Money? Guido the Thumb Breaker? : )

I loved every animal I've ever had. They don't have any LIMITING BELIEFS, Dennis! No B.S. They're my kinda folks!

[Dennis Money]

Leslie,

If I understand your question correctly you are asking my thoughts about a reasonable hold period for each animal entering the shelter system. You would also like to know how to go about extending the current 3 day hold time.

First, let me say that what you are about to read is my opinion. I base this on my experience of serving on Boards of Directors for an animal shelter and a rescue group and managing an animal shelter combined with my personal values.

I can identify for you five main categories of animals that end up in animal shelters; feral animals that have been caught or trapped, stray or lost animals that have been taken in by Animal Control or Good Samaritans, animals surrendered by their owners, animals being held as evidence in criminal cases, and injured wildlife. Most animal rescue groups and all No-Kill Shelters have the luxury of saying No when they are low on resources or have reached their holding capacity. They don't allow themselves to become over extended. They simply say “we’re full” until more space becomes available. Their goal is to provide to the best of their ability for the animals they have until they’re adopted. Once a pet is adopted and transitions to its new home that space is made available to the next lucky animal.

Conversely, open admissions shelters operate under a very different premise. It’s not just about providing care for the animals they see. They are also taking into consideration the animal community at large and the human communities in which they operate. If they only accepted what they could reasonably house, thousands of animals would continue to run free in our communities. Many of those animals are not altered and would continue to breed. Do you know that a pair of un-altered dogs can produce upwards of 20,000 puppies in 7 years, and that an un-altered pair of cats can be responsible for the births of 42,000 kittens in the same 7 year period through repetitive breeding and the subsequent breedings of their offspring?

The issue here is not about shelters not wanting to hold animals. It is about resources, or more often a lack of resources matched against an overwhelming number of animals that are in need of care. It is Us, the pet owning public who created this problem; it should be Us, the pet owning public who fix it. Until we become good stewards of our pets--and in my mind that means spaying or neutering all pets that are not meant for breeding, effectively restricting our pets to our home or property and not allowing them to wander hither and yon, and making sure that all owned animals have proper identification--there will continue to be this ongoing, desperate need for shelters and rescue groups to pick up our slack.
Uninformed and irresponsible pet owners have created this need for what I see as a modified waste disposal system. Courageous and compassionate people collect all the lost and discarded animals and do their best to house, heal, train, and eventually re-home as many pets as they can. Unfortunately, the supply is much, much greater than the demand, and many of these precious animals don’t get the favor of a second chance. On any given day they may be competing against dozens of other animals of their same species, breed, or type for the hand full of opportunities to stay at the shelter so they can eventually have a chance to be found by their owner or be adopted into a new home.

Nationally, spay-neuter programs have dramatically reduced the numbers of animals euthanized each year for an estimated 12-15 million in 1975 to approximately 3-4 million in 2007. Though the animal loving community can “feel better” about this huge reduction in animal sacrifice, in my opinion 3-4 million each year is still much too large a number-especially when many of the animals who are dying have owners who have not gone to the shelter to reclaim them.

In our county we average between 10,000 and 11,000 euthanasias each year. That is after the minimum hold time of three business days and with many animals staying well beyond the mandatory hold period. Some of these animals remain in the shelters for weeks or even months before they are adopted or put to sleep. The cost to our community for this level of care is over $1.2 Million annually. That does not include the $0.8 to $1.0 million that goes toward the 7,000 to 8,000 animals that do get reclaimed, re-homed, or sent to supporting animal rescue groups. Over $2 Million each year goes toward the housing, care, adoptions, and euthanasia of animals in this county alone!

To answer your question--I don’t like the 3-day hold policy, but I understand it. There needs to be a standard—a structure in place that helps the community to manage this problem. Those three business days provide the pet owner an opportunity to visit the shelter and look for their missing pet. Once that time has passed the State deems the animal as “abandoned” and it becomes the property of the holding institution. As their property, the shelter now has the legal right to make decisions in the best interest of the animal and community at large.
No matter how large the shelter, no matter how much money and resources are available, unless a greater community effort is applied toward managing the lost, stray, and feral populations the community will lose. At some point the shelter will fill or reach the limit of its financial resources. Then the shelter must chose; euthanize to establish balance or stop accepting animals and put that responsibility on someone else.

The non-profit that I am starting will address our need as pet owners and responsible members of the community to insure that every owned pet has some form of identification and that the information on that identification is current. I believe that this one step, along with education, could reduce the number of animals euthanized each year by as much 50%! In our county alone that would save over 5000 animal lives and nearly $600,000 in revenue!