In the intricate web of animal welfare, the journey towards finding loving homes for shelter animals often encounters roadblocks in the form of behavioral challenges. These challenges, ranging from fear and anxiety to undesirable behaviors, can significantly hinder an animal’s chances of adoption and long-term success in a home environment. However, within the constraints of under-budgeted and under-staffed shelters, lies an opportunity for innovation, resourcefulness, and unwavering dedication to the well-being of every animal in our care. Let us embark on a transformative exploration of behavioral rehabilitation, uncovering the strategies and principles that empower shelters to nurture the minds and transform the lives of shelter animals. Continue reading “The Power of Behavioral Rehabilitation in Under-Budgeted and Under-Staffed Shelters”
Innovative Approaches to Medical Rehabilitation: Incremental Veterinary Care
Understanding Incremental Veterinary Care in the Shelter Environment
At its core, incremental veterinary care is a case management strategy that empowers shelter veterinarians to make informed decisions about the allocation of limited resources based on the individual needs of each patient and the overall welfare of the shelter population. This approach acknowledges the inherent financial constraints of shelters while prioritizing the well-being of the animals under their care. Continue reading “Innovative Approaches to Medical Rehabilitation: Incremental Veterinary Care”
Unleashing Hope: Building Thriving Foster Care Networks
In the realm of animal welfare, few strategies possess the transformative potential and cost-effectiveness of foster programs for under-budgeted and short-staffed shelters. Foster care networks, when cultivated strategically and with community engagement at the forefront, have the power to alleviate overcrowding, reduce stress on shelter animals, and amplify the impact of shelters in their mission to save lives. Let’s explore the nuances of establishing and expanding foster care networks, unlocking their potential to become a cornerstone of compassionate animal care. Continue reading “Unleashing Hope: Building Thriving Foster Care Networks”
What to do with newborn kittens in your yard by Ed Boks
It happens every spring! Local animal shelters receive many kittens too young to survive more than an hour or two without a mother. These kittens are called “neonates.” Sadly, most of the neonate kittens taken in are orphans. People find these babies in their garage, barn, flowerbeds and many other places where the mother felt safe from predators and intruders while she gave birth.
Understandably, some people feel they are helping neonate kittens when they bring them to the local shelter. Actually, they are putting these little lives at tremendous risk because euthanasia may be the only way a shelter can save these babies from suffering an agonizing death by starvation. Continue reading “What to do with newborn kittens in your yard by Ed Boks”
What to do when you find newborn kittens in your yard by Ed Boks
Each spring animal shelters receive many kittens too young to survive more than an hour or two without a mother. These kittens are called “neonates.” Sadly, most of the neonate kittens that shelters takes in are orphans. People find these babies in their garage, barn, flowerbeds and many other places where the mother felt safe from predators and intruders while she gave birth.
Understandably, some people feel they are helping neonate kittens when they bring them to a shelter. Actually, they are putting these little lives at tremendous risk because euthanasia may be the only way a shelter can save them from suffering an agonizing death by starvation.
To avoid such a horrible fate, leave neonate kittens where you find them; they are not abandoned – and momma cat is their best guarantee of survival.
A momma cat, called a queen, will sometimes leave her offspring to find food or water for herself. She will return to care for them – but when her kittens are taken away from her, they have no chance to survive without significant human intervention.
Healthy weaned kittens are quickly adopted. So anything we can do to help neonates reach full “kitten-hood” (8 weeks) improves their chance of eventually finding a loving home. The best way to help neonate kittens is to leave them with mom until they are old enough to survive on their own before bringing them to a shelter.
Despite this advice, many neonate kittens still find their way to animal shelters every year. So, each year animal shelters prepare for this influx by recruiting volunteers willing to help these innocents survive by joining what I call, the Baby Bottle Brigade. Ideally, local shelters train their Baby Bottle Brigade volunteers to foster these babies at home until they are old enough to be spayed or neutered and placed for adoption.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “foster” as providing parental care and nurture to children not related through legal or blood ties. State Law defines “adoptable animals” as animals 8 weeks of age or older; which means these little orphans have no legal standing. In fact, most shelters don’t even count neonates in their euthanasia statistics. At shelters I am associated with, we report the outcome of every animal, because we believe every animal counts. Most animal shelters do their best to provide loving care and nurture even to these lost souls with whom we have no legal or blood ties.
The problem is that animal shelters can’t save them all by themselves. They need our help. Depending on the age of the neonates, they may require four to eight weeks of intense foster care. Though many dedicated shelter employees help foster neonates above and beyond their daily job duties, many kittens will not survive without your help. If you are willing and able to help save these lives, most animal shelters will provide the training, support and supplies you need to be a successful foster parent.
This is a big commitment and a true test of our compassion. Even with our best efforts, not all foster babies will survive. But they can all be loved. These babies need to be bottle fed every two hours around the clock for several weeks – making this the perfect family, club, or faith-based organizational project. Fostering helpless neonates is an ideal way to foster compassion and respect for the true value and sanctity of all life in our community.
Have you saved a life today? Join the Baby Bottle Brigade in your community and experience the satisfaction that comes from being a foster parent and saving a life.
Source: What to do when you find newborn kittens in your yard
Feline Immunodeficiency Virus nothing to fear by Ed Boks
This week I want to feature Portia, a 4-year-old domestic short hair with a spice for life; described by those who know her as cool, calm, confident, playful and a joy to be around. She is mellow enough to get along with a cat-savvy dog and respectful children.
Portia has had many suitors in her two months in the shelter, but potential adopters quickly lost interest when they learned she has feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). Continue reading “Feline Immunodeficiency Virus nothing to fear by Ed Boks”
Calling all fosters by Ed Boks
There is a fundamental tenet held among most animal welfare and animal rights advocates that we accept as incontrovertible. That precept was perhaps best articulated by Mahatma Gandhi when he said, “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress is best judged by how we treat our animals”. This principle expresses the belief that when a community is compassionate enough to care about the needs of its animals there can be a reasonable expectation that the bar is raised on how we care and treat one another.
The reverse is also true. If we can dismiss the needs of our animals it becomes easier to dismiss the needs of our infirmed, aged, and needy human populations. Caring about animals serves as the ultimate litmus test for determining a community’s capacity for compassion.
This test is applied to the City of Los Angeles every day, but never more than in the spring and summer months.
Spring is the beginning of kitten season in Los Angeles. In 2008 LA Animal Services took in over 7,300 neonate kittens. Neonate means too young to survive for more than an hour or two without a mother. Sadly, most of the neonate kittens we take in are orphans. People find these babies in their garage, flowerbeds, and many other places where the mother felt safe from predators and intruders while she gave birth. Property owners find these crying babies within hours or days of birth and bring them to our Centers without the mother. Taken away from their mother they have no chance at survival without significant human intervention.
Neonate kittens represent over one-third of all the cats taken in by the Department. They also represent over 35% of all the cats euthanized and over 21% of our euthanasia rate in 2008. One in three cats and one in five animals euthanized in LA is a neonate kitten. On the up side, most of our healthy weaned kittens get adopted. So anything we can do to help our neonates reach full “kittenhood” improves the odds of their eventually finding a loving home.
Kitten season in Los Angeles starts around the end of March and lasts through September when it starts to slowly decline over October and November. That means now is the time for everyone wanting to help end the killing of these innocents to contact LA Animal Services to either volunteer to foster a litter of kittens or to make a donation to help others willing to make this commitment.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “foster” as providing parental care and nurture to children not related through legal or blood ties. If Gandhi viewed animals in general as the first rung on the compassion ladder then these little creatures must be considered the least of the least. They can be so easily overlooked and forgotten. In fact, California State Law defines “adoptable animals” as only those animals eight weeks of age or older; which means these little orphans have no legal standing in the State of California. They don’t even have to be counted in the City’s no-kill goal. Nonetheless, they are because we understand that our moral progress depends on our providing adequate care and nurture to these living souls with whom we have no legal or blood ties.
The problem is that we can’t save them all by ourselves. We need your help. During kitten season LA Animal Services can take in over 80 neonate orphans a day, over 2500 in some months. Depending on their age they may require four to 8 weeks of intense foster care. Though dozens of our dedicated employees volunteer to foster neonate litters above and beyond their daily duties, the majority will not survive without the additional help of members of the public willing to step up to the challenge. They will not survive without your help. If you are able and willing to help save these lives, LA Animal Services will provide the training, support and supplies you need to be a successful foster parent.
This is a big commitment and a true test of our compassion. Even with our best efforts not all foster babies survive. But they can all be loved. These babies need to be bottle fed every two hours around the clock for several weeks; making this the perfect family, club, or faith based organizational project. Fostering helpless neonates is an ideal way to foster compassion and respect for the true value and sanctity of all life in our community.
Have you saved a life today? Make a commitment to volunteer as a Baby Bottle Foster Parent. Our kittens are hoping you do!
What “transparency” looks like by Ed Boks
LA Animal Services is one of the few, if not the only, animal control program in the United States that posts and updates a comprehensive set of statistics every month.
In fact, LA Animal Services was recognized by The Maddie’s Fund, the well known pet rescue foundation established in 1999 to help fund the creation of a no-kill nation, for our “transparency,” (i.e., the ready availability of information to the public). Of the over 5200 animal control programs in the United States and the tens of thousands humane societies and other animal welfare organizations, Maddie’s identified only five organizations for their transparency. LA Animal Services was at the top of this list and was the only municipal animal control program recognized.
Over the past six years, LA Animal Services has been able to boast one of the most impressive records for reducing pet euthanasia as a methodology for controlling pet overpopulation in the nation.
However, the first quarter statistics for 2008 have recently been posted, and they are disappointing. Despite the fact that live placements (adoptions, New Hope placements, and redemption’s) continue to rise to unprecedented levels historically and unequaled levels nationally (27,565 in the past 12 months for a 59% live release rate [70% for dogs and 44% for cats]) the euthanasia level also rose.
There are many possible reasons for this increase, and it is important that we understand all of them if we are to address and correct this anomaly as a community going forward.
Preface
1. I want to preface this discussion by reminding everyone that LA Animal Services’ statistics showing increased euthanasia and animal intakes during the first quarter of 2008 demonstrates that the department does not “fudge the data” or “manipulate the process to spin the numbers” as some critic’s suggest.
2. A second preface is to acknowledge that we at LA Animal Services are as disappointed with these results as are our critics. To have both the intake and kill rates drift upward in four of our shelters over the past quarter is not acceptable and we are taking steps to reverse this disturbing trend.
To be fair, it should be understood that when you normalize* the statistics and compare the intake statistics to the euthanasia rates in the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2007 there was only a 1.49% increase in euthanasia.
But no matter how you assess the numbers, everyone agrees that no increase in euthanasia is desirable, and we will continue to do everything we can to return to our long standing trend of reducing the killing. As was explained in my last message, we have hit the proverbial “wall” and will need the help of the entire animal loving community going forward.
(* Normalization is the process of removing statistical error in repeated measured data. For us, that means comparing the euthanasia rate relative to a fluctuating intake rate.)
3. Statistics do not exist in a vacuum and there are reasons why things are as they are, some reasons are more subject to department control than are others. The bottom line, however, is that there is a lot of work to do and hysteria, hand-wringing and finger pointing does not save lives.
Operational Circumstances
4. The department recently completed a major shelter management reassignment that has impacted almost every shelter. This was done to match the abilities of some of our most experienced managers with jobs we feel they can do well. These changes bring with them adjustment periods as managers learn about their newly assigned, and in some cases, newly opened facilities. These managers must determine how they want to tackle the many challenges they face in their respective shelters. I will soon announce the selection of a new Assistant General Manager of Operations who will work directly with them on these challenges. In the meantime, we started posting statistics by shelter in the hope this information will help the community better target its resources to help the animals most at risk.
LA Animal Services opened three new facilities in the last ten months and we are scheduled to open two more in the next three months. This is the fastest and largest increase of any City Department in LA City history and represents a significant learning curve during a time of intense scrutiny and fiscal instability.
5. Center managers are responsible for determining the optimal animal capacity for their shelter. This is a delicate balance between wanting to save lives and not wanting to be perceived as “warehousing” animals. If a shelter experiences a short-term surge in new arrivals, it could lead to an urgent need to move more animals out of the shelter one way or another. Unfortunately, when that doesn’t happen via adoption, New Hope rescue, or transfer of animals within our shelter system or partnering shelter systems, it’s likely to happen via euthanasia.
Adoptions and Rescues
6. There is a spirited national debate going on about whether shelters can “adopt their way” to No-Kill status. Perhaps we can, but it takes the whole community working together. As noted earlier, adoptions at LAAS shelters were also up during the first quarter of 2008 and, on a month-over-month basis, has been up for 12 consecutive months by a range of from 10-30% depending on the month. That is encouraging.
7. The numbers of dogs and cats placed by our wonderful New Hope rescue partners during the first quarter of ‘08 is up by about 5% over last year. This is also encouraging coming after a year in which New Hope rescue placements were down. Our New Hope partners do all they can to help save animals but sometimes they run out of capacity too, so any month when they are able to increase the number of transfers that is a plus.
8. Increasing animal adoptions can be a challenge when the most easy-to-adopt animals, such as puppies, kittens and purebreds, are scooped up almost immediately after they come into the shelters. That leaves the harder to adopt big and older dogs, so-called aggressive breeds and injured or sick animals that place a larger burden on the casual would-be adopter.
These animals must be marketed more aggressively and creatively, and the simple fact is that marketing is not our strong suit at the moment. We don’t have a public relations staff, nor do we have a volunteer coordinator at the moment to run our mobile adoption program. These tasks are being done on an ad hoc basis by extraordinary employees whose primary responsibilities lie elsewhere.
We’ve been struggling to find a new PR person and volunteer coordinator through the City’s civil service system and have yet to turn up a suitable candidate with the requisite experience and skills. We’ll keep trying to rectify that as soon as we can, and under the new pressures of a deficit-driven City hiring freeze. But in the meantime, getting the word out about our shelter animals, and getting those animals out to a wider public, remains a challenge. The importance of doing so, however, was made very clear by the 52% jump in adoptions at our shelters in the week following Oprah Winfrey’s April 4 show on puppy mills which featured our South LA Animal Care Center.
Riester Ad Agency has generously donated a series of adoption campaign ads that are downloadable from our website. LA Animal Services asks everyone with access to a neighborhood newspaper, LA animal blog, local or business bulletin board to help us get the word out by posting these ads.
Intakes
9. Some have pointed to the first quarter upsurge in intakes as indicative of some systemic failure on the department’s part, though they offer no logical explanation for this allegation. It is impossible at this point to know if this increase in intakes is a reversal of a long standing trend or if it is a short term reaction to the recent housing market collapse.
To be sure, we are dealing with a unique phenomenon this year – widely documented in the media – and that is the unprecedented upsurge in pet relinquishment’s resulting from families losing their homes to foreclosures or evictions. Many are finding that they are unable to afford to keep their pets or, alternately, to find a new home they can afford where pets are allowed. Intakes system wide were up by 447 animals in March 2008 over March 2007, and it makes sense that housing and economic displacement contributed substantially to that increase. People leaving their pets at our shelters have made that clear. The solution: A House is not a Home without a Pet program.
10. Spring and early summer is traditionally a problem for every animal shelter, as kitten and puppy season brings more neonates through our doors. Hundreds of orphaned neonate kittens are taken in every month at this time of year, and they are the primary focus of our life saving efforts. They require careful around-the-clock care that no shelter is equipped to provide, either in terms of facilities or available staff. Dozens of staff members have, however, stepped up to take on the challenge of fostering litters of kittens, as have more than 100 volunteers, but if a dedicated caregiver can’t be found for an orphaned litter of neonate kittens, they will probably be euthanized. We don’t make excuses for this, and we welcome every new volunteer foster caregiver we can recruit.
It should be understood that LA Animal Services is not the only organization in the greater LA region facing this crisis. All our sister jurisdictions and rescue partners are inundated with hundreds of neonate kittens at the same time. We are all exhausting our limited resources as we take in, care for, and try to place these animals.
11. Apart from a regularization of the real estate market which is probably a number of months away, one thing that must be done to arrest this trend is to create more opportunities for people to keep their pets when they have to move. The local humane community has been discussing this issue and is working on ideas that might help, including providing landlords with financial indemnification against pet-related damage, and/or other incentives that would motivate them to allow pets in the units they own and manage. In a city where 62% of the residents are tenants, increasing the availability of pet-friendly rental units is an issue that deserves much more attention than it is getting.
Spay/Neuter
12. Some blame the upsurge in intakes on the department’s alleged failure to spay and neuter everything in sight, as if that were possible. But LA Animal Services is doing what it can, and may well lead the nation’s shelters in our commitment to provide spay/neuter as a tool for reducing pet overpopulation.
With the generous support of the Mayor and City Council, we’re able to fund upwards of 40,000 surgeries a year, using our two currently operational spay/neuter clinics, the Amanda Foundation and Sam Simon Foundation mobile clinics, and the network of private veterinarians who take our discount vouchers.
As this is written, we have a Request for Proposals (RFP) soliciting operators for the five new spay/neuter clinics nearing completion in our new shelters. Additionally, others in the humane community who have an interest in spay/neuter are preparing to launch new community-based spay/neuter efforts in and around Los Angeles.
The City’s pioneering spay/neuter ordinance that became law on April 8th is already generating a surge in voluntary compliance at various clinics. We have begun to gear up the information and enforcement efforts that will be needed to make the ordinance effective and we expect it to generate results that will become clear in our statistics over the next few years.
13. All that being said, we definitely have not been able to sterilize all the feral and stray cats we want. This is because of a lawsuit threat from an environmental group opposed to the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) methodology used to control feral and stray cat populations in many locales, including cities contiguous to Los Angeles. This has forced LA Animal Services to undertake a lengthy environmental study process before trying to establish a formal TNR program here. This could take up to another year to accomplish.
In the meantime, valiant community TNR volunteers do what they can to manage the problem in various locations, but untended, unsterilized stray cats can undo much of the progress these diligent volunteers achieve. Many of the neonate litters we see come from this source and, absent the ability for the department to legally conduct TNR, unadoptable feral adults and their kittens will continue to account for hundreds, if not thousands, of the unfortunate cats who are euthanized every year.
Finally…
14. I don’t offer these explanations as excuses for what we have experienced in our shelters so far in 2008. We share the frustrations of the entire humane community when statistics don’t trend positive, and we should be held accountable when all is said and done. But our larger job is to bring the community together to find solutions, to seek new resources when the City budget can’t provide them, and find new ways to overcome the challenges few communities have ever had to face on the scale we see in Los Angeles.
We hope to soon gather the community together to try to do just that. We will continue to work on identifying new resources to help us meet the challenges posed by the spay/neuter law, make more homes welcoming to pets, get the word out that big, older dogs and neonate kittens make lovable pets, and provide adopters with the support they need to ensure that is the case.
If you would like to help, please consider joining our Volunteer Program or make a donation towards one of our many life saving programs.
Help LA Avoid a Cat-Tastrophe by Ed Boks
LA Animal Services is calling upon all Angelenos to help the City of Angels reach a No-Kill status. During this time of year LA’s Animal Care Centers are inundated with lost and homeless cats. These cats have little chance of survival unless loving Angelenos find room in their heart and homes to adopt a cat or two. Cats are social animals and two are always better than one!
Many cats coming into our Animal Care Centers are orphaned neonate kittens; kittens too young to survive without their mother unless they are cared for by a foster care giver. LA Animal Services is asking for people unable to adopt a cat to consider caring for these young ones until they are old enough to be placed through adoption. Fostering orphaned kittens is a great family project. It teaches our kids the value of life and the importance of caring. It also demonstrates how we can all make a difference.
For more information on LA Animal Services Foster Care Program click on this link.
IMPLEMENTING THE NO-KILL EQUATION IN LOS ANGELES – Part IV: Foster Care
This is the fourth posting in a series of messages responding to the recommendations of the “No-Kill Equation”. The “No-Kill Equation” is comprised of ten commonsense, long-standing practices embraced and implemented by LA Animal Services with remarkable success.
This analysis compares the “No-Kill Equation” to LA’s programs and practices. Today’s message focuses on the fourth recommendation of the “No-Kill Equation,” which is Foster Care.
The Ten “No-Kill Equation” Recommendations are:
1. Feral Cat TNR Program
2. High Volume/Low-Cost Spay/Neuter
3. Rescue Groups
4. Foster Care
5. Comprehensive Adoption Program
6. Pet Retention
7. Medical and Behavioral Rehabilitation
8. Public Relations/Community Involvement
9. Volunteers
10. A Compassionate Director
The “No-Kill Equation” is in this font.
The analysis is in this black italic font.
IV. Foster Care
Foster care is crucial to No Kill. Without it, saving lives is compromised. It is a low cost, and often no cost, way of increasing a shelter’s capacity, improving public relations, increasing a shelter’s public image, rehabilitating sick and injured or behaviorally challenged animals, and saving lives.At some point in time, nearly every animal shelter feels the pinch of not having enough space. A volunteer foster program can be an ideal low-cost way to greatly increase the number of lives a shelter can save while at the same time providing an opportunity for community members to volunteer. Not only does a foster program maximize the number of animals rescued, it allows an organization to care for animals who would be difficult to care for in a shelter environment—orphaned or feral kittens, sick or injured animals, or dogs needing one-on-one behavior rehabilitation. For animals who may need a break from the shelter environment, foster care provides a comfortable home setting that keeps animals happy and healthy.
Ed’s Analysis: LA Animal Services has long sought the participation of volunteer foster care providers. Since 2006 it has actively recruited new caregivers and now has a network of more than 100 foster caregivers providing care to both adult animals and neonates. Most caregivers are recruited from the community while some are Department employees. Some of these caregivers also provide unique foster care for so-called evidence animals being held while animal abuse allegations are investigated and other legal proceedings are ongoing. The Department actively encourages more volunteers to join in providing these valuable services. As a result, in 2007 LA Animal Services’ foster program reduced the euthanasia rate for neonate kittens by sixty-two percent and hundreds of animals benefited from the foster care volunteers provide.
LA Animal Services regularly fosters the following types of animals: orphaned neonates, nursing mothers, ill and injured, unattractive, and under-socialized animals. An example of an “unattractive” animal is a severely matted dog that has been shaved. The animal may not have a healthy, shiny coat that attracts adopters until he’s spent a few weeks in a foster home. This will give the animal a much greater chance of being adopted. “Under-socialized” fosters include animals that may not adjust well to a shelter environment. They may just need the comforts of a home environment, with training or socialization. After some time in foster care, these animals are perfect candidates for off-site adoption events.
Department Foster Care Givers are provided hands on foster care training and support documents, dedicated staff to assist and/or answer questions in person or by phone and email, replacement milk, bottles, nipples, regular veterinary check ups, access to emergency veterinary services, home medication as needed, flea combs, etc.
LA Animal Services’ Evidence Animal Foster Program is an innovation not found in any other community we are aware of. Animal victims of cruelty can sometimes languish in animal shelters for months awaiting adjudication of their case. The Evidence Foster Program allows these animals to recover from their traumatic experience in the warmth of a loving family home.