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?
These are tiny kittens, some as young as two weeks old. Dying by the dozens in our NYC shelters. At Pets Alive we simply could not stand by and watch that. With the help of volunteer, John Sibley, we went in and took 64 kittens (and mamas) out of the NYC shelter system and saved all their little tiny lives.
It is for reasons like this that New York needs a rescue access law like CAARA. CAARA would make it illegal for shelters to kill animals without giving rescues an opportunity to help.
How can it be that the three week old kitten was not even offered to rescue to help? How is it that these decisions – life and DEATH – can be made so arbitrarily? At what point do people stop seeing each of these tiny creatures as little lives? Little beings deserving a CHANCE at a life? The kitten was completely healthy. There was no reason to kill her.
Pets Alive is committed to stopping the killing of all animals in the shelter system. We took 64 cats and kittens in one shot. 64. Think about that number. 64 tiny babies never having a chance at a life. Why? Who decides these things? With CAARA they wouldn’t have a CHOICE but to let us have a chance to save them all. That is why Amy Paulin’s bill is worthless, because HER bill wouldn’t stop this. This is why we NEED to pass a law like CAARA. To save these delicate lives that some organizations may not care about.
And some of the workers at the CACC do care. Some of them send us emails or get on the phone and ask for help. They feature a dog or a cat and personally take the time to write something about that animal, what they know about that animal. They reach out. They take pictures of the animals being held by people, poignant, loving, affectionate. And what do they get for it? Reprimands. Termination. It is forbidden to take pictures of animals WITH people in them, even though all studies have shown that this can increase adoptability. It seems to us that any staff member there that starts to actually care a little, either has to hide it, or risk termination. We’ve been watching this happen for years. Why does this continue in NYC? When will we get some sort of leadership that cares?
And the lack of care is monstrous. As you know, we have taken dogs from the cacc where their bladders were not expressed and almost burst (Robert). We have taken a cat with a broken leg (Gloria) that was left to sit there for weeks without any care.
And now look at THIS cat. We have named her Mitzee. Her medical sheet says this cat has conjunctivitis. I’m no vet but even *I* can tell THIS is not plain old simple conjunctivitis. A week later, a vet examination notes a possible ruptured eye. Possible? A week later? But no pain meds? No drops? No ointment? I know this is grainy, but look at this kitten’s intake picture a week before. Look how bad the eyes looked THEN. Now look at them a WEEK later. Was there any CARE for them, any treatment?
This is an absolutely disgrace and this is what goes on in your NYC shelters. The BEST city, the most FAMOUS city, one of the RICHEST cities in the nation.
Pets Alive will work feverishly to provide medical care and find loving homes for all of the “Itty Bitty Kitties”. Half of the kittens are at the Middletown NY sanctuary, and half are being cared for at our Elmsford, NY rescue center.
Little Mitzee, the cat pictured above is at risk of going blind. Our vets feel that one of Mitzee’s eyes must be removed and the other needs daily care and possible surgery in order to save her vision, if indeed it can be saved. Could it have been saved a week ago when she entered into the Animal CARE and Control Facility in NYC?
Maybe.
Where is the “CARE” part of Animal CARE and Control??
One of the kittens has no foot. Almost all are sick with URI and various infections. One has already passed away from a massive blockage in her little intestines. Did the staff not notice that she was not defecating? Within less than 24 hours of having her, WE did. But by then it was too late and we lost her early this morning.
Please note that this is not some hoarder. We did not go in and do a mass rescue. This is the New York City Animal Care and Control Facility. YOUR NYC shelter.
The cost to Pets Alive to save this many lives, and handle the medical crisis, the vetting, the altering and the caring for all these cats will be astronomical. But THEY ARE WORTH IT. These little lives are WORTH saving and WORTH having a chance. Please help us. Pets Alive is asking for donations to help not only this little kitten have a chance at life, but to help cover costs for all 64 of these saved lives.
How To Help:
Financial donations are urgently needed to help provide continued care and medical treatment for the itty bitty kitties, including Mitzee, who is currently undergoing treatment to try to save her vision. To help provide care for them, donations of kitten food, toys, and scratching posts are also needed. Please also consider welcoming one into your home. They should all be in a home, being loved. Please fill out an application now to adopt an Itty Bitty Kitty.
Because THIS is the kind of life they have now. Now that they are with us. We take responsibility for all the animals in our care and we tend to all their needs. This is how every shelter should be run. Including the one in the most famous city in the world. Look at the BEFORE kittens on this page – from the CACC. And the AFTER kittens – at Pets Alive. Which do YOU think is the right way? Support no-kill. Support CAARA. Together, let’s put an end to this madness of murdering tiny creatures that haven’t even had a chance at life.
We are trying to pass legislation in NYS that would make this illegal. It would require the director to contact rescue groups and give them 8 hours to respond. Assembly Bill 07312 (CAARA) would empower non-profit animal rescue organizations to fulfill their missions, a right often denied to them by larger non-profit organizations and shelters. It provides whistleblower protection for rescue groups, creating an incentive for non-profit organizations to help end cruelty or neglect at shelters without fear of retaliation and loss of rescue access. It has specific provisions to ensure that these groups have the best interests of animals at heart and are able to care for them. And it prevents needless animal suffering by mandating precise, sensible, and objective criteria for determining which animals are dangerous or irremediably suffering and therefore exempt from rescue access provisions.
The bill will be voted on in the next week or two. Unfortunately, the ASPCA is trying to kill it, and the chair of the Assembly Agriculture Committee, William McGee, is willing to do their bidding by recommending that the bill be tabled. That will be the continued kiss of death for 25,000 animals a year who have an immediate place to go.
Please help us pass the Companion Animal Access & Rescue Act by Kellner. Use all three alerts to reach ALL members of the Assembly Ag Committee:
Be polite!
Use all three alerts to reach ALL members of the Assembly Ag Committee:
Alert #1 of 3: http://bit.ly/GJmNH9
Alert #2 of 3: http://bit.ly/GOUkwd
Alert #3 of 3: http://bit.ly/GHR7lW
Let’s stop the madness. And the murder.
Filed in
Animal Rescue,
Legislation,
No-kill by kerry on May 16, 2012. There are comments.
Sanctuary Animal Updates
It’s been a few months since my last update and boy have we been busy!! We had a very rough few months and due to budget constraints and a decreasing population of animals we made the very tough decision to lay off nearly a third of our staff in March. Since that time the remaining staff has been working extra hard to cover all the shifts. I am so thankful to them all for their tireless dedication, passionate devotion and extraordinary love for the animals in their care.
Intakes and Adoptions:
February: Intakes- 14 dogs, 22 cats and 0 rabbits
Adoptions- 36 dogs, 27 cats and 1 rabbits
March: Intakes- 45 dogs, 11 cats, and 1 rabbit
Adoptions- 38 dogs, 26 cats and 2 rabbits
April: Intakes- 45 dogs, 25 cats and 4 rabbits
Adoptions- 56 dogs, 15 cats, 4 rabbits
That’s a total of 205 adoptions in 3 months!
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Updates by kerry on May 09, 2012. There are comments.
Pets Alive Westchester supports their decision but needs YOUR help
It all started with pre-teen Lucinda, 12, who had been saving up for a place of her own for over a decade, nearly twelve years to be exact. In January (thanks to the depreciated housing market) her wish came true and she found the PERFECT house, with a field of wild flowers to wander in each day and a deck to sunbathe. It was almost as if the house was built just for her. As you can imagine, her old friends back at Pets Alive Westchester are quite jealous of the lovely Lucinda. She writes often to tell the tales of her new adventures and sends pictures, but the damage is done- the seed has been planted…
These teenagers want OUT!!
Onyx, also 12, was the next to venture out on his own. Soon after Jake, 14 and Webster, 14- each had been waiting since the late 90’s- now had the strength and the confidence to leave the nest. Before we knew it Brandy, 9, who had been spending the weekends at a friend’s house was offered a room to stay at the neighbors-permanently! Then Honey Bear, 13, and Oreo, 12, who had been shacking up together at the center for over 10 years decided that they too would like to see the world and experience something new. They are still together and loving life- they send us post cards of their wonderful adventures together.
At 15 years old, our oldest and wisest resident, Smokey was secretly dreaming of a new life as well. While he loved us all dearly, he knew he had much more to offer and many more hearts to touch. So he looked up his dear old friend Lucinda and asked if she could give him a place to stay for a little while. Lucinda enthusiastically offered Smokey a new home, a new companion and a new life. Smokey instantly fell in love with the meadow of wildflowers and Lucinda was happy to share her own little oasis.
Each time we hear from Smokey, Lucinda, Webster and all the others we cry tears of joy for them. Of course they all have just one question for us. What about the rest of their friends? When will they have the opportunity to be as happy and loved? While we work tirelessly to find them all a home, we need YOUR help. There are still 100 teenagers back at the center who are looking for a chance, an opportunity, to experience something new. To see new places and meet new friends. Most of them don’t need much. Perhaps a couch to crash on, a ride from the center to your place or even just a reference to a friend or coworker to help get them started out. YOU can make that difference. YOU can give them the only thing they have ever wanted- a place to call home….
Operators are standing by to give you more information on how you can make a difference today. Even better you can stop by the adoption center and meet any one of our wonderful teenagers- we guarantee you leave with a smile, a full and happy heart, and a new best friend!
(Please note – the animals pictured here are still looking for a way out. Come and give them a ride – today!)
Pets Alive Westchester, 100 Warehouse Lane, Elmsford, NY 10523
914-592-7339, www.petsalivewest.org
We are open 7 days a week: Sun – Thurs 10-4, Fri 10 – 7:30, Sat 10-6:30
Pets Alive Westchester is a no-kill animal shelter. Our mission is to improve the lives of companion animals everywhere by any means possible, including rescue, adoption, advocacy, collaboration, intervention and education. We care for dogs, cats and rabbits at our adoption center in Elmsford, NY. Many of the animals at Pets Alive Westchester are older, have special needs or require special care.
Filed in
Animal Rescue by kerry on May 08, 2012. There are comments.
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).
Those dogs, who we named Josh and Kelli were brought to Pets Alive. Josh had such a badly mangled leg that had been untreated for so long that he was in agony every time he moved, severely malnourished, and very tiny, (most likely a result of having so little care and being in so much pain for so long). We rushed him to Dr. Furman who immediately had to amputate his leg. Josh had a very difficult recovery, but he is now well on his way to moving about comfortably.
Kelli had what appeared to be two broken toes. Again, they appeared to be old injuries where no medical attention had been sought and they had healed facing UPWARD. She limped very badly on them and was also clearly uncomfortable. There was nothing to do for her but to amputate half her foot to remove those toes. Kelli is doing well and is able to run around now. She is now being fostered with a wonderful family who will formally adopt her once this process is over.
The town gathered all their information and got all their ducks into a row and then this week they were finally able to arrest Sylvia on animal cruelty and other charges. Pets Alive has offered to take every single dog from the home, ONCE THE TOWN HAS OWNERSHIP OF THEM.
We can not get into a situation where we take the dogs and board them here and care for them (there are almost 80 of them) while the town goes through Sylvia’s due process, which could take months, or unfortunately even YEARS. Once they do have ownership though, we have stepped up to offer our services and we will work closely with other organizations to make sure all the rotties are properly vetted, cared for and adopted.
So the rotties are NOT here yet. We have a few of them that were in severe medical crisis – Josh and Kelli – and now we took in Eileen – another severely injured (or malformed) dog that needs some serious surgery or additional help. All the puppies were taken out of there (to Middletown Humane) and all the late term, very pregnant females were taken and put into foster by Mountain Rottie Rescue.
NONE OF THE DOGS ARE AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION YET!
Please do not come here or to Middletown Humane and ask to see them or adopt them. Unfortunately the dogs still “technically” all belong to Sylvia. So until a judge orders their seizure, none of them can be shown or adopted.
However if you ARE interested in adoption, then we would love for you to PRE fill out an adoption application. This way once the dogs do come here, and get vetted, we can immediately have you come down and get first pick of a dog that you might be interested in possibly adopting or fostering!
So I hope that clears up our role. We don’t really HAVE any official role in this. We can’t really ACT or do anything until the police have actual custody of the dogs. We HAVE gone up a few times to assess the situation and help in a minor way but we do plan (and expect) that eventually ALL the dogs will be here where they can be taken care of properly and moved into other rescues and into homes!
We thank ALL of you that are stepping up to help and to volunteer time and services but at this time we only have three of the dogs, and they are not available for adoption yet. There is also nothing else that can be done to help the dogs, until the town has seized full custody.
We will keep you all updated!
And hey…while these pictures are sad…you can also be happy that the police thought enough to come to us and trusted us enough to care for these guys, because -
LOOK AT KELLI NOW!
You can tell by that grin that she knows she is going to be ok now!
Filed in
Animal Rescue by kerry on May 01, 2012. There are comments.
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.
Jojo was supposedly 10 years old. His owner had gotten arrested, and JoJo was brought to the CACC, where JoJo just…..well….gave up.
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Filed in
Animal Rescue by kerry on Apr 20, 2012. There are comments.
Filed in
No-kill by kerry on Apr 11, 2012. There are comments.
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:
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In regards to the issue in Middletown with the problem owners of problem dogs. I think that we are actually on the exact same page about this. I believe in reading the PDF you posted originally that it doesn’t explain the real issue at stake, and contrary to the mayor’s opinion, we are far from naïve about the issues involving dogs in cities. If we are going to be honest and upfront about this here – you have some irresponsible citizens using dogs to intimidate, threaten and wreck havoc in your city. Terrorizing neighbors, making it difficult to do inspections or deal safely with public issues in those areas.
You asked for a possible solution. I’ve come up with an idea that I’d like to have you all review.
Please forgive me for the convoluted nature of it. It is just in the “thinking” stages right now, which is why I didn’t voice it last night. It would need some major fleshing out, but maybe this is a possible solution.
It seems to be that you have the majority of Middletown residents that are law abiding, responsible people. You also have a fair share of “issue people” with “issue dogs”. How many would you estimate? 50? 100? 150? How many would you honestly say are the problem people in the city? I have no idea what the number would be but I think it would be a fair guess that it is not 95% of the population.
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Legislation by kerry on Apr 05, 2012. There are comments.
This speech was given last night, April 3, to the Middletown Council Members in response to the proposed ordinance that would ban the feeding of feral cats and require all renters to carry dog insurance. There were no pictures in my speech. I just added these to break up all this text. The town announced they would continue to review the dog ordinance and were RESCINDING the feral cat ban! THANK YOU MIDDLETOWN COMMON COUNCIL!
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Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.
My name is Kerry Clair and I am the executive director the Pets Alive Animal Sanctuary in Middletown.
We very much appreciate being heard on legislation regarding animal issues.
I’d first like to address the proposal before the council to mandate the purchase of dog insurance by renters.
In every town across the nation, where mandated animal laws were adopted, the law never solved the issue it was supposed to resolve. In every case, towns that adopted ordinances such as insurance requirements, mandatory spay neuter and breed specific legislation have never been successful. The problem is that only the responsible pet owners will follow these mandates. The irresponsible ones will ignore them ANYWAY.
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Legislation by kerry on Apr 04, 2012. There are comments.
At the last Common Council meeting in Middletown a proposal was made and it appears to have been accepted, to prohibit the feeding of stray or feral cats. This ban on the feeding of feral and stray cats, while on the surface appears to address a problem, will actually cause a MUCH larger problem for cats and animals in Middletown. I am sure that the people proposing this feeding prohibition believe that if people do not feed feral and stray cats that the cats will “move on” and will no longer continue to procreate and reside in the neighborhood.
What the author of this amendment is probably unaware of is that THIS METHOD OF CONTROLLING CAT POPULATIONS HAS NEVER, EVER, WORKED.
The ONLY way to decrease stray and feral populations of cats is by TNR (Trap/Neuter/Return).
I wrote a blog on this very issue some time ago and it is called “Feral Cats – Educating Communities“.
“When cats are removed, rodent populations explode and increase the spreading of disease. Instead of eradicating a colony and killing cats, sterilization would be the most effective and humane method of control. Roger Tabor adds that, “if a colony is neutered and returned to its area it will continue to hold the location and keep other cats out by its presence. The group’s population will gradually decline over a few years.”
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Legislation by kerry on Apr 01, 2012. There are comments.
Thanks to the dedicated work of the volunteers helping with our Improving Adopt-ability Program, Homer is our first participant to find a home. His person reports that the handling sensitivity that has been part of Homer’s past is greatly reduced, to the point that he seems a different dog that we described.
Stepping into the vacancy created by Homer’s departure will be one of our favorites, Plato! [And no, I did not pick him because Homer's slot is reserved for only short legged dogs]
Plato’s was recently returned because his family found that he was doing some resource guarding and they did not feel they could address this in their home. Of course now that he is back, we can help him with this.
Come to our class this Saturday, ay 10am and learn how “Trading Up” can make giving up items in his possession his favorite game!
Filed in
Animal Rescue by kerry on Mar 29, 2012. There are comments.