The below blog was written by Joanna and Lauren, two of Pets Alive’d best volunteers. They are always there to support us, donate their time and energy to us, and even deeper than that, they are always coming up with ways to take us to the next level, the next step, the next frontier. They also handle our Humane Education, taking dogs offsite to classrooms or educational events to talk about animals, empathy, kindness and adoption. They have been a wonderful asset to our organization and we deeply appreciate their time and commitment. Recently, they decided to accept the challenge of CGC training and accrediting one of our dogs. Below is their experience. Thank you Lauren and Joanna. Zena has been blessed to have had this experience with you both.
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Animal Rescue by kerry on Oct 28, 2011. There are comments.
So all over the nation the no-kill movement is growing and growing and growing. Building momentum. More and more people are getting involved, not accepting the status quo (that they “have to die, there are no other options“), and putting an end to the killing in their neighborhoods. BSL is being fought, kill shelters are frowned upon, TNR is supported and good is conquering evil.
Each day, each week, each month, we hear more and more success stories. We learn more about the good that people are doing and we watch as the “evil-doers” are verbally and legally attacked by their community for their killing. People flooding meetings to standing-room-only status, bringing law suits against their shelters, and standing up for what is right and good. No longer backing down, but fighting to save lives. The “bad” is no longer covered up, but put out there with the press covering it, blogs light up across the internet with “do you believe this?? SIGN THIS PETITION”.
We rejoice that you are no longer tolerating it.
Good for you.
However it still seems that tiny people with small minds and with a wee bit of “power” are out there abusing it and trying to use it to do harm. Old-style shelter directors, animal hating animal control officers, town officials, co-op board members that seem to have nothing better to do than to continue to try to kill animals that their own communities want to protect and save.
On Tuesday we will be going to court to fight just such a situation. Let me tell you about it.
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Legislation,
No-kill by kerry on Sep 25, 2011. There are comments.
I was wading through the hundreds of surrender requests we get each week. Almost none of them were dogs with no issues. Most of them had some sort of major aggression issue, or behavior issue, or were court ordered dangerous dogs, or had severe separation anxiety. Sigh. It is emotionally exhausting some days to read through them and I want to ask them all “why didn’t you address this behavior when it first started”? Why do so many people let it get to THIS point before looking to abandon the dog, when a little ounce of prevention could have been worth a hundred pounds of me taking their dog?
The no issue dogs are no brainers, we can take them in, even senior ones, but so many of our requests are nothing like that and each day I have to turn most of these people away. We are a sanctuary, yes, but we also adopt out about 2000 dogs between our two shelters each year. A percentage of them are, of course, going to come back over the years for various issues. So we will always have a source for these dogs that need a place to go and we always commit to our own dogs for life – that they will ALWAYS have space here and a safe place to go.
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No-kill by kerry on Sep 13, 2011. There are comments.
You ever read the newspaper and read about these dog fighting rings being broken up? Police or Animal Control moves in and breaks up the ring, arrest people, put a stop to it? We all rejoice. Yay. More scum put behind bars where they should be. More dogs taken from the terrible life they lived, the ONLY life they have ever known – a life of horror, terror, fear, abuse, misery and cruelty. Saved. Those dogs SAVED.
Well. I hate to burst your bubble.
No. Mostly they don’t get saved. FUTURE dogs may get saved from this fate by breaking up these rings and putting the leaders behind bars (thank goodness), but the actual dogs involved – what happens to them?
Well. By and large they get euthanized.
Best Friends had to FIGHT tooth and nail and even go to court to save the lives of the Vick dogs. And recently in NYC over a dozen dogs were taken to the CACC and the owners arrested and all but one was euthanized.
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No-kill by kerry on Jul 16, 2011. There are comments.
At Pets Alive my job is mainly decision making. I probably make hundreds of decisions a day. Some are easy. Some are tough. But I think if you put it all in a nutshell that is my primary function as the executive director here. Make decisions. Yes, some are bound to be wrong and believe me, there isn’t anyone that can beat me up over those more than I can, so …save it. If I screwed up, then I’m already caning myself far worse than anyone else ever could. I understand that I’m human and that I’m not going to be right every time. I’m going to make mistakes like everyone else. I do accept that. When I do mess up, I try to make sure I understand why and not ever make that same mistake again. Not much more I can do than that.
I like to believe, and perhaps this is arrogant, that I don’t make a whole lot of mistakes when it comes to decision making about an animals life and his or her welfare. Other things, yes, but not about animal care. If an animal NEEDS it, then we get it done. Period. Somehow if they need an expensive surgery, we figure out a way to raise the money. If they need a special diet or food, we make that work. If they need a special sort of emotional or mental stimulation, we try to make sure that happens. These decisions aren’t difficult. These are the easy ones. These are black and white.
Sometimes it isn’t easy. Sometimes we have meetings and we decide things as a group because some decisions are tougher than others, but still I make them, with input, knowing that my heart is in the right place, and that right or wrong I am doing what I believe to be the best thing for the animal.
Recently though I was wrong. I made a very bad decision for an animal in our care. I don’t know why I feel the need to share it with you. Maybe part of my self flagellation, or maybe in the hopes that another rescuer might read this and see him or herself in this blog and make the RIGHT decision for that animal.
This is the story of Tyson.
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Animal Rescue by kerry on Jul 15, 2011. There are comments.
This year at the Pets Alive Annual Fur Ball (our most important fundraiser of the year), we awarded the very first annual Kameron Jacobsen Youth Award.
The award was in honor of 14 year old, Kam, who took his own life, after suffering intense peer bullying in his school and via social media.
I admit to being AWARE of bullying (and how heinous it was), but I was unaware exactly how prolific it was. How invasive. How viral, and how frequent, and often it occurs to children in this “new world”. I’ve watched as Wanda and Kevin and their family shattered and fell apart, and how they have been trying to rebuild themselves. I read the anguish in their posts online, and their reaching out to others, and their determination to make sure that Kam is never forgotten, and that people are aware of this insane epidemic that is attacking our children. I can see how desperate they are to help save other people’s children and other families from going through this, or losing their children.
Read that word again.
CHILDREN.
Children today are such victims in so many ways.
I remember as a kid riding my bike miles and miles, all over Staten Island, all day long. Mom’s rule was that we had to be in at dusk. Can you imagine your seven year old out all day, on their bike, MILES from home (with their dog running alongside)?
No way.
Not a chance.
Today is a different world.
But the very word “children” denotes an innocence. It brings up images in your heart of purity and even a naivety.
Children.
Little creatures that are out there in the world trying to make their way, trying to come out from under mom and dad’s wing and figure out a life for themselves.
Children.
Yet these same little innocents are not only targets of vicious attacks, – it is perpetrated by other “innocent” children.
I have spent many hours wondering if these kids that hurt others know what they do. Are their brains so under developed that they simply don’t get it?
How can such an evil lurk in a child, that they could do such harm and such damage to another, so the result is that the victim can think of no other way to stop the pain, humiliation, grief, and sadness of their little lives, than to snuff it out?
I didn’t know Kam really. I met him a handful of times, mostly in passing. I did know his mom though. She is one of the greatest people I know. A WONDERFUL mom. A giving person. A loving soul. A faithful and religious woman. I’ve spent many hours wondering how this could happen. The truth is, it could happen to ANYONE. I’ve seen through Wanda’s posts, the hundreds of parents that have lost their CHILDREN …CHILDREN…to suicide. Children. Little children.
The evil ones have such a market now.
Now you can knock a kid down, or slap his books out of his hands, and your friends can video it, and take pictures and it will be on facebook and in text messages to thousands of people, in seconds. It is truly a different world. And once out there, how does the victim, the CHILD, move past that horrific image of himself looking the fool, or looking silly, or put upon by his peers – other CHILDREN. Children. How does he get past ….perhaps the girl he likes…, seeing that and making a comment under the thread on Facebook?
My god.
How do they survive it?
The fact is, that many don’t.
I am begging you all to check your children’s FaceBook pages and their posts. Don’t say “my kid would never”. Don’t. Go see what they are doing, and if you find they are even participating in such a heinous thing, please, think about how you would feel if YOUR child was the victim. And stop it. Stop it in any way you can. Thinking of your child, no longer with you, and STOP IT. Because that is someone else’s beloved, and loved, and cherished little child. Make sure your own is not one of the ones that is aiding, abetting, helping, or even randomly commenting on such disgusting things. Please. Or if you think it is no big deal, then I challenge you to go to Wanda’s page and read her anguish. Listen to her screams and the echos of grief that this family will never completely recover from. And then take your child aside, sit them down and make sure they don’t get up again until you have made the point VERY VERY clear to them. Do you understand? If so, then you are responsible for making your child understand and you can not, you may not, look the other way. These are our CHILDREN.
And so Pets Alive started the Kameron Jacobsen Youth Award. (KAM = Kindness Above Malice). And each year we will pick one CHILD that exemplifies the GOOD that CHILDREN can show to each other and the great things they can accomplish by being selfless and giving and KIND.
This year the award went to Nicole Bagley.
Nikki is a sweet little kid that I have grown to love a great deal. She is kind, and innocent, and giving, and generous of nature, and like Kam, she loves animals and wants to do good things for them. She is one of our best dog handlers and one of our best volunteers. She was well deserving of this award, and I hope she always has that innocence about her, and that kindness to others and to animals that she has now as a CHILD. A CHILD that is GOOD to other CHILDREN. I think that she will.
We wrote about the KAM award, and about Nikki, and we got an email from one of our long time supporters, MaryEllen R. She asked if she could drive the more than three hours to Pets Alive and plant a memorial garden for Kameron. I (after checking with Wanda) told MaryEllen yes! This week she came (with five other volunteers helping) and planted the most gorgeous garden. Rocks.. and chimes… and a bench … and an arbor… and beautiful plants. One of them is a bleeding heart plant. How appropriate. Bleeding heart. Surely there is a lot of those around right now Kam. Many bleeding hearts, grieving for who you would have been, who you once were, and who you still are to everyone.
I asked MaryEllen why she would come all this way to do all this work and spend 10 hours in the dirt, in the 90 degree day to plant a garden for someone she didn’t know and never met. The answer – astonished me. MaryEllen has her own personal experience with this terrible stigma. Her son, is thankfully still alive, but MaryEllen said something like: “I knew that this could be me. Grieving for my son, and I cried, and I hurt, and I wanted to do something for this family”…and something for herself, maybe, I think. I think this is two families, touched by suicide, one with a hole burned right through their hearts, and another a hole that they are desperately trying to keep closed.
To both of these families I wish I knew something to say. I wish I knew the answer.
But honestly, I can’t even understand the question.
Can you?
I will end this blog, with a speech that Kam’s dad, Kevin wrote in response to the Kameron Jacobsen Youth Award. I wish we had the time at the Fur Ball for him to do it publically, but I post it here so that it will be forever remembered.
As a family we are so grateful to Pets Alive for honoring our son Kameron – in a way that genuinely remembers the kind of young man Kameron was. — By commemorating his legacy of compassion to others, we are humbled by this sincere tribute to his memory.
Whenever Wanda would foster a dog like Mufasa or Lulu, among others, — it was she who took on the responsibility — and gave them a comfortable and a healthy environment in which to thrive. She provided the all around well being of those dogs, but it was Kameron that took on what we believe — was a pivotal role in that rehabilitation. — With patience and loving perseverance –Kameron allowed those dogs to trust again to accept love , in some instances – from the innocence of a child for the first time.
Kameron enabled them to feel like they wanted to be part of a family — loved and respected – and all they wanted in return really, was to love someone back and HE showed them – that it was ok to do that.
Kameron embodied the mission of this sanctuary in its efforts to rescue – rehabilitate – and place animals into loving homes. We are so very proud of him and we miss Kameron very much. We are equally proud that Nikki has been chosen as the first recipient of this award for the tireless work she does and the energy and exuberance she brings here.
Nikki sets the bar high — and demonstrates the kind of excellence and attributes in youth that reinforces the notion -”That We cannot change the world by saving one dog….. BUT we can change the world for that ONE dog” .
Rest in peace Kameron.
You were but a little child.
You are so terribly missed in this big world.
We grieve for all that you would have been and how you could have changed the world.
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Tributes by kerry on Jun 27, 2011. There are comments.
It’s been a very hard month for Pets Alive. All of us have been affected by it. We’re a family so if one of us is hurting we all are. Kerry writes about it in more detail in her blog and I would really encourage you to read it: http://petsalive.com/blog/2011/06/09/questions-doubts-and-recrimination/
This month has made me question my own rescue efforts and whether change can really be made. Really it has….
The Pets Alive annual ‘Furball’ was held last Saturday. The theme was ‘Can you feel the love tonight?’ and without sounding horribly cliché you really could. Hundreds of people joined together in their love of animals. It was humbling and incredible to witness. It gave me renewed determination to continue our work in PR.
A small glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon this week. For those who follow PAPR you know that we have a number of dogs in foster care. They had spent far too long in Dr Aguirre’s office and when I was in PR we built ¼ acre runs for these dogs at Iris’s house. I would like to take a moment to tell you all about Iris. Iris is an angel who appeared to me last year. I was transporting dogs back to NY and only had 5 crates to take. That left a spare place on my flight so I sent out a note to all the rescuers I know on the island. One of our biggest struggles as rescuers in Puerto Rico is getting dogs out of PR. They must have an escort on the plane and that can prove difficult to find. Somehow my email ended up in Iris’s hands and I received a call from her about a boxer she had rescued named Dio. Iris has been rescuing dogs her whole life with her own money. She finds wonderful homes for them in Puerto Rico. She had been struggling to find a great home for Dio.
Could I take him to Pets Alive she asked? With a heavy heart I explained that I could only transport dogs and I could not take any further rescues in. I could hear the heartbreak in her voice as she thanked me for what I was doing for the dogs of PR and that she would try and continue to find a home for Dio on the island. I felt terrible. So I called Kerry and asked if we had room at the inn for one more – a beautiful boxer who was neutered, healthy and up to date on shots. ‘Of course!’ said Kerry and I could hardly contain my excitement as I called Iris to tell her the good news. Dio and 5 others traveled with me on the night before Thanksgiving. It was a hideous journey. One flight got cancelled, and then the next one that American could put us all on got horribly delayed. We finally walked in the doors of Pets Alive at 6am on Thanksgiving morning. A wonderful family adopted Dio – he even has his own kids! That Thanksgiving Eve Iris and I became sisters and she has been helping PAPR ever since.
We have 18 dogs in foster care. Dogs that I have been promising their very own family…And this week I was told that they could finally come to Pets Alive! It is not something that I was expecting but that makes it all the more exciting! And scary. PAPR had certainly not planned for a large transport but we will make it happen – the dogs are coming in the next 2 weeks. It now costs us $175 PER DOG to send the dogs with American Airlines. And they are the cheapest. That’s in excess of $3000. So I again appeal to you, our loyal followers and supporters to help us bring these beautiful Angels to heaven on earth. They are so deserving and have waited patiently for so long. I am going to put up a chip-in on our website and I would encourage you to give whatever you can. If you would like to sponsor an individual dog and cover their airfare then even better! If you cannot donate $$$ then please consider air miles. We can fly ANY airline to GET to PR. We need to fly AA back as they transport dogs for us. Jet Blue is great because they don’t charge for baggage. And believe me I take a lot of baggage. I have a full rescue kit that I travel with and my wonderful vet, Dr Thomas LoBasso of Cobble Hill Animal Clinic in Brooklyn always send me with huge donations of heartworm and flea and tick medication. Plus I usually go a little crazy in the dog isles of Target before I leave to spoil our fur kids. They so deserve it.
I don’t know who said it but a picture definitely speaks a thousand words so I put this together for you all. You know who is coming and you can pick your favorite to sponsor : ) These dogs have been waiting for their ‘Someday’……… http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=1AcuG7Rs2YtHWQ
On a very frustrating note, 5 dogs have been dumped at the beach : (
The first one looks in really bad shape.
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Updates by kerry on Jun 18, 2011. There are comments.
With only a couple of weeks left in the legislative session, it is urgent for New Yorkers to contact NYS Senator Joseph Robach and urge him to bring the Companion Animal Access and Rescue Act (CAARA) to the Senate floor for a vote. CAARA will save roughly 25,000 animals a year currently being killed in New York State shelters despite qualified rescue groups willing to save their lives at no cost to taxpayers.
CAARA would:
- Make it illegal for shelters to kill animals if qualified rescue groups are willing to save them;
- End “convenience” killing when there are empty cages and when animals can share kennels or be sent to foster care;
- Require pounds to post strays, including photographs and descriptions, on the Internet so their families can search for them online;
- Require transparency in operations by requiring shelters to make their statistics public;
- Require pounds to scan for microchips, maintain lost/found lists, and match lost with found animals in the shelter;
- Require fresh food and water, environmental enrichment, clean living environments, as well as prompt and necessary veterinary care; and,
- Allow shelters to transfer stray animals to rescue groups during the holding period to free up cage space or get vulnerable animals out as soon as possible, subject to the same rights of redemption for the animal’s family.
Senator Robach is a sponsor of CAARA, but he is being opposed by powerful industry groups in his own district. We need to thank Senator Robach for standing up for the animals and urge him to ignore the Naysayers who want to make sure that their power is not upended since they do not represent either his true constituents or the people of New York.
Please telephone or e-mail Senator Robach today: Thank him for sponsoring CAARA and let him know that if he pushes forward, he will be a hero not only to the animals, but also to the many thousands of animal-loving supporters of CAARA, who have written, telephoned, emailed elected officials in Albany to let them know how much we care and want this bill passed as it is currently written.
As always, please be polite and positive.
Telephone: (518) 455-2909
E-mail: robach@nysenate.gov
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Legislation by kerry on Jun 16, 2011. There are comments.
What a month at Pets Alive. One of the worst I can ever remember.
It has actually defeated me a little bit and slammed me to my knees. I’ll get back up again and dust off and go on, but sometimes we need some time to sit in the dust and cry. This is one of those times. Tomorrow or maybe next week I’ll be back with my fists in the air, but this week I’m feeling rather defeated.
First we had to say goodbye to Glen. Our wonderful, very senior horse. He had been battling a series of medical issues since we had taken him in a few years ago. Cancer, severe malnourishment, inability to absorb protein and much more. He was a tough case and we spent a lot of money and time and love on him. Last year, we even had to remove one of his eyes and still he valiantly fought on, grazing, hanging with his goat friends, and greeting EVERYONE who approached his fence. He was a special horse and we all loved him dearly. It was difficult to let him go and I still miss him and feel a pang in my heart when I see the gate to his pasture just standing open and empty. No matter how many years I am here, I hope that never goes away. I hope that it always hurts to lose one, and that I will always feel this terrible loss when we do.
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Animal Rescue by kerry on Jun 09, 2011. There are comments.
Oreo’s Law (now CAARA) WILL “die” without your calls and letters!
On Monday or Tuesday, Oreo’s Law (now known as CAARA – Companion Animal Adoption & Rescue Act ) will be voted on by the New York State Assembly Agriculture Committee. But it is not likely to pass without a large showing of community support between now and then. That is because the opposition has been lobbying strongly against the bill once again. We told them last year we would NOT allow this to happen again.
WE NEED YOU NOW.
“Where New York goes, SO GOES THE NATION.”
CAARA would:
- End “convenience” killing when there are empty cages and when animals can share kennels or be sent to foster care
- Require pounds to post strays, including photographs and descriptions, on the Internet so their families can search for them online
- Require transparency in operations by requiring shelters to make their statistics public
- Require pounds to scan for microchips, maintain lost/found lists, and match lost with found animals in the shelter
- Require fresh food and water, environmental enrichment, clean living environments, as well as prompt and necessary veterinary care
If CAARA is defeated, thousands upon thousands of cats, kittens, dogs, puppies, rabbits, and other animals will continue to be needlessly killed in NYS shelters every year—animals CAARA has the power to save.
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Legislation by kerry on Jun 03, 2011. There are comments.