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04-12-2010, 11:32 AM | #1 |
Crazy about Kacee! Donating Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Kansas
Posts: 21,173
| Follow A Stray To A Brighter Future As soon as we round the corner, animal control officer Craig Vestal spots a skinny brown dog with no collar at the far end of the street. He lifts his index finger from the steering wheel of the truck and says simply, “There’s a dog.” Vestal’s partner, officer Justin Swartz, says, “You still got it. You can spot ’em a mile away.” advertisement The dog, a young-looking chocolate Labrador retriever, spies us just as quickly. Dogs in this neighborhood know the boxy Animal Control trucks with the ventilated cages in back. They also know every crawl space, missing fence board and dense thicket. And, man, can they climb. Vestal and Swartz once saw a Chihuahua scale an 8-foot chain-link fence. The Lab’s body tenses — ears up, tail down — with the hyper-alertness that comes from living on the streets. Vestal slows the truck, then pulls over in front of the yard the dog is standing in. The officers step out into a biting wind, and the dog darts into the street toward two men standing next to a nearby parked car. “Is this your dog?” Swartz asks the men. They shake their heads and say they don’t know where the dog lives. The dog sees Vestal approaching in his dark blue uniform and black baseball cap, holding a metal catch stick with a nylon loop at the end, and bounds back out of the street and halfway up a sloping front yard of brown grass dotted with patches of melting snow. Swartz, who is more than 6 feet tall and sports a strawberry blond crew cut and black sunglasses, drops to a squatting position and calls softly to the dog, “Hey, buddy.” The dog takes a tentative step toward Swartz, relaxing its tucked-under tail ever so slightly in response to the officer’s soothing voice and mild gaze. But then the dog halts, its bright amber eyes opening wider — perhaps registering Swartz’s heavy black gloves and coiled orange leash. It turns and runs between two houses toward an alley. The chase is on. The officers split up. Swartz jogs back to the alley as Vestal closes in from the side yard. The dog runs from the backyard toward the side of the house but finds its path to the front cut off by a chain-link fence. The dog stops next to a 2-foot-high deck attached to the back of the house. Swartz stops, too. “This one, he’s a little scared, but he’s not going to bite anyone,” he says, dropping to one knee. “Hey, buddy.” The dog stops and looks at Swartz, then scrambles under the deck — and lies down. Swartz crawls under the deck and loops one end of the leash around the dog’s neck. The dog follows without protest. Its tail is down, but trailing loosely, not tucked underneath. Back at the truck, Swartz leans over the dog and pats its belly. “Come here, baby, let me see if you’re a boy or a girl,” he says. “It’s a little girl. Come on, baby, good job.” The dog scans the faces of our party of four — two officers, a photographer, a reporter — inquisitively but without apprehension and rewards each hand that reaches out to pet her with a lick. We’re in this neighborhood, in the vicinity of 15th Street and Grandview Boulevard in Kansas City, Kan., because a report came in of several dogs running loose and chasing children at bus stops. This young chocolate Lab is probably not one of them. She has no collar, but her coat is shiny and her eyes are clear and bright. “This dog probably lived on this street, probably with those two men, which is why the dog ran down there,” Swartz says. Vestal opens one of the cages in the back of the truck, and Swartz hoists the dog up. She settles in and doesn’t complain as the door to the cage closes shut. “With this little dog, there’s a 100 percent chance she’ll be adopted,” Swartz says, as he climbs back into the warmth of the extended cab truck. Not much more than a year ago, a very different fate would have awaited her. continued...
__________________ Karen Kacee Muffin 1991-2005 Rest in Peace My Little Angel |
Welcome Guest! | |
04-12-2010, 11:35 AM | #2 |
Crazy about Kacee! Donating Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Kansas
Posts: 21,173
| Before the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City teamed up with the Kansas City, Kan., police animal control unit in a program called Ray of Hope in January 2009, the majority of strays at the pound had to be euthanized to make room for ever more animals. But as The Kansas City Star reported in June, tireless efforts by police, the Humane Society and other groups to get animals adopted or transferred to rescue groups achieved a drop in the euthanasia rate at the pound to less than 4 percent in the first five months of 2009, compared with 54 percent in the same period the year before. A stunning success. But a few months later, even though the euthanasia rate had fallen even more, enough to earn the designation of a no-kill shelter — extremely rare nationwide for a police animal control operation — the program was in danger of shutting down for lack of funds, as The Star reported in August. Fortunately for the skinny chocolate Lab, several good things have happened since then: •The Ray of Hope program got 400 new donors after the August story in The Star, said Robin Rowland, the Humane Society’s vice president for fund development, enough to ensure continuous operation to date. •The program has qualified to receive a $40,000 Maddie’s Fund grant. The Alameda, Calif.-based family foundation supports pet rescue organizations in 41 states and the District of Columbia. The foundation was started by PeopleSoft and Workday founder Dave Duffield, and his wife, Cheryl. The grant money will be used to pay for food, supplies, spay/neuter surgeries and other medical care. In 2009, the Ray of Hope program cost the Humane Society $135,150 to save 2,094 animals. That does not include the costs to the humane society of paying vets, vet techs and kennel attendants to care for the animals. Rowland hopes the $40,000 starter grant will arrive this spring or summer. Even better, if the pound maintains its low euthanasia rate through the end of the year, Ray of Hope will qualify for a $460,000 one-time grant in mid-2011. continued...
__________________ Karen Kacee Muffin 1991-2005 Rest in Peace My Little Angel |
04-12-2010, 11:37 AM | #3 |
Crazy about Kacee! Donating Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Kansas
Posts: 21,173
| On the way back to the shelter with the chocolate Lab, Vestal and Swartz pick up a second stray dog on the same block, a young shepherd-husky mix that looks quite at home lounging in the grass in front of a porch a young man is sitting on. Swartz asks the man if the dog is his, and the man replies, “We don’t own him. We didn’t name him or anything.” (A lot of people think, wrongly, that not naming an animal means you don’t own it. “You feed it, you own it,” Swartz says.) The dog looks quickly at the officers, then runs behind the house and slips through a hole in the fence into the backyard, where four other dogs — two more than the legal limit in Kansas City, Kan. — are outside. The young man who lives in the house helps Swartz get the shepherd mix on a leash and, when asked about the other dogs, says two of them belong to his sister, who is coming to get them this evening. This, too, is not permitted, but the young man is polite, so Swartz takes down his information and tells him he will need to provide proof of license, rabies vaccination and spay/neuter records. (Kansas City, Kan., requires pets to be spayed or neutered unless owners get a special permit.) Swartz does not issue a ticket but makes a note to follow up later. Next, the officers stop at a house where a minister has been feeding a dog since the owner died before Christmas. The old, overweight husky is not nearly as friendly as the Lab and the shepherd mix. It takes a control stick and both officers to capture him inside the fenced yard. As the officers struggle to get the dog up into a cage in the truck, the dog empties its bowels, soiling the cuff of Vestal’s trousers and Swartz’s shoe. “(That) happens,” Vestal says with a grin. Back at the shelter, each dog gets its picture taken next to a white board with an ID number. The photos are mounted in a glass partition near the front of the shelter, so owners can identify pets that have been picked up. The photos are also entered into a database. All dogs and cats brought into the pound are scanned for a chip. Even if there is one, Swartz says, the tracking companies often can’t trace the animal, because the owners didn’t know they had to register the animal. The young chocolate Lab has no collar and no chip. Still, the pound can’t put her up for adoption until three full business days have passed. Because it’s Tuesday afternoon, and weekends don’t count, she won’t be eligible for adoption until her ownership legally passes to animal control on Monday morning. Inside her 4-by-6-foot cage in a long kennel filled with other dogs, most of them barking, the golden-eyed Lab paces and looks apprehensive, ears pinned back. And with good reason. Although she has set off on a journey toward a better life, the journey will begin with a very long stay inside this cage. ••• A few hours after the Lab got picked up, Karen Sands, shelter director for the Humane Society, got her first look at the new boarder. Sands was instantly optimistic about the pup’s chances of finding a “forever home,” as she calls it. “She looked healthy, friendly and young. She came up to the front of the cage. She looked very desirable,” Sands said. Sands, a medium-height, slender woman with long tawny hair, is a whirlwind of intense energy. She speaks rapidly and without a lot of aimless banter. Her phone buzzes constantly with text messages, which she often answers instantly. Many of the messages are to rescue groups, local and out of state. They are Sands’ most valuable allies in her crusade to save animal lives. She works with a core of 10 rescue groups weekly and another 50 in the course of a year. Sands has also established relationships with farmers who will take feral cats to keep as barn cats. She placed 305 feral cats in barns last year. The pound euthanized only three cats, for extreme sickness, compared with 691 cats put to sleep the year before. There’s no time for messing around when you have to find homes for 30 to 40 animals in a normal week; once it was 50. “I only have to place 17 next week. That’s a vacation,” Sands joked recently. Only, if you know her, you know it wasn’t much of a joke. Sands has worked for the Humane Society 16 years, 10 of them as a paid employee. She estimates she works 70 hours a week, sometimes answering texts in bed in the middle of the night. “My husband asked me the other morning, ‘Who were you texting at 3 a.m.?’ ” Sands said. It was a rescue group, naturally. She says she hasn’t had a vacation in years, although she has accumulated 80 days of time off. If she sometimes seems on edge, her colleagues understand that her relentless drive is fueled by vast reserves of compassion for the four-legged creatures in her care. When Sands is confronted by an aggressive dog at the pound that is growling at her, she says she takes a step back and just looks at the dog. “Four seconds of looking and that’s it — I love that dog,” she said. That makes it particularly painful when Sands has to let go of a dog that is just too aggressive to transfer or put up for adoption. On a recent walk-through, Sands pointed to a card on the cage of a wild-looking dog that had “PTS” written on it — put to sleep. “He’s been here since Dec. 12. I kept waiting for him to ‘pop’ (relax). I think he was feral. It’s like trying to tame a coyote,” she said. Sands, who lives in rural Leavenworth County, credits her special love for tough cases to her own dog, a 5-year-old pit bull that was used as a “bait” dog for other dogs to attack. “Her face looked like hamburger when I first got her,” Sands said. Sands named the dog Freckles because of all the scars on its face. continued...
__________________ Karen Kacee Muffin 1991-2005 Rest in Peace My Little Angel |
04-12-2010, 11:43 AM | #4 |
Crazy about Kacee! Donating Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Kansas
Posts: 21,173
| At some point over Super Bowl weekend, the chocolate Lab got a name: Payton, a nod to one of the starring quarterbacks, but spelled with an “a” in deference to the pup’s gender. Usually, the pets are named by the vet staff at the Humane Society when they are brought in for spay/neuter, but sometimes animal control officers come up with names and scrawl them on the cards on the pet cages. “Every dog has a name. There are no numbers here,” Sands said. “We don’t look at the animals as a group of 30 dogs. We see 30 individual dogs.” It’s Wednesday morning, and after eight days stuck in a cage, Payton gets to go for a ride — even if it is just to the Humane Society to be spayed. As several people approach her cage, Payton looks from one face to the next searchingly, her tail hanging down, as if looking for a sign as to her fate. When The Star photographer steps into the cage to get a portrait of our cover dog, she bonds immediately with him, jumping, licking, wiggling, wagging. A few minutes later, Payton responds to being outside again by sitting down on the ground next to the truck and refusing to budge. Animal control officer Scott Mendenhall lifts her up under her belly, saying, “That’s good. You’re all right,” and loads her into a cage in the back of a truck. On this cold, gray day, sunlight suddenly crashes through a wall of clouds just as Mendenhall is pulling into the Humane Society. When Payton is lowered down onto a snow-covered patch of lawn, she wags her tail enthusiastically. Maybe she can sense things are finally going to start getting better for her. Veterinarian Michelle Taylor and vet tech Coleen Kent listen to the dog’s heart, examine her eyes and teeth, weigh her and praise her. The verdict: Payton is a chocolate Lab, is about 8 months old, has a strong heart and weighs 40 pounds. She should come through the spay surgery just fine. And she does. A few hours later, she’s back at the pound. Forty-eight hours till her big chance — a special Friday night adoption clinic in Olathe. At 5:30 p.m. on Friday, an animal control truck pulls up in front of PetSmart, and officer Daniel Eskina unloads five lucky dogs — a Boxer, two 4-month-old black Lab puppies, a Beagle-Sheltie mix, a terrier mix and Payton — into the waiting arms of six volunteers, one for each dog. Payton’s volunteer for the evening is Elise Everson of Olathe. Everson has been volunteering since November. She sits with a dog once a month at an adoption event and tries to persuade promising potential owners to give it a home. “If they say they have another dog at home, we encourage them to go home and get the other dog and bring it back, to see how the two get along,” Everson says. Payton is having a grand time, acting very much like a young Lab, straining on the leash and jumping up to greet anyone who pays her any attention. People, that is. She seems very disinterested in other dogs. Except very large dogs. For some reason, every time a big dog comes in the store with its owner, Payton barks and barks and barks. She gets a lot of attention, but by 7:30 p.m., four of the other dogs have been adopted, leaving only one under-the-weather black Lab puppy and Payton. What’s worse, fewer people are coming in, the later it gets. If nobody picks Payton in the next 30 minutes, it’s another night at the pound, then back here on Saturday. Kansas City, Kan., Police Capt. Rodney Smith is the animal control director, and Sands credits him with the success of the program. “He opened up his heart to us,” she said. Smith has invested tremendous energy into the program for two reasons. One, he’s an animal lover. At the end of 2008, when Ray of Hope was in the planning stages but wasn’t set to launch until Jan. 1, 2009, Smith on his own initiative began transporting cats from the pound to pet stores and other groups for adoption. Smith honestly believes in public-private cooperation. “There’s a trust factor involved. As the police, you have to let people into your organization and they need someone here often. But it’s been a phenomenal success, and I think public-private cooperation is going to be wave of the future, in many areas,” he said. This year, Smith has continued to improve on his organization’s staggering accomplishments of last year. For example, in January and February 2008, the pound euthanization rate was 64.3 percent of animals brought in. In the same period last year, the rate was 4.9 percent. In the same period this year, it was .48 percent. Perhaps the best number of all: From January 2009, when the program began, to March 1 this year, 2,107 animals had been placed with adoptive families or rescue groups. Last year, 79 animals were euthanized, compared with 2,199 in 2008. All the animals that were euthanized were either severely aggressive or gravely ill. Despite his commitment to running a no-kill shelter, there has been no change in the number or type of dogs picked up, Smith says. No cherry-picking only nice dogs, in other words. “We are part of the police department. Our main concern is picking up aggressive dogs,” he said. Vestal, who has worked at animal control for eight years, says Ray of Hope has changed everything: “It makes you feel better about your job. Before, it was tough.” It’s about 10 minutes to Payton getting shipped back to the pound when the Tenoves walk in the door — all seven of them. The five Tenove children, ranging in age from 14 to 2, look briefly at the black Lab puppy, but he just wants to sleep, so they shower their full combined attention on Payton. The parents walk up behind the kids — do they want a dog? The volunteers eye each other, wondering. Brian Tenove, the dad, says, “That’s a good-looking dog.” Payton sits, Brian pets. Heather Tenove, the mother, seems less enthused. “I wanted a bigger dog, so that’s good,” she says. “But I don’t think she likes me.” Her husband suggests she take Payton, sporting a bright orange jacket that says “Adopt me” for a walk around the store. Some of the children tag along, and Payton, indeed, seems more interested in them than in their mother. But Heather slowly begins to warm to Payton. “She’s gorgeous, actually, isn’t she?” she asks. Another large dog appears, and Payton barks. Good timing — Heather is looking for a watchdog for when she is home alone. “She has a voice,” Heather says. It feels like the Tenoves are 95 percent ready to adopt Payton, but Brian decides to go get the family’s other dog, a terrier, to see how the dogs react to each other. Fortunately, the smaller dog interests Payton very little, and when the terrier barks at her, she doesn’t respond in kind. Then Heather tells Brian, “The kids want to name her Gracie,” and everyone in the room knows this is a done dog deal. Like new parents at a baby super center, the Tenoves spend 30 minutes loading up their cart with a kennel (Payton isn’t housebroken yet), a cushion for the kennel, a pink collar and pink harness, dog bowls and a pink Kong toy. Then it’s off in the family SUV to sweet home Olathe. Inside the Tenoves’ two-story house that evening, it’s hard to say whether 2-year-old Rose or Payton is doing more running around. Both look happy and, one suspects, both will sleep soundly this night. Robin Rowland has had her job directing fund development for the Humane Society for 5½ years. That’s a long time in animal welfare years. The nature of the work takes a toll. It’s exhausting and emotionally draining, Rowland said. But she’s not done yet. Rowland feels she’s getting close to getting ongoing funding in place that will break the cycle of recurring financial crises followed by pleas through the media, followed by temporary reprieves. She thinks if she can attract 400 more new donors, she will have a donor basis that will provide stability in the long term. Targeted spay/neuter campaigns and trap/spay/neuter/release programs for feral cats, she thinks, are beginning to reduce the number of strays straining the system. “My goal is that the only pets that get picked up by animal control will be lost pets, so they can be reunited with their owners,” Rowland said. It’s a sunny morning, nearly two weeks after Payton — who now goes by Gracie — was granted her Happily Ever After with the Tenove family, and she seems to be loving it. The kids let her sleep on their beds until Mom and Dad move her into her crate late at night. (They’re still working on housebreaking.) And she loves lounging on the sectional sofa in the living room, especially with family members. “She thinks she’s a lapdog,” Heather Tenove says. As for the great outdoors, she has a fenced-in backyard to roam in, and the family takes her on frequent walks, including to an off-leash dog park nearby. Remember Heather’s fears about the dog not liking her? Gracie follows her like a shadow. Gracie also tries to protect her new family. One night, when some ice fell off the roof loudly in front of a window in the living room, Gracie positioned herself in between the window and the family. “She has a protective instinct,” Heather says. “She is just a good dog. I don’t think we could have found a better dog.” Read more: KC Pets - Kansas City Pet Community - Follow a stray chocolate Lab on her journey to a brighter future
__________________ Karen Kacee Muffin 1991-2005 Rest in Peace My Little Angel |
04-12-2010, 01:31 PM | #5 |
Princess Poop A Lot Donating Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Colorado
Posts: 6,728
| I hope people write letters and tell the officials what a wonderful job they have done and I hope people can open their pocket books. Stories like this confirm to me that we have to continue to tell the story and educate people. Thank you...for posting...
__________________ Cindy & The Rescued Gang Puppies Are Not Products! |
04-12-2010, 04:23 PM | #6 |
Donating YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Satellite Beach, FL
Posts: 838
| Thank you for posting the story. The story hits home as all of our "kids/pups" have been rescues either from the shelter to the rescue or directly from the rescue groups. Yes, do write, and tell people who help organizations like the KC Animal Control and the other mentioned that you appreciate all the hard work they are doing.
__________________ Zack, Zeke, Zoey, Zipp RIP 6/28/12 |
04-12-2010, 05:46 PM | #7 |
No Longer a Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Maryland
Posts: 2,410
| What a great story! We all definitely need to thank our rescues for being there, and open up our purses just a little more. |
06-05-2010, 06:14 PM | #8 | |
Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Albany, Ga.
Posts: 103
| Quote:
Fancy's mom | |
06-05-2010, 06:21 PM | #9 |
Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Albany, Ga.
Posts: 103
| |
06-15-2010, 03:03 AM | #10 |
YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: granite falls n.c
Posts: 557
| Thank goodness for rescues! How wonderful!! Thank you for telling the story. I wish I had the time to rescue!
__________________ Denise |
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