EBHS Unleashed

Recently, a cat made national news (on CNN to Regis and Kelly) from a local shelter in the state of New Jersey.  I think everyone heard about this cat, not because it was a stray, but, because it weighed in at 44 pounds. Which, for a cat, is a lot. My dog is only 30 pounds.  The suitcase I brought on my flight home was under 44 pounds.

What really amazed me about this situation was not that this cat was grossly overweight (so much so that they initially thought it was a female because the fat covered his naughty bits), not that he was 10 years old, and certainly not his average markings or personality, but that over 500 people applied to adopt this cat. Even people from England had contacted this shelter to adopt the cat. I could not get over it. Five-hundred people. 5-0-0 people. For one cat! Who is 10 years old, and in serious need of a diet! People can be pretty grumpy on a diet, I imagine a cat on a diet is no picnic to live with.

I have a shelter full of cats and kittens, who are all unique and special individuals. Some with amazing markings. Some with fun personalities. Some young, some old. Some were even brought here as strays and victims of the economy (like Mr. 44 pounds). Yet, they linger here for months at a time waiting for a new home.

Sadly, the part of the story that did not make the news is that not one of the 500 people that applied to adopt this cat offered to take home one of the more than 200 other cats and kittens that were housed in this very same shelter at the time. The shelter said that they had to euthanize about 1/3 of the approximately 1000 cats they take in every year.

Since we are located in Wisconsin, I cannot get our cats booked onto Live with Regis and Kelly. I thought about creating a fat suit, or making a cardboard cutout of the fat cat and having their photos taken to look like they were enormous so that people might be interested in them. I do not know what I can do to make our cats more appealing to adopters. In fact, our cats are pretty darn appealing all on their own!

My time here at the shelter has taught me that people find cats pretty easy to part with. Certainly we see all kinds of animals surrendered here for many reasons, but cats really seem to be the ones people can walk in and say "He is 12 years old, and a wonderful cat, but I would like to travel now, so you should find him a nice home" or "Yes, they are 10 and 11 years old, but I am pregnant now, so I should not have a cat anymore". When we ask for a donation at the time of the animal being surrendered we get people that will respond "I will let him out on the side of the road before I give you money to take him. You are just going to make money on his adoption, so why should I give you anything?".

We have so many cats and kittens at the shelter at the moment, we have cut our adoption fees in half to help get them adopted. They are no less valuable to us. It is just that we want people to be able to use the money they save on making sure their new best friend gets the best food, and necessities to get them started on the right paw in their new family.

Even though our cats were not on TV, and none of them are grossly overweight, they are all celebrities to the staff and volunteers here. More than anything else, we want them to find great families that will always love them and give them a home forever - not just when it is convenient, or when it provides 15 minutes of fame.

Your prayers and kind wishes must have helped because the puppy that I wrote about yesterday has made a miraculous recovery. She was bright eyed this morning, had eaten and taken water on her own during the night, and was wagging her tail like crazy. When I went to check on her this afternoon she had eaten all the food I left for her in her crate and wanted a bunch more. She seems like she will make a complete recovery. A happy ending! Thank you for all of your well wishes! Now she just has to get over her upper respiratory infection and she will be able to be made available for adoption.

Now, I am going to wish for some more happy endings, like tons of people coming to our event this Thursday night! If you are free, you have to come to our Giggles Fundraiser this Thursday night. Giggles Comedy Pub in the Sendik's Towne Center is hosting a fundraiser for us, doors open at 5:30 and the show starts at 7pm. I will be at the door greeting our guests. Tickets will be available at the door! We are going to have a great time!

Also, I need you to vote for us for the WISN A-List. It is not as simple as just clicking a button, but it is a really easy registration process. I get turned off immediately if there is a bunch of blanks to fill in to do something, but it was easy to do. You get an email to confirm that you are a real person, and then you click the link and you are done. We have been working really hard to get the word out about how great EBHS is, and this is just another way to have more people recognize our name and help support our beloved shelter. Here is the link to vote:

http://wisn.cityvoter.com/contests/a-list-on-wisn-com/1858/pets/animal-shelters

If we win, we will have a big party at the shelter to celebrate.

Some more great news is that we are welcoming the kids from Lad Lake back to the shelter. Lad Lake is a great organization out in Dousman that provides positive learning experiences for at-risk young men in our area. We have had some wonderful experiences with these kids and are looking forward to working with them again. They will be back on August 26 when school starts for them. The kids help us with cleaning in the morning and then work with the animals who need training and socialization. It is a win-win for all of us. It will be nice to have some more men around the shelter, as for some reason, most of our staff and volunteers are women.

This has been a great day! Thanks again for all of your wishes! I will post a picture of Minnie, the Parvo puppy as soon as I can! 

On Friday, I did something very few shelter or rescue people would do. I took home a puppy with Parvo.

Parvo is a deadly disease that mainly affects puppies, but is deadly to all dogs without a vaccination. This little dog was transferred in from another shelter. She is about 9 weeks old. Some kind of golden colored mixed breed. We sent her into foster care when she seemed to have an upper respiratory infection. The next day she started vomiting and we knew even before the test came back positive what it was going to tell us.

Many puppies, if treated early enough, can recover from Parvo. She is so little, so weak, so emaciated. She was that way when we got her, but she is now just a whisper of a dog.

I am usually very pragmatic in situations like this. Irish people are genetically pragmatic, it is in our DNA.  To quote one of my fellow Irish-Americans, the late Tip O'Neill, "To be Irish is to know that, in the end, the world will break your heart". Maybe that is how I am able to work in a shelter and not cry myself to sleep every single night. Because the world is supposed to be this way. Bad things happen to good people and innocent animals all the time, for no good reason.

Many shelters would not have given her a chance. It is dangerous to have a dog with Parvo in a shelter. Maybe she should have been euthanized when we found out how bad it really was. I do understand what other shelters would do in this situation, and why it should be done. But I could not do it. She seemed like she wanted to fight. So I figured that I should let her.

I took her home and have set up a makeshift hospice where she could be isolated from my dogs and family to minimize the risk of her infecting other dogs and the environment. I have been administering subcutaneous fluids, as an IV was unable to be inserted due to her weak condition and collapsing veins. I have been keeping her warm, clean and dry. I have been giving her nutritional supplements. I have been trying to keep her spirits up. Every time I think she is done for, she seems to read my mind and gather up all of her strength to get up and walk around so I can see she is not ready to go, yet.

Somewhere along the line I became a person who cannot bear a sad ending. I am not sure when this started, but I will not read a book or watch a movie anymore unless I can be certain of a happy ending. After living a pessimistic life where not only was my glass half-empty, but the liquid left in it was arsenic, I have turned into a believer.

I am the person who watches the wildlife shows on TV who roots for the wildebeest crossing the river with the crocodiles waiting nearby. I shout encouragement to the baby seals in South Africa, as they dodge the teeth of the Killer Whales. I know all about the circle of life, I saw The Lion King. But, while in my world, the zebra escapes to run another day from the pride of lions who are now happily munching on a dead animal they took from the hyenas off camera. I root for the underdogs. I root for the lowly and meek. Heck, I even root for the Mets.

I believe that this little puppy will somehow make it, and pull through this disease. Despite her weak condition. Despite her bad odds. Despite everything. I have done all I can do for her. It is up to her now. She has to be strong. She has to accept my medications, and needle pricks. She has to want to live as badly as I want her to.

I am praying for one more happy ending tonight.

The other day I wandered out into the reception area and was greeted by a young lady, about 9 years old, armed with a notebook and a pencil. She told me she had a couple of questions for me. I thought maybe she was a young, budding reporter or journalist, and I was not going to take any chances on a bad press story in a school newspaper so I immediately sat down and prepared myself to be grilled.

See, I have met the budding Tim Russerts and Barbara Walters from our community before. Unlike a seasoned reporter, who will try and gently gain your confidence and get you to spill your information about a certain topic, these youngsters immediately ask the tough questions about euthanasia, declawing, and adoption policies without giving you a nice warm up question first.

Fortunately for me, this young lady had only one question for me "How old do I have to be to volunteer?"  I get this question a lot, too. Most elementary school kids, especially the girls, would love to spend every hour of the day here. The catch is that if you are between 10 and 15, you must volunteer with a parent. Now, I work at the shelter, so it is easy for me to have my kids involved here. But most parents work a 40 hour work week and do not get excited at the thought of coming in after work or on weekends to clean, do laundry, or socialize animals.

Since this young lady was not old enough to volunteer, I did give her an application to hold on to for her birthday, and asked if she would like a tour of the shelter. Not just the viewing areas, the whole building. She was excited so we went to find her mom and sister to get permission and to invite them along. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy giving tours to kids that are really interested in the shelter.

I took them first to the laundry room which before looked like a regular old laundry room, but through the eyes of these two young ladies it became this exciting hub of domestic activity. Then we went and saw where we house the stray animals, and the animals that will be coming up on to the adoption floor in a few days. They were full of questions about where the animals came from, how they are taken care of, and were excited to see so many animals that they could have never guessed were even in the building.

On to the surgery room and recovery area which in reality is nothing like the really cool operating rooms on Animal Planet, but showing the space to these two kids, it suddenly seemed like it. They were fascinated and interested and asked more questions than most adult visitors to the room. I took them to our outside kennel areas, and they were really impressed with how much time the animals got to spend outside, and loved that they all had their own pool to hang out in.

I had a great time with my new friends, Rae and Anna, and even though I was totally swamped when I ran into them, I genuinely enjoyed every minute I spent with them and was thankful for the respite. Seeing the shelter through the eyes of a visitor is always interesting, but seeing the shelter through their eyes proved to be much more exciting. My place of "work" suddenly became the coolest place in Brookfield, and I was all the more proud to be here.

I was in a meeting the next day when they stopped in, though I would have gladly stepped out for a second to say hello. Instead, I was greeted by two beautiful pictures drawn by them with really nice notes on the back. I hung them on my office door as a reminder of the fun I had that day, and a reminder of how cool the shelter really is for the people we serve.

 I was unable to write yesterday, as I had to run out to take my kids for back to school hair appointments, since they have to take class pictures in August. I also just had my dogs to the groomer last weekend. I would like to share my top 10 reasons why taking your companion to the groomer is much more pleasant than getting back to school haircuts:

10. Your dog cannot ask for their hair to be styled like their favorite Disney teen celebrity, or cartoon character after you return to the waiting area.

9. You can drop your dog off and come back in a little while and not have to fear your dog telling the groomer things like "Mommy likes wine in the morning" or "Mommy does not wear pants to bed"

8. Often your groomer has a nice selection of things you actually will buy and use, unlike the hair products at a salon that they recommend to make your child's hair look like they do when you pick them up and will invariably age like fine wine under the sink until they dry up on their own.

7. Your dog cannot tell the hairdresser that you would love it if they had a permanent pink stripe of hair like Avril Lavigne.

6. Groomers sometimes make housecalls.

5. Your dog does not get mad at you if they get a haircut they do not like. Heck, they are just so happy to see you they could care less what their hair looks like.

4. The mani-pedi is included with the grooming - they will even brush your dogs teeth! Try getting the stylist at Master Cuts to brush your kid's teeth!

3. Your dog usually is on their best behavior at the groomer. Unlike my 14 year old who perfected her dirty looks in the mirror each time the stylist tried to engage in lively chit-chat. Gotta love teenage girls!

2. Your groomer does not judge you for your bad interim "trim jobs", but your child's stylist looks at you with pity upon seeing your amateur bang trim job on your young child.

1. When you get home from the groomer, your dog will not hog the bathroom for 3 hours rewashing and styling their new do.

Thanks to all the groomers out there who put up with us fussy moms and dads! I suppose I should thank all the stylists too, as they sure do a better job cutting my family's hair than I do. Although, I did marry a man who cut his own hair right before a job interview and he kind of looked like Pee Wee Herman when he was done. He did get the job, but that is a story for another blog...