pet connection

I spoke with Bonney Brown, director of the Nevada Humane Society, located in an area with a very high rate of foreclosures, about how their community is responding to the crisis.

Bonney Brown: Our state has been among the hardest hit as far as foreclosures go. And so, yes, we are seeing a mild increase in intake of animals between us and the county. We take only surrenders. The county picks up stray animals. And then, we try to take them at the end of the stray hold.

Our adoptions are up. Actually, last month was our biggest adoption month. We adopted out 862 pets. The last biggest month we had was the previous August. But we know that a lot of people are having a hard time financially. One of the programs we try to do is to help people keep their pets.

We have a food program where people who are seeing financial issues can get free pet food here at the Humane Society. I realize some food banks do this, as well, but people can come in and get bags of dog food or cat food, at least as long as our supplies hold out. And that enables some people to keep their pets who wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

You know, we try to be as compassionate as possible in the surrendering, but we’ve also done a few local news stories with local TV stations about people trying to plan ahead a little bit because you so greatly increase the odds.

I know no one wants to really think they’re going to lose their home. But if things are going badly, the earlier you can plan, the better. And we have a free animal help desk that people can call or email for assistance, and we talk with people about options. We have a list of pet friendly apartments. We talk with people about options and, of course, we are here when it’s a last resort, when there really is nothing else that can be done. And sadly, there are people who are in that position, where they’re out of options.

In Reno, there are people living tents in the little tent city in downtown Reno. So, some folks, they’re in a tough position. We recently had a family in our surrender room. You know, they’re all crying, so it was awful. And you really do feel for people. Of course, we feel for the animals, too, and we do try to help people keep them whenever they can. But, you know, we’re here if they can’t.

As far as preventing it, the help desk is probably our single biggest program. And it’s a free hotline – a phone line that you can call, and there’s also an email address, and we have a trained staff person and some volunteers who answer these emails and calls.

I actually have statistics on what has been coming in, and a tremendous number of them are related to the economy lately.

I think the goal should be for shelters to be that place of last resort. It is. You know, I will say in defense of the shelter people who get upset, is it is really hard and sad; especially, you know, when you see these animals coming in day in and day out. But we just do a lot of creative adoptions.

We’ve reduced obstacles to adoption with a creative adoption promotion. We’ve reduced adoption fees to assist people. For example, you can adopt two kittens for the price of one. We’ve had various promotions this summer for adult cat adoptions.

And we still screen people, but for a lot of people, they realize taking on a pet is an added expense. And so, if we can help underwrite that a little bit with the adoption fee, then it frees them up to get the supplies they’re going to need for the new pet, and enables a lot more people to adopt who are in more stable situations. The other program is called Seniors to Seniors, and people 55 and up can adopt pets who are six years old and up free of charge.

We’ve had elderly people come in, you know, and some of them will just be in tears because they’re so delighted that this will enable them to adopt a pet. And, you know, at some shelters, the fees are as high as $100 for the animal. And then, they are going to have vet bills on top of that.

And they have to buy food and a litter box and a scratching post, and a collar if it’s a dog, and a bed. And most people realize that there are all these other expenses, and it’s great if you can help them a little. And we found the donors have responded generously because people want animals to be saved.

Christie Keith: One of the things that has struck me as I have done my interviews for this article is that often people come to the shelter after they have run out of options, and there’s nothing left but to surrender the pet.

And I had been wondering if there was any program or even just a policy or an educational outreach that could try and intervene with people at an earlier stage in the process so that they didn’t let it get to the point. Because I think what happens with a lot of people is that they give up inside and they become so desperate that they feel like the pet goes from being a member of the family and a support to just another burden and source of stress and shame.

And so, they harden themselves off because they just can’t take anymore. And when you get to them at that point, it’s too late, really, because at that point, all they really want is for the pet to be no longer there. You say you’ve been working with the media, and getting the message out, but I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be a good idea to try and reach out to people earlier in their process?

Bonney Brown: You know, now that you say it, it almost makes it seem self-evident that we probably should have been doing more of that kind of outreach. And maybe now that you say that, we will try to do something.

I’ll have to talk to the local paper here, maybe the Reno Gazette Journal, see if they would consider doing a story on it. And one of the local realtors is a big supporter. He’s a dog rescuer. When the Gazette Journal was doing an article on this, and they were looking for a realtor, I recommended him and he gave some great quotes about contacting the humane society early.

We actually have given him and a couple of other folks in similar positions a whole bunch of our animal help cards, because what he said is most people really do know some months ahead that this is the direction things are going. But they’re either hoping that something miraculous will happen or – you know, going through the stages that humans go through while they’re coping with something very difficult.

And so he often gives them the cards early on, urges them to get in touch early while we still have the time to try to do something else. And most people – not all, but most – do feel great guilt about surrendering pets.

Sometimes we think it would be helpful if people felt more guilty. But the reality is, it isn’t helpful. What we have found, through the help desk, is actually helpful is giving people the tools to fix a solution and the hope that there is a solution, and really a little bit of positive encouragement that maybe there are some things they haven’t yet thought of that they could try in terms of looking for temporary placement for their pet with a friend or a family member.

And, you know, it isn’t always possible, but sometimes people are just so overwhelmed by other things that they haven’t thought of all the options that we’ve thought of and put together. And when they hear them, some people are able to take action on it. And then, they actually feel better because they’ve done something positive – had some positive success, maybe found a way to sustain things with their pets.

So that’s the main way that we’ve done it, and the TV. When we’ve had TV crews come out to talk about the issue here, because it has been such a big issue with foreclosures. We have suggested to people that, “If you feel this is a possibility for you, please try to contact us now and we’ll try to help and try to minimize the feelings of guilt and stress around the thing for people.” Encouraging them to do something early.

Christie Keith: Do you ever do match ups of foster homes of people who have short term needs for shelter for their pets, or is that something you haven’t gotten involved in?

Bonney Brown: No, we really have not. We do have a huge foster network here at the shelter. I believe when I last looked, we had over 500 potential foster homes, and the people who said they would foster certain kinds of animals under certain circumstances.

You know, some people will do kittens. Some people do puppies. Some will do geriatric dogs. And so, it’s not that all of them would do it under any circumstance. But I used to work for Best Friends Humane Society before. And actually, they have a resource I don’t want to forget to tell you about before we hang up, as well. But we had tried and looked at and explored various things like that also with the military. You know, people being called up for active duty, and it does tend to become a somewhat sticky situation with how long is this going on and who’s responsible for the expenses and what if they don’t come back?

And then, you finally make a decision to give the pet to someone else, or to a shelter, and then they do show up. And people do tend to worry about that when there’s a person involved. But when there’s an organization – for example, the people who foster, say, kittens for us, when they’re a certain age, they know up front they’re going to bring them back, or if the animal becomes really ill, they know that the veterinarian that works for the organization will take care of the problem and we would be responsible for the decision, so this isn’t all falling on them.

You know, what if the pet gets sick and you have to decide to euthanize and the person is upset? I mean these are, unfortunately, real concerns. And so, no, we haven’t done that, but thing we have said to people is if they do get back on their feet and the pet is still available, we would be happy to return the pet to them.

Christie Keith: You don’t have that punitive thing that some shelters do that if it’s an owner surrender, you don’t get them back?

Bonney Brown: No, unless it was a case of neglect. We think there are reasons these things happen. We talk to the person about it and we have run into circumstances where life circumstances have changed. And actually, local animal control here that we work with pretty closely – they have something they call a safe hold, and for a short period of time, they will hold pets for people. Probably about ten days, I think.

But we’ve had people overrun the safe hold, and then rather than have the pet be euthanized, we will often pull them. And we’re not, unfortunately, in the position not to put them up for adoption, but, you know, we have hundreds of animals here and they don’t all get adopted instantly.

So sometimes we’ve had people show up two weeks later and say, “Those are my animals,” and we can check the records and see it was, in fact, their cat or dog. And as long as it doesn’t seem like deliberate cruelty had occurred, often we do work with the people on reuniting with their pet. I mean it’s really what the pet would want. The pet often loves the person, you know? So we just take a different view of that.

Christie Keith: So what is it you wanted to let me know about Best Friends?

Bonney Brown: Best Friends has a resource called “How to Find Homes for Homeless Pets,” and I could email it to you, if you want. It’s actually a PDF. And we use that quite a bit because it actually even helps you re-home your own pet and it talks about how to find the right home because you know your pet better than even anyone in a shelter ever would.

And it talks about simple and inexpensive ways to advertise, and how to interview the person so you know where your pet’s going. And I would think it would be very helpful for a lot of people. We find a lot of people – not a lot, but some people– actually feel better that way, because then they don’t have the guilt of knowing their pet is sitting in a cage in a shelter because they took these proactive steps to find their pet a home. And this little guide walks you through it step by step how to find a home.

Best Friends has a national help desk, too. I don’t know if you can search and find it on the site. I think they still have it. I left there about three years ago. But they probably still have that service, and we have ours here. We try to serve all over Nevada but, you know, I’m pretty sure we would offer advice to anybody who called.

We don’t usually turn people away. It’s just our shelter usually just accepts pets from our county. We have a contractual agreement with the county. But if people wanted help through the help desk, we would try to help them.

[Note from Christie: The Best Friends Animal Help Desk is available at their No More Homeless Pets web site, and they can also be reached by phone at 435-644-2001, ext. 4800.]

Christie Keith: I realize it’s a horrible problem and I’m not pretending that there are easy solutions, but I think it’s better to focus on trying to help than trying to make people feel even worse.

Bonney Brown: People should feel comfortable reaching out to the humane organizations. What does it feel like when they call you and ask for help, and get some grumpy person who says, “What? You didn’t plan? You didn’t do this or that?” How does that help animals or people? And some day, these people could be back on their feet and we want them to come to the humane society to adopt, so you don’t want to have driven people off and treated them badly.