pet connection

I spoke with No Paws Left Behind founder Cheryl Lang about how her organization is helping people and pets affected by foreclosure, and working to educate members of the real estate profession about how they can help.

Cheryl Lang: What we’re all about is finding the solutions instead of just letting people give up and leave their pets behind. I certainly don’t think that’s what they intend to do. I think that’s just ultimately what happens, because people tend to not plan financial disaster. We’ve learned through Katrina to plan for natural disaster. Now it’s time to plan for financial disasters. And that’s the key, planning.

In my line of business, we perform property inspections and property preservation on loans going through foreclosure, and we do that nationwide. No Paws Left Behind started out because I became angry as we started to see a spike in animals being left behind because of foreclosure.

And it became just something that I felt so strongly about, that these were mean people and they were doing things wrong and I wanted to put a stop to it. So we came up with No Paws Left Behind, and that was purely just bringing awareness and find solutions to foreclosure pets.

But as I thought about what goes on in a person’s psyche as far as going through foreclosure and everything that has to do with it, most of these people have never been faced with anything like this before. Seventy percent of all borrowers do not contact their lender while they’re going through foreclosure, so they have no idea what’s going to happen.

They believe that they’re going to come home and their belongings are going to be at the curb and that’s how things go, and that is so far from the truth. So we recommend, first and foremost, if you are going through a foreclosure, reach out to your lender. Find out what exactly is going to happen and plan accordingly.

So many people panic, and just leave. They don’t know where they’re going to go with their families, let alone their pets. So they leave their pets behind, hoping that either the realtor or the lender will take care of them. There were two dogs that were left in Las Vegas, and the owner left a note saying, “Please keep us together.” These people, they just have no place to go.

And, you know, things like that are heartbreaking for people. So we learned a lot as went down this path. It’s not as black and white as it looks. There are so many underlying things. so what we want to do is we want to help.

Christie Keith: I’ve noticed the two prong approach that you seem to be taking. One is tools that help pet owners. and the other is reaching out to people in your industry to give them the tools to know what to do. Can you say a little bit about the two branches of that?

Cheryl Lang: Absolutely. We want to first and foremost help the borrower, and keep that family together. And that’s the mother, the father, the dog, the cat, the kids. And that’s our ultimate goal. Nothing is worse than driving away and leaving your pet behind, and what kind of message does that give to your kids? It’s just a bad message. So that’s resource number one that we try to be for pet owners and the borrowers.

And then, the people out in the field and including my competitors, I want them to look at us as a resource to help, too. So many times, it just takes stopping at the property when you’re doing a property inspection and actually listening. Do you hear barking from inside? Do you see a cat in the window? And then go look and see if the utilities are turned off and is that property abandoned? And if so, let us know.

We are a non-profit organization and we’re here to try to protect the lender, because other than now in the state of California, pets are considered personal property. And now, the state of California is allowing banks and lenders to remove pets when they find them abandoned because of foreclosure, and that’s wonderful. But all the other states have not followed suit, so lenders are put in a position where they have a lot of liability if they remove that animal, so we’ll do it for them and take the pressure off of them.

Christie Keith: Part of the motivation I’ve had for wanting this to be a more positive article was to try and help people not feel so much shame and hopelessness as I think contributes to a lot of these stories.

But also sometimes, depending on where they live and what shelter they contact, they get messages from the shelter that we cannot help you. If you bring us your pet, it’ll probably be killed. Kind of creating – even for people who are trying to do the right thing – a sense maybe my pet is better off being left in the house. So I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that. I know it’s a little bit far field from what your organization is for, but I just wondered if you had anything that you wanted to say about that phenomenon?

Cheryl Lang: Well actually, I understand that completely. I’ve spent an entire day weekend trying to find a home for a pit bull that had been left behind in a garage. And I could not get anybody on the phone. I could not get anybody to return my emails.

When I finally did talk to somebody, the woman – and I said first and foremost, I said, “Are you a no kill shelter?” And literally she laughed at me for 30 seconds. And I said, “Why do you think it’s so funny?” And she said, “Well, everybody asks me that.” And that was her way to embarrass me to hang up.

And so, I understand completely the borrowers’ situation, that they don’t have that kind of time commitment to put in when they’re already in a dire situation of finding a place for their family, and then coupled with no place to take your cat. And being met with people within the animal advocacy area who think they’re mean and horrible people. I understand their frustration.

I can’t imagine trying to find a place for my animals and that’s not to say that that would never happen. Never say never. But more likely they will always be with me as long as I have anything to say about it, but you just don’t know what’s around the corner.

Christie Keith: Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers?

Cheryl Lang: It’s kind of funny, because we’re just business people that saw a problem and wanted to do something positive. And I think actually in the small time that we’ve been an organization, we’ve made a lot of progress and the word is getting out there that we are a resource.

And the neat thing is I – being in the industry and knowing what goes on through foreclosure – I love talking to these people, because not only can I help them find places for their pets, I can also tell them, “Call your lender. There are options. Just don’t give up.” And I can kind of counsel them, too, on foreclosure issues, so that’s a real good feeling for me. I want nothing more than to keep people in their houses and with their pets and with their family and keep them together.

So it’s such a nice thing to do in such a bad situation. The mortgage crisis is going to go on for another, at least, three years, I believe. So, you know, we’ve got a long way to go, and the more positive things that we can get out of it, I think, the better things are going to be until then.