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Paul Gruner, with cat Mischief, and Tracy Gill, with Bunsen (white) and Chopper Dave; Dodger relaxes on the floor. (Photo by Kimi Raspa)

Adopting a Pet Has Many Rewards
by Lucy Oppenheim

"There was a time when I thought if you want a purebred dog you go to a breeder . . . and if you want a mutt you'd go to the pound," says Paul Gruner, who with wife Tracy Gill owns several rescued pets. But now there are so many rescue organizations, . . . why not give a home to an animal that needs one? . . ."

Owners of other rescued pets express similar sentiments. "In a way he saved our life: he filled a big hole we had in our hearts," says Angela Meyer about her cat Seattle Slew, "and I like to think we saved his."

Changes in the world of animal adoption over recent years have removed time limits on how long adoptable pets are kept in many shelters, including the SPCA of Anne Arundel County. Some of these changes are the addition of foster care as another way to house homeless adoptable pets and rescue groups and Web sites as means of finding homes for them.

Lieutenant Jonathon Church oversees the part of the Anne Arundel County Police Department that includes Animal Control. He says, referring to public and private, staffed and volunteer animal rescue organizations, "We all kind of work hand in hand: the goal here is to get what animals we can back out into loving and caring homes, the protection of the animals, and the safe and the responsible ownership of animals. I think we all act as stewards and we work in conjunction with one another."

But despite the cooperation and hard work of animal rescue organizations, estimates of the number of cats and dogs euthanized nationally each year range from 4 million to 10 million.

Volunteering at the SPCA By Alex Crilly SPCA employee Cana Bray, 20, holds P.J., who has awaited adoption since November 2005, the longest of any cat currently at the SPCA. Have you ever met a dog named Napoleon? I have. He is a mix of a lot of different breeds. He's black and brown, medium sized, proportionally a little too short, and some would say vertically challenged. He was our favorite dog to walk but now he has a home. He was at the SPCA where my dad and I volunteer. We went though the one night training session and now our names are in the volunteer name tag box. Usually we just walk the dogs and pet the cats. There are so many more dedicated volunteers. They go on field trips and take a few animals to show off at a pet store or community event where there are potential people who might consider adopting. They do other things too, but it's hard to keep track of everything since the SPCA does so much. We get an email each week telling us about the activities. If you wonder where my dad and I walk the dogs, there are woods right next to the SPCA filled with trails that go by the water and the dogs love them. It's a great father/daughter bonding activity because I'm too young to walk the dogs myself. I like walking through the rows of cages reading the name tags of all the dogs and picking out one to walk out of all of them. Some bark and jump up and down when they see us coming. Others look cute and sit quietly. It's good to know there are no bad or mean dogs at the SPCA in the section where you volunteer. When they first come they are tested to see if they're friendly bite, get along with cats, and if they are "adoptable" There's even a resident cat to test their behavior with felines. So I don't have to worry about walking a dog and having it turn around and give me a bite. I tell other people about the SPCA and know I'm helping the animals by spreading the word that there are so many nice pets to adopt. You can become a volunteer or donate items such as cat toys, towels, dog treats or toys as well as money. For more information call them at (410) 268-4388 or visit them website at www.aacspca.org. Alex Crilly is 13 years old and a freshman at Annapolis High School. Click here for a listing of animal shelters and adoption options.

Seattle Slew

Meyer and her husband were looking "for a successor, not a replacement," for a young cat who had recently died when they paid a visit to Rude Ranch Animal Rescue in Harwood. There they found a kitten, one of a rescued litter of kittens removed from a racehorse training track and nursed back to health.

"I knew Rude Ranch did [adoption events at] PetSmart, so we went down there, and we thought, 'Well, let's just see if anyone speaks to us.' And there was this little, striped tabby in one of the carriers, and they opened it up and he leaped out of the thing and right into my husband's arms. So he spoke to us."

Meyer's ideas of where to look for a cat had changed over the years. Though she bought her first kitten 20 years ago in a pet shop, she adopted her next few kittens from unplanned litters. Some of her cats came from her husband's family, in Ohio. "At one point they had eighteen. They live out in the country and they'd often get dumped." Her growing awareness of how many kittens needed homes started her to thinking about the benefits of adopting from a rescue organization.

She first learned about Rude Ranch from a poster. "Once I realized they had a Web site, then I looked at other shelters' Web sites, and that's when you realize how many hundreds of cats there are out there. And now I think-and of course I'll get more-I think I'll only get them from a shelter."

You can use the Internet to look for rescue groups near and far, find an offsite adoption event, or check out animals in some area shelters. "We're getting a lot more people seeing the cats posted on our Web site through PetFinder. Like what they're saying with real estate, people are kind of previewing houses, it's the same concept. We're getting a lot more Internet based," says Rude Ranch's Kathy Rude. "It used to be a lot more 'Come on in, see our animals.' . . . Now it's a lot more we have a lot of our animals posted and people can E-mail us saying, 'Hey, I saw Maggie on you Web site, is she still available?'"

Max

Jim Dan is another pet adopter whose views changed over time.

"I didn't start out wanting to rescue a dog, but I came to find out that there are so many dogs that need homes."

Dan had visited shelters around the state and into Virginia and gone to offsite adoption events the SPCA of Anne Arundel County held. Like so many others who adopt pets, Dan just knew when he'd found the right one.

"The SPCA was having a pet adoption day down by the Safeway. Max was kind of walking around and clinging to the person who was doing the foster care with him. He was just so doggone cute . . .."

Often pet owners are forced to give up an animal because their landlord does not allow pets, according to Susan Beatty, the SPCA's executive director. Other reasons are "Moving, allergies, and no time." As part of the SPCA's application process, to ensure that an animal is placed in a suitable home, renters are asked to show their leases, to verify that pets are allowed. The application process can take from 2 to 7 days.

Prospective owners don't mind the wait. "I like the fact that they did a background check on me," says Dan. "I just couldn't walk up and buy the dog. I filled out an application, they . . . made sure that the dog was going to be given a good home, so it wouldn't get back into the same situation that it was before."

"There's a lot of great dogs at the SPCA," enthuses Dan. "Never rule out going to the SPCA, just checking them out. And the nice thing about it is, even if you don't want to go to the SPCA yourself, you can go on line. They have pictures of the dogs with their background history."

Rescued from a horse race track by the Rude Rance, one of these kittens found a home with Angela Meyer.

Dodger, Mischief, Bunsen, and Chopper Dave

Visiting a shelter is particularly useful when you're looking for a companion for a pet you already own.

Even though Gill and her mother rescued Dodger when he was a 6-month-old puppy whose owner was overwhelmed and couldn't look after him-15 years ago-it hasn't exactly been a dog's life for him since then. "Dodger had a cat named Misho, who died, and he was really lonely without having a cat in the house. So we went over to the SPCA and we brought Dodger with us. They put us in a room with Dodger and we tried out different cats with [him], and Mischief was the one cat that could deal with Dodger."

Gill and Gruner had also rescued a tame, albino rabbit Gill and her nephew found. "We tried to find the owners and we tried to find other people who wanted a pet rabbit, but we couldn't, and that's how we ended up with Bunsen, our first rabbit," Gruner explains. "Once we were committed to keeping Bunsen I did a little reading on rabbits and found out that they're very social and they do much better if they have a companion."

Once again they turned to the SPCA. The shelter has an entire room with rabbits, guinea pigs, and hamsters, waiting for a new home. "We took Bunsen to the SPCA and put her in her pen and tried her with a couple different rabbits and she seemed to get along with Dave the best," says Gruner. So Chopper Dave, a 2-lb. rabbit with an underbite, joined their household.

"Of course, coming from the SPCA, he was neutered. And actually, we kind of thought that was a bargain because apparently it costs $35 [at that time] to adopt a rabbit from the SPCA and that includes neutering and a vet wellness checkup. In contrast, Bunsen-I think we paid over $100 to have her spayed at the vet and have her initial checkup. So it seemed like a really good deal."

But it turned out that dealing with Chopper Dave's dental problems was a bigger project than they realized when the SPCA told them he had a dental problem. Yet, "As much as Dave has cost us in medical bills, I think Bunsen has done more damage to our house in monetary value . . . you really need to rabbit-proof your house [if you're going to let them roam free in it]," says Gruner.

Like the others who adopted rescued animals, they feel strongly about spaying and neutering their pets. "We couldn't find a home for one rabbit," says Gruner, referring to their adoption of Bunsen, "so obviously if they had a litter and we'd feel like we had to find homes for all the babies, we didn't want that. I think it's the responsible thing to do."

Read more about all the places you can visit to adopt a variety of pets in our county in the accompanying sidebars.

Lucy Oppenheim, our copy editor, volunteered at the Tompkins County (NY) SPCA the summer she was 10 and the school year of tenth grade and had a summer job there when she was 15.

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SPCA resident Shyla

Neuter and Spay-It's the Kindest Way

"There are too many animals and not enough homes for them. People are not spaying and neutering enough to make a dent in the number of animals that are homeless," says Sue Beatty, executive director of the SPCA of Anne Arundel County.

Using average numbers for litter sizes and numbers of litters, the Humane Society of the United States estimates that in 7 years one female cat and her offspring can theoretically produce 420,000 cats and in 6 years one female dog and her offspring can theoretically produce 67,000 dogs.

"We do a male cat neuter-a-thon twice a year, where for $30 they can get their male cats neutered and up to date on shots. They're neutered and sent home the same day. We do a limited number of female cats once a month. There's also the SNAP certificate program. That's a low-cost program where you pay to get the certificate and they provide you a list of participating veterinarians. And the Prince George's County SPCA has a very good low-cost spay-neuter program that's open to anyone," Beatty adds.

Its Web site says, "The SPCA/Humane Society of Prince George's County, Inc., is a nonprofit organization of volunteers dedicated to animal welfare.

For more information about the clinic, call (301) 324-0807. (We experience an extremely high call volume and it may take as long as three days to return your call.) You can make an appointment by calling our 24-hour answering service at (800) 270-5758." Find the site here: http://pgspca.org/clinic.

SNAP, Inc. (Spay Neuter All Pets)
P.O. Box 686
Chesapeake City, MD 21915-0686
snapinc[at]yahoo.com
(410) 885-5783
Most veterinarians accept SNAP certificates. For details about costs, participating hospitals, restrictions and/or to place a credit card order, call a SNAP volunteer at (410) 885-5783. To order a SNAP certificate by mail, send money order (no checks) and self-addressed stamped envelope to the address given.

SPAY/USA, a program of North Shore Animal League America, is a nationwide network and referral service for affordable spay and neuter services: www.spayusa.org, (800) 248-SPAY, or (516) 883-7575.

And these two Web sites offer more information and resources: http://www.paw-rescue.org/PAW/PETTIPS/DogTip_SpayDay.php http://members.petfinder.org/~MD110/spayneuter.htm

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Milo at the SPCA

Another Kind of Rescue

Animal Control has a program that provides temporary shelter, at a moment's notice, for the pets of domestic violence victims who must immediately escape abusive situations. The Domestic Violence Pet Support Program protects pets from continued or potential abuse and supports domestic violence victims in seeking their own safety.

"Those who are victims of domestic violence don't often have an opportunity to remove their animals if they need to leave the home quickly or they don't have an opportunity to place them somewhere," says Lieutenant Jonathon Church, who heads the section of the county police department that includes Animal Control. "Wherever they're going may not accept [pets], if they're going to a shelter. So what we offer is an opportunity, for any victim of domestic violence, we will pick up their animal [if necessary], we will house it with us, we will treat it, feed it, care for it, free of charge until they have an opportunity to find another location where they can take their animal with them."

Church explains why this is such an important service for the county to provide: "Pets sometimes become the tool by which a domestic violence situation may be aggravated. There have been studies that show that violence sometimes will begin with a pet and may lead to domestic violence. And sometimes the abuser will use the pet as a hostage or may do some damage or harm to the pet in order to get at the partner. It is important to get that animal out of that situation as well because it is a member of the family."

You can read more about the program at the Anne Arundel County Animal Control web site, download a brochure here, or call Anne Arundel County Animal Control (410) 222-8900.

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Fifteen-year-old Rude Ranch volunteer Devon Sheldon holds Priscilla with Pricilla's brother Jack in the background.

Rude Ranch

Spaying and neutering were an important part of the work with feral cats that gave Rude Ranch its start.

"We don't do as much with trap-neuter-release," says Kathy Rude of Rude Ranch about changes in the rescue operation over time. "We help people with it, have traps available to people, but we aren't as hand-on. Sometimes our resources for dealing with feral cats are limited: if people hope they'll just bring us feral cats and we'll pay for all the vet work and everything like that, we're kind of limited in terms of that. We can help them out with low-cost spay-neuter, but we can't afford to pay for it, and low-cost shots. I do have some humane live traps available. We take a deposit when we loan them out, they're in and out constantly. We can help give suggestions on how to catch them, ways to help take care of them, things like that.

"We always want to encourage spay-neuter," she adds. "We spay and neuter everything, even the small kittens as young as 8 weeks old were fixed before they went home."

That's something that has changed in recent decades. As veterinary anesthesia techniques have developed, making surgery on infant animals safer, the fields of animal rescue and veterinary medicine have been exploring the effects of spaying very young cats and dogs, where once it was considered best to wait until the animal matured-even bore one litter. Now, early spay-neuter is widespread and finding growing acceptance.

Another innovation in veterinary surgery, including spaying and neutering, is the use of lasers in place of scalpels. Some area vets are equipped to do this kind of surgery. But however you do it-early or late, using old-fashioned or cutting-edge techniques-spaying and neutering contributes to your pet's health and well-being instead of contributing to pet overpopulation.