Walking by the cages at the Española Valley Humane Society Animal Shelter, it would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the faces behind the steel links. Some of them lay with sad eyes on their cots, others whine and clamor for attention, pressing their noses against the mesh. Despite the advice not to stick fingers through the fence, it’s hard to resist stroking a nose or muzzle.
Despite these sad conditions, these animals are fortunate to be at the shelter where there are people who care. The dogs and cats are fed, watered and given medical attention through the efforts of a cadre of employees and volunteers. What the volunteers receive transcends monetary reward.
“I find it really rewarding,” volunteer Elena Sante said. “You can really make a difference.”
Sante was walking dogs in one of two outdoor runs where they can be let off leash and run freely, as was volunteer Cynthia Cavanaugh. A female German Shepherd chased a tennis ball, backing up the sign on its pen in the shelter “Loves to Play Fetch.” The playful dog proved to be too much for Cavanaugh and shelter employee Kyle Martinez had to help her. The scrapes that Cavanaugh received were brushed off.
There are those who go an extra mile, taking dogs and cats into their homes as foster parents because the shelter does not have the facilities to care for the animals it receives during the year. They are giving back what the animals are giving to them.
“A few years ago I was having serious marital problems,” Ross VanLyssel, of Los Alamos, said. “They let me hold a puppy and cry. I’ve been a foster volunteer ever since.”
VanLyssel pointed to his heart when asked why he became a volunteer. He and wife Lauri had just returned a nursing mother dog with puppies, which they had cared for, to the shelter.
“When we first got her (the mother dog), her ribs were showing and her teats were dragging on the ground,” VanLyssel said. “Now she’s happy, loving. We have a two-year old child at home and three adult dogs. They’re socialized and ready for any house she’s placed in. She’ll be a damn good dog.”
For 91-year old Ruby Meaders, of Los Alamos, the drive down to the shelter to pick up a puppy to take it home provides her with companionship.
“I live alone,” she said. “I get puppies when they’re five weeks old.”
Linda Sanchez coordinates the foster home program for the shelter. She said pets typically stay with foster parents anywhere from three days to three weeks. She has been there 12 years.
“People typically come in wanting to foster,” Sanchez said. “We have them fill out an application. We figure out what’s best for them so we can make a perfect fit.”
The most heart-warming moments are when an animal goes home after being adopted, as one lucky dog was Aug. 16 with Alex Rossi.
“My two-year old Lorenzo (her dog) needs someone with a little spunk,” Rossi said. “I’m so excited.”
Generating funds
The Shelter is celebrating its 20-year anniversary in September.
The Shelter takes in over 4,200 animals each year. The cost for taking care of these animals is substantial. Governmental support from the city of Española and Rio Arriba County for $80,000 and $70,000 respectively. Española increased its funding from $50,000 to $80,000 for Fiscal Year 2013 at an Aug. 14 city council meeting.
The city owns the building where the Shelter is located. With expenses exceeding $800,000 a year in 2010 and the sheltering of the animals costing $573,000 a year, the shelter must be aggressive and creative to generate the funds needed for its operation. That’s the job of Executive Director Bridget Lindquist,
“We don’t presently receive enough from the city and the County to cover our costs, but that’s okay,” Lindquist said. “It used to be they gave only $20,000, so that shows they have tremendous faith in our organization.”
To make up the rest of the funds needed, the Shelter holds fundraisers and adoption events that raise $250,000 per year. Their biggest fundraiser will be Sept. 22 at The Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe, where there will be live and silent auctions of spa, dining and travel packages, goods and gift certificates donated by businesses that support the Society. Lindquist said she hopes the Gala will generate $100,000 for the shelter. Income from events generated $78,000 and grants totaled $150,000 for the Shelter last year.
Lindquist is actively seeking donations and contributions from individuals as part of the effort to raise funds. She wishes to let it be known that all donations are welcome, be they $5 or $500.
“We used to have 1,000 making contributions averaging $250 a year six years ago,” Lindquist said. “Now we have 4,000 making contributions of $100 each. That’s a really cool thing because we have so many more people involved with supporting the organization.”
These donations can even be made spontaneously at the clinic. Rita Seeds Garcia brought in a dog she had found wandering in the road and while there made a donation to the Society using her credit card.
“I always make a donation when I come in,” she said.
Adopting challenge
Lindquist said the economy has impacted the amount of money the Society receives with fewer companies able to make grants. That’s why the $387,000 made from donations is so important. They cover 89 percent of the Shelter’s operating costs.
The shelter receives income from adoption fees, which are $85 for a puppy and $45 for an adult dog. Cat adoption fees are $85 for kittens and $45 for adults.
One of the costs of the Shelter is transporting pets to mobile adoption events. There are more homeless pets in Rio Arriba County than there are people to adopt them, making it necessary to take the animals to where they are needed. Over 1,400 pets are transported during the year to Colorado, where conditions are the opposite of what they are in Rio Arriba. There are not enough pets in Colorado to met the demand.
The Shelter participates in 35 to 40 pet adoption events in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. That’s the responsibility of Nina Stively, who organizes the mobile adoption events. The pets from the shelter are loaded into its oversized, air-conditioned van and transported to the events. The most recent was Aug. 11 at PetSmart in Santa Fe. Volunteers at that event helped to make sure the animals were comfortable, with shade and water under the hot summer sun.
“The people in the animal shelter are saints,” Cody Mohr said. “I’m an aspiring Buddhist. What goes around comes around. I can’t say enough about the people that work there.”
Saint Nina
Stively left a job selling information technology (computers) to work in the field of caring for animals. She loves them and wishes that there weren’t so many in Rio Arriba County. Traditions are hard to break. It’s not that what people used to do is wrong, it’s just that was the way things were done. Animals are often chained and left outside.
“It’s hard to place a pet that’s never been indoors,” she said. “An animal that has been chained is more likely to bite. These animals have been domesticated by us over many generations. They don’t see cats and dogs as members of the family here as much as they do in other places. It’s not that the old ways were wrong, just different.”
Stively is a jill-of-all-trades, driving the van to the events after loading the animals at the shelter. She does lots of chores around the Shelter when she is not organizing and preparing for mobile adoption events. She’ll help clean out the pens, do blood draws, shave animals who come in with their hair matted because they have never been brushed and she coordinates community outreach programs.
“We want people to understand why we’re here and that we are here,” she said. “We need the community to be on board with us. If we’re not making any headway we feel like we’re spinning our wheels.”
County problem
In Rio Arriba County, there is one unwanted animal for every 2.5 households. It’s 1-in-12 in Santa Fe and 1-in-60 in Los Alamos. What the Society wants to make headway on is a reduction of the number of homeless pets that are in the County. The Shelter’s spay and neuter clinic helps to achieve that goal. Pet owners are encouraged to make appointments to have their pets sterilized for a modest $20 fee. In addition, before any adopted animal leaves the shelter it is spayed or neutered. The Shelter performed over 3,200 spay and neutering surgeries in 2011, up from over 2,900 in 2010.
In addition, the animal receives its required vaccinations and has a microchip implanted in it to aid in future identification should the animal be brought back to the shelter after becoming lost.
Vaccinations are also available to pet owners for a $10 fee. Vaccination clinics are held Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. All adoption fees include the cost of spaying and neutering surgery, microchipping, initial vaccinations and 30 days of pet health insurance.
Vet wanted
Spaying and neutering surgeries are performed by a veterinarian. The Shelter is currently searching for a full-time veterinarian after Gretchen Yost, who filled that position, recently resigned (she will still maintain a relationship with the Shelter). A team of veterinarians, including Tom Parker and Trina Hadden, is currently providing the surgical service and medical help the clinic needs to care for its animals.
“The people are just great here,” Hadden said.
Stively is a perfect example of the quality of employee that Lindquist is seeking to hire and she has apparently succeeded. The better the quality of employee Lindquist has, the less time she has to spend worrying about them doing their job and the more time she can spend doing hers. That starts with the front desk, which is often the first contact those entering the Shelter have with the Society.
“If that exchange goes well, that person is more likely to come back,” Lindquist said. “Nice positive energy attracts equally positive people. Staff is the most critical part of the whole enchilada. It makes it easier to commit to the daily grind.”
Sabrina Terrazas is often the first person that people talk with. In the Society’s Spring Newsletter, she begins a statement in the Employee Corner with “Do you wake up every morning for work and smile about it, or wish you were at work on your days off? I know most people don’t, but I do.”
Positive people
That positive feeling permeates the atmosphere. Patricia Sutliff shares the front desk with Terrazas. They often share their workspace with a cat or kitten. Sutliff was holding a small puppy who had come to the shelter with an internal temperature of 93 degrees. It had been placed in a warmer and Sutliff typed out forms while holding the puppy closely to her.
For Shelter manager Lisa Gipe, the Shelter’s finest hour came when they were able to take care of all the pets that had to be quickly evacuated during the Las Conchas fire when Los Alamos was evacuated. Using all of their resources, particularly the foster home program members, they were able to clear out the shelter to make room for the evacuees.
“We accepted over 100 animals,” Gipe said. “I love being around people who love animals as a much as I do.”
The first thing Gipe does when arriving at work is check on the animals.
“They’ve been alone all night,” she said.
The most recent hire at the Shelter is hospital manager Monica Watson, who came on board Aug. 1, but has fit right in. She has spent her adult life working with animals, starting when she was 17 and continuing for 13 years.
“It’s all I’ve ever done,” Watson said. “I started just feeding and walking the animals. It’s up to me to take care of the maintenance of all the equipment. Animals have a pure essence. They resonate with a part of my soul that can’t be fulfilled by anything else.”
The satisfaction of working with animals is felt by all of the Shelter’s 27 employees from those who do the fund-raising to those who clean up after and feed the animals. To a person, technicians like Kyle Martinez, Manuel Padilla, Omar Rodriguez, Sabrina Duran, Mike Garcia and kennel supervisor Jenna Sanchez all said they liked to work with animals when asked about their jobs.
“My family is all big animal lovers,” Sanchez said as she hand-fed one of the dogs in the kennel.
Even Lindquist misses the hands on experience that the technicians get to experience.
“Believe it or not, I miss cleaning out the pens,” she said.
Despite the best efforts of the staff, there are still animals who cannot find homes. Of the 4,200 animals that the shelter accepts, 76 percent are adopted. The reality of that heartbreak of euthanasia doesn’t deter the dedicated employees who work there.
“You focus on the ones you can help, the happy endings,” Stively said. “A couple of months ago, this family adopted a kitten in poor condition. She now leads a good life and has tripled her body weight. Her family sends me pictures.”