Nina Stively wears many hats at the Española Valley Humane Society. Following her workday Saturday, none of the hats she wears will pertain to Española’s animal shelter.
Stively and her husband Adam are moving to Virginia where a job with the Department of Energy awaits Adam and new life awaits Nina in the world of non-profit fund-raising for a wildlife organization.
Nina Stively, 31, was born in Binghamton, N.Y. and grew up in Boston, Mass. She graduated from Hampshire College with a degree in non-profit management. That background, tied with her love of animals, took her to the Santa Fe animal shelter in 2005, where she was hired as the shelter’s mobile adoptions manager.
Stively said the Santa Fe shelter lacked the small, intimate atmosphere and when the same position at the Española shelter opened, she found a new home.
“There’s more opportunity here to help,” Stively said.
Since 2006 Stively has also recruited and coordinated volunteers, something the Española shelter was lacking.
Her education and ability to assess the situation sent her in the right direction.
“The volunteer program needed to be expanded and we needed more outreach,” Stively said. “We have great volunteers.”
Hardy volunteers
An army of volunteers turned out Nov. 23 for Stively’s last mobile pet adoption. Her regular six volunteers were flanked by at least that many more at the back of PetSmart in Santa Fe.
Ginny and Jim Tape, of Santa Fe, said they’ve been with Stively since she worked at the Santa Fe animal shelter. They were stoic in the face of Stively’s departure.
“We’ll keep working hard,” Ginny Tape said. “We’ve come too far to let it go.”
Jim Tape said the volunteers would work well with whomever replaces Stively.
“We’ll miss Nina but we’ll keep working for the animals,” Jim Tape said.
The Tapes have fostered 56 animals in the past two years. Jim said they work at socializing them, healing them and helping some convalesce away from the smells and noise of the shelter.
Ginny Tape said prospective adopters appreciate that the animals out for adoption interact well with adults, children and other dogs.
Jose and Roxanne Gonzalez, of Santa Fe, said one of the best things Stively’s done was the large dog clinic held at Valdez Park last spring.
“We (micro)chipped and vaccinated 179 large dogs,” Jose said. “It was supposed to start at 11 a.m. and we had people lined up at nine.”
The Humane Society ran out of vaccines and chips and issued “rain checks” to those who wanted them. A free spay or neuter was also offered, he said.
Roxanne said people learned a lot about dog care.
“We got a lot of people to turn in the chains they were using on dogs in exchange for a proper dog house,” she said.
The Gonzalezes also said they would keep working for the animal shelter.
“We’re going to continue,” Jose said. “We love animals.”
Mobile miracle
The year before Stively’s arrival, the shelter adopted out 67 animals. This year to date Stively will have coordinated and participated in over 755 adoptions. She said she’s on the road at least three Saturdays a month, hitting adoption fairs throughout Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
“Several times a year there are big ones and I’ll attend those both Saturday and Sunday,” she said.
Stively said the key to her success lies with hard-core volunteers, marketing and a strategy that is tested and true. A typical Saturday road trip involves Stively loading the van at 7:30 a.m. with about 19 small dogs and four cats.
“You have to mix the A team in with the B team,” Stively said. “Our A team is cute, little fluffy dogs and puppies. The B team are the dogs that don’t look like a specific breed and are over 25 pounds.”
Stively said people approach because the of A team, then fall in love with the B team. Age doesn’t enter into the equation.
“Any dog between one and eight years old is adoptable,” Stively said.
An adoption fair runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. or until the animals get stressed.
“It’s like taking kids to a fair, they get sick, tired,” Stively said. “The animals are getting picked up repeatedly and petted and they get stressed out. Sometimes just a half hour time-out in the van with a bone will bring them back, but sometimes you need to pack up and leave.”
Kittens O’plenty
Veterinarian Gretchen Yost served as the shelter’s medical director from 2007 to 2012 and still works there part time. She said Stively started several outreach projects that were feathers in Española’s hat.
“Nina started what became our annual Kitten Festival in 2008,” Yost said. “The festival’s success is all due to Nina’s know-how, planning and expert attention to detail.”
The event is the largest cat adoption event in New Mexico. Yost said 100 kittens and cats find homes in the weekend event. It’s held in July when the shelter is “filled to the rafters” with homeless cats.
“That’s truly unheard of in the shelter world,” Yost said.
Yost said Stively has always been interested in emergency/disaster preparedness and has taken some courses in Emergency Management. These skills came into play with the 2011 Las Conchas fire.
“In a 24-hour period we were able to clear out the animals in our shelter (to foster homes and emergency transfers) so we could welcome over 100 owned animals from Los Alamos evacuees,” Yost said.
Lost pets
The Española Animal Shelter takes in about 4,000 dogs and cats annually. Sixty percent are dogs and 74 percent of all dogs and cats are adopted. The road to adoption is costly and time consuming.
“All of them are tested, vaccinated, dewormed, microchipped and spayed or neutered,” Stively said.
Then Stively and her menagerie hit the road. Everyone takes turns going on road trips and as Stively walked the kennels and cages she said hello, petted some dogs and cats and pulled others out of their cages to hold and talk with them.
Dr. Dre, a short-haired black feline, went out last week so Stively told him he was staying home for the Nov. 23 trip.
Stively said most of the animals that enter the shelter are someone’s pet. A miniature Doberman pinscher, with painted toenails, was adopted at the PetSmart event.
“She came in that way,” Stively said. “Someone took good care of her.”
When driving in to work a few weeks ago, Stively said she thought she saw a cat on the side of the road by the Arroyo Seco construction but wasn’t sure.
“You know you can’t pull over or turn around,” she said. “I went all the way to the light, turned around and went through the stretch again about five miles an hour and sure enough, there he was on the side of the road.”
She approached him and realized he had been hit by a car, was in pain and scared.
“I had a towel in the car and I grabbed him with it and brought him in,” she said.
He was healthy, well-fed and cared for. Stively said he surely belongs to somebody near the construction. He just had a broken leg and Stively pulled him out of his cage for a picture, an activity in which he was not too keen to participate.
Two frustrations bubble up in a conversation with Stively about the shelter. She said she doesn’t understand why most people don’t check with the shelter when their pet disappears. Most of the animals that come in are in good health, good weight, well groomed and cared for. Those are clear signs of human care.
The down side to her job is dealing with people who will bring in a box of puppies or an injured animal and say they found it.
“Someone recently brought in box of puppies and said they found it in a parking lot,” Stively said. “We tell them to just tell us the truth so we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”
A sick dog brought in with a contagious disease means any pets still at home are in danger too, Stively said. Or humans could be susceptible to an infection.
“No one’s going to get in trouble,” she said. “If they’d just be honest with us it’s easier for us to do what’s best for the animal.”
Stively has had many successes over the years and she molds them all into one big win for the shelter. She said she hopes her legacy will be that as long as lost or abandoned animals pour into the shelter, the number adopted out each year will continue to grow. If the many loving volunteers she’s trained and is leaving behind have anything to do with it, Stively’s legacy is safe.