Animal Rescue or Shelter?

What does it mean to be an animal rescue or pet rescue organization? Is an animal rescue something different than an animal shelter?

The Animal Welfare League of Arlington in Virginia, with an open-door policy and animal control services under its roof serves, as I suspect many shelters do, as both an animal shelter and animal rescue. Many shelters not only provide homes to unwanted pets and adopt out great animals, they also provide a variety of animal rescue services. Every day the loving staff at the Animal Welfare League of Arlington rescue pets from adverse situations.

For example, if shelters and rescues did not exist, it would not necessarily make guardians of unwanted pets keep them, would it? Then what would happen? Would the dog of the people who are moving to a place that does not allow pets be dumped on the side of the road or simply left behind? It happens, more often with cats, that they are abandoned when a family moves. Left to fend for themselves.

But what, exactly, is the difference between and animal rescue and and animal shelter? According to an entry in Wikipedia:

"There are two major difference between shelters and rescue groups. Shelters are usually run and funded by local government. Rescue groups are funded mainly by donations and most of the staff are volunteers. While some shelters put animals into foster homes, many are housed on site in kennels. Rescue groups place all their rescues into foster homes as they do not have shelter facilities."

Well, the Animal Welfare League of Arlington is partially funded by the County but offers additional services such as veterinary assistance, low-cost spay and neuter, additional healthcare for unwanted animals and so much more with help from donations.

The Animal Welfare League of Arlington does employ the use of volunteer foster homes, as many other shelters do and as rescues do, and, there are several rescue organization in the Virginia area that do have onsite kennels, in addition to foster homes.

There is also a common misconception that all shelters impose a time limit on animals in their care. At the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, as with many of the more progressive shelters, this is absolutely not the case.

It seems that as animal shelters evolve, the lines between animal rescues and animal shelters are blurred.

Thankfully, however, at least in Virginia, we have so many shelters and rescues serving the animals of our community that hopefully, one day, no dog, cat or small companion animal will have to do without rescue.

Canine Melanoma Vaccine Update

There is much interest, still, in this new canine melonoma vaccine but

still little information seems to be available. News reports suggest

that the vaccine could one day help humans, too. And other reports state

that dogs receiving the vaccine have lived up to three times longer than

expected.

I would suggest contacting the Animal Medical Center in NY for more information or discussing it with a veterinarian such as South Paws in Fairfax, Virginia, that is participating in the study.

Pets, Smarter than you think?

From National Geographic...

Could pets be even smarter than we think? I say true animal lovers have known this all along!

Good news for dogs...

From the VA SPCA, good news for dogs...

All three bills: puppy mill regulation, dog and cock fighting prohibitions and posting of bond by owners for seized animals have passed out of both Houses. House Bill 538 has to go back to the House from the Senate to accept the Senate amendment but hopefully that will happen this week.

The animal fighting bill, House Bill 656 came out of Senate unanimously as did House Bill 999, which requires the posting of a bond. The Puppy Mill regulation bill, House Bill 538 has had a somewhat more difficult fight but that is to be expected. It came out of the Senate 34-5 today. This bill was developed and promoted by a few of us in the Virginia animal welfare world and didn’t have the same “sexy” quality that the Vick case brought to dog fighting… and we didn’t have paid lobbyists supporting it, we just had you. The success of this bill is due entirely to the calls and letters and emails you all sent to your elected officials. This is a new area of regulation in Virginia and a bold step for which you should all feel proud.

If you go onto the Legislative website, www.leg1.state.va.us, you can look at any of these bills, how they moved through the process and who voted for them. You can click on Bills and Resolutions, then Most Frequently Accessed, you will find House Bill 538 and then House Bill 656 were nos. 3 & 4, after the budget bills. That is testament to the citizens’ interest, pro and con, on these important matters.

Spay and Neuter Law

Looks like California has taken a giant leap forward in the effort to make a dent in pet overpopulation by making spay and neuter not only the burden of shelters and rescues, but of the law. According to the NY Times:

"Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles signed one of the nation’s toughest laws on pet sterilization, requiring most dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered by the time they are 4 months old. The ordinance intends to reduce and eventually eliminate the thousands of euthanizations conducted in the city’s animal shelters every year. The ordinance exempts some animals, including those that have competed in shows or sporting competitions, guide dogs, animals used by police agencies and those belonging to professional breeders."

Finally, legislators take it upon themselves to make the problem of pet overpopulation the entire community's responsibility, not just the shelters and rescues.