welcome to healthy pets healthy owners i'm your host dr and so costly i'm here with talker and we have a special guest today from the washington area my society and that's one well that viral s who do you have with you in that i have here celia she's one of our adoptable dogs as well i have a passion for animals and i always have and that's kind of a typical answer when you find somebody in the the animal welfare field but i really do i got into nonprofit about fifteen years ago with the intent of one day being able to work for fo with animals who so yeah the position was available at in washington and they decided i was a good fit so here i am very how many people work at the human society there's about seventeen total staff a couple of those are part time but most of it's full time and then you also have a lot of volunteers that come in and help we do we have about two hundred volunteers active on tears that log a lot of hours about eight thousand hours last year and doing what they walk dogs they cu cats they go up to our cat room and they socialize with them and pet them and groom them and help the staff clean cages the dog walkers are pretty pretty fisted us and religious in their duties of walking and making sure the animals get out and get socialize as well so they're really an important factor to our our facility how long has the the facility been there the organization itself is one hundred years old and  sweetheart she looks tough but she doesn't know she's a doll she really have a great personality so how to how do these dogs and cats and up at the facility couple different ways we have a lot of animals most of them come in loose already off leash or wandering are humane officer investigates cases abuse complaint cases which are plentiful yes we received over a thousand calls last year is not amazing that something in this day and age or something like that happens it in a lot of it i have to say is it's education is its edge educating the owners of what actually is the right and proper procedure a lot of the animals are outside without proper shelter shade water order access to food and water so it's just a matter of letting them know what's appropriate specially in the winter we get a lot of calls straw is actually the preferred method for keeping animals outside actually are best outside there been cases where dogs really just want to truly be outside and so that's certainly understandable at that point if they don't want to be inside but you know there are some legitimate cases some abuse cases abandon the dog or move or leave the dog in the house and go back going which happens all the time it does we've had some animals out of have been left behind in the house for weeks and the men tell the thought process lacking there because there is someone that will step up to the main society private people step up right there's quite a few i have to say social media is quite a force these days for humane societies and shelters in general they get on there they reach out to their friends they reach out to their friends and that's it's really a powerful force and there's animals reunited there's a lot of different groups out there trying to find owners of lost dogs of found dogs so it makes our job a little bit easier when we have an animal we just was it were able to reunite a beautiful lab last week a young young lad we knew it had a home it was just full of energy and  open doors with a call for indoor shelters and that means they'll take any animal at any time but it also means that they have to provide space which there is this in the euthanasia and determining factors for euthanizing so what should i do if i find that my my dog or cat is missing you could should definitely call the humane society first put in a report we'll take a report and write it up so as people call in that they may be found an animal found a cat we can do a cross reference and see if that animal's been reported so it's that's a good step flyers posters put them up with them in in little clear plastic bags or clear sleeves and put them around the neighborhood  go out and pick them up to some of the police have agreements to pick them up so it's always good to just reach out as much as part again social media find if you're not on facebook or you can see it's mostly facebook right now to twitter  slowly taking off with some of that but i did find somebody going on post pictures so important to have picture of the animal so i encourage everybody right now i know i know it's a hardship to go out there and take pictures of your animals and i know my phone's full of my  so make sure you have a good picture always on hand and should something like that ever happen have that ready to post what is the average length of stay that you have for dogs that you bring in the find a home for it's not that terribly long and our shelter celia's been there for a while we actually just found a home for one of our dogs that's been there for a year so it's not unheard of to have them for a while but three or four months is what we usually have our animals for and and little bit older so people overlook  we've had actually a couple animals that have been surrendered back to us after a year or so because they they weren't properly trained as a young animal young dog so now they're they have some destructive behaviors or some  many does he have at the facility we can house about forty dogs forty and shepherd canales or do you combine them you know everyone has african unless they came in together is younger does the of two poodle mix is right now that came in together so they're in a kennel together but for the most part they are our separate this is were elderly people have dogs and can take care of the many more people become sick and they can and they bring them to the facility they do so these are dogs that were loved and cared for not backyard that's amazing yeah you know and she's buying she gets truckloads they live in nj she lives in beverly hills he passed away in the far but they get a tractor trailer truck loads of food brought to the house is stored in  that's that's incredible and you know that we have a program right now the feral cat colony program where if there are people out there in the community that are taking care of of large colonies of cats we can provide neutered first and i think that's pretty standard yes any more than three there used to be a thought process where you could give them a certificate to have them spayed neutered at a later date but we were seeing a lot of the animals just simply weren't that wasn't being followed through so we want to make sure they're all done before they leave and you're going to your concert is somebody's going to take them and and they're going to get out and then there's going to be an issue and then you have more coming to that's the way the way it works especially right right there was it was a very very busy cat season this year because we're in a kill facility we only have so much space and we have a waiting list for both dogs and cats but our cat waiting list is quite extensive  facility for a while and one of ours has just left the other day and he was there for a year and some of their little quirks that you have to find the perfect house for them they you know she doesn't like other female dogs and yeah there are those things you have to watch out you have to fit the dog with the person with the family with the yard with the house all of those things that are all considerations i know you're happy to have find a home but sometimes those homes are working you just get a back so all right we're going to have a little break here for minimal return welcome back to healthy pets healthy owners we're here with what learned that from the human society what is the washington area humane society which is are they filled with fully or with the national humane society no most of the time you're going to suit their independent organizations completely independent and it is all local it's all local it's one hundred percent community funded we do not get support from the county or state locally city none of that so you donations absolutely food food blankets we have a lot of the community is so generous i mean we've been around for a hundred years and and there's there's been some ups and downs now but to be still successful after that long is  true testament to the community supporting what we do and getting homes for all these and so you left us for for a little bit here try to maybe bring her back if you have two little kids here with you we do she was the black and white one yeah and she's female and they're both about three months are some of the youngest kids we have right now at the shelter we just had a bunch of them able to be adopted they were spain neutered so they are available we had quite a successful and we actually have a vets for pets for vets program that to us it's a program where any veteran of the military is able to adopt for free and then they get a one year clinic membership which allows and come back for shots and doing the the buttons lately so it's a good program so if i was to walk in your in the facility what do i need to do to start the process of adoption we do have an application and you fill out the application include a couple of references nonfamily references we always like to check and the most prized it's just a just to double check and of that reference if you have a current animal we like to make sure there are updated rabies shots and their couple of instances where animals have come back after the landlord found out they had a ninety pound dog in the apartment and they weren't supposed to so we always want to make sure that that that step is followed and then it's a twenty four to forty eight hour process to  process the application get the calls in we have a lot of lot of things happening in a day so every so often we can get it done a little bit quicker but for the most part it's twenty four to forty eight hours  it ranges we do have our fees listed up on our website washington ph shelter dot org right now we actually have twenty dollars off every adoption it's national adopt a pet shelter dog so we have for october twenty dollars off in like wow i hit the jackpot yeah and we're always looking for fosters too we have a couple of animals right now rosalie is one of our dogs that she has diabetes so we're desperately trying to find a foster home for her to help manage that diabetes because it's so difficult in a shelter we're not there overnight to inject insulin so and keep an eye on our so we really are looking for someone maybe who's familiar with with the disease and able to just keep her and we cover the medical costs for that and try to  still promote her on our website and find her a permanent home love animals come in poor condition no not really there are some yeah there are some we do see a lot of younger cats come in with upper respiratory that we have to treat but it's it's usually maybe some minor minor things that need to be taken care of every so often we'll get one that has a serious injury and we do try to promote we just had a dog max over the summer that had to have a leg amputated so we did some fund raising for max and were able to cover the costs it can be quite extensive for something like that and but we had to have it covered through some gener new but she's working with us and they will do surgeries especially the spaniard or surgeries that a discount for us so we can continue to to keep the doors and because that's one of our highest expenses is the medical sure it always  then food and food so people actually drop food off for you they do they do it at the doorstep we have you know we have a collection been outside or we have two inside we have schools and kids groups  scouts and church groups always they'll do shelter or they'll do supply drives for us and we have a wish list on our website as well and people always say brown dog food with with brown that we asked for brown dog food some of the food day to day to run the facility that averages about twelve dollars an animal and three hundred fifty dollars a month for one animal so that's that's a lot of a lot of cat food that we need to to be able to get the staff that is there taking care of them really put their heart and soul into it and it's i have to say they're lower paying jobs but the people that are there working them are there because they absolutely want to be w and i know several people who go there to walk the dogs and it's their it's their passion they plan to do it once or twice a week and they plan the whole week around around that time schedule they do we have absolutely consistent volunteers there monday wednesday friday group we have a tuesday thursday group sunday and morning saturday afternoon so they they really regardless of the weather regardless of the weather they can mother do something we have for play yards for the dogs so they'll come out and work with them some of them are off site events we always have a need for volunteers to go out and work our informational tables getting out to the public is outsiders pet stores grocery stores type thing right and when when there are festivals we  know hearts and the hearts and paws festivals this past summer and so we'll go out there and have a booth and have information and ways that people can help brochures our medical or clinic costs we have all that information available and then we try to get the animals out there to do it to show off yeah i mean get adopted you have to look in their eyes and you want to just take the ball and you know there's a director of the facility well dick says our general manager and she is then running she'll have her when you're in a verse or a november and she's been at the shelter for longer but she was promoted in november almost a year ago so we've we've had a lot of changes a lot of very positive changes and we're