Our Community's Generosity

We are reminded on a daily basis how many people in our community support the mission of promoting animal welfare. Last week a wonderful group of girl scouts brought us pet beds that they had sewn by hand for our shelter animals. They got the idea from the Snuggles Project. When they delivered these wonderful gifts, one of our shelter residents, Bella the collie, posed with the girls for a group photo.

Another enterprising animal lover created hand-made holiday cards, sold them, and donated part of the sales to the League. One of our volunteers gratefully accepted the check.

People bring us items from our wishlist almost every day. Cat carriers and dog crates in particular can be used to transport our animals each week for spay or neuter surgery or we can sell the used crates to raise money. Without the kindness and generosity of our community, we could not do nearly as much for our shelter residents.

After Losing Their Owner, Pets Find Shelter

Although our primary goal is adoption, we also shelter animals that are not available for adoption for a variety of reasons. Our safekeeping program provides free sheltering for pets whose owners are experiencing an emergency like a house fire or a health crisis. One recent situation was particularly touching and had a very happy ending.

We received a call from the Arlington Police in late December to pick up a dog and a cat from a home where they had found the owner deceased. One of our Animal Control Officers picked up the pets and brought them to the shelter for safekeeping.

Because the deceased had no will, it took the family some time to get the legal authorization to pick up the pets. (This is a reminder to each of us to make sure that we have a will and that we include our wishes for the care of our pets in it.) We knew the pets would be spending at least a couple of weeks at the shelter. We were concerned about the emotional well being particularly of Rose, a sweet Basset Hound, so we asked one of our kennel volunteers to be her special caregiver. The volunteer took her for long walks and spent extra time with her. At the end of the pets’ stay, the volunteer wrote a report on Rose’s behavior and temperament while she was with us.

While Rose stayed with us, we noticed a health problem and sent a urine sample to a veterinarian who determined that she had a urinary tract infection. We treated her with antibiotics.

A couple of weeks ago the next-of-kin picked up the two pets from us. We received the following e-mail from her:

Just wanted to send thanks again to everyone who helped take care of Rose & Portia after my sister […]’s death, until I was able to come and straighten out their legal situation and pick them up. …

I can’t tell you how happy and thankful [we] were, when we came to pick R & P up last Monday, to see in what good spirits they both were. Alice B [the Animal Control Officer] had already assured me that they were receiving lots of care and attention, but I still thought that they might be depressed or disoriented by all they went through, and then being in a strange place & circumstances. Instead, Rose was dancing around on the leash, obviously very at ease with the guy who brought her out to us, and Portia, though less demonstrative, is clearly doing well too. We also appreciate your attentiveness to Rose that made it possible for you to find out about her urinary tract infection, and start her on medication for it.

[My sister] would be so grateful, too, for all your help and care –

New Year, New Blog

It's a start of the new year at the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, and we're starting a new blog about shelter life. There is so much that goes on here that goes beyond intake of animals and adoptions. We will use this space to report on the daily activities that constitute fulfilling our mission of promoting animal welfare.

Right now we have an adorable litter of six kittens that we are holding while their foster mother was out of town. She is picking them up tonight so that they can continue to thrive and get big enough to be adopted.

Another cat is living temporarily in our adoption manager's office because he has some health issues that haven't completely cleared up. He is making himself thoroughly at home and giving our shelter mascot cat Brutus serious competition in the congeniality department.

Rocky, a goofy Labrador-Sharpei mix is recovering from having most of his tail amputated. He is such a happy guy that he whacked his tail against things so much that he severely damaged it, and the vet recommended removing the whacking part. Rocky is recovering beautifully and still wags his very short tail just as much as he did before. He is eight years old and large so maybe that's why no visitors have noticed his charming personality.

Our Education Room is being decorated for a child's birthday party. The five-to-eight-year-old party guests will a tour of the shelter. Sometimes the birthday child asks for gifts for the shelter animals instead of for him or herself.

In winter the number of animals coming into the shelter usually decreases, and our kennel staff gets a much deserved breather from working nonstop to care for over 200 animals each day. In particular, the number of cats coming into the shelter is less in the winter as cats reproduce primarily in the late spring and summer. Instead of having over 100 cats as we do in the summer, today we have 53. In winter older cats have a better chance of catching visitors' attention because our cat room isn't as full of cute kittens.

If anyone thinks that living in urban/suburban Arlington means they won't encounter wildlife, that theory was disproved today when a neighbor e-mailed us a photo of a hawk gripping a pigeon that it had just killed on their back fence.