A Life-Changing Experience Why Rebecca Guinn, program
director for No More Homeless
Pets Atlanta, left a lucrative legal
career to help save animals.
No More Homeless Pets Atlanta
By Jim Davis, Staff Writer
No More Homeless Pets Atlanta.
The name tells you all you need to know about Best Friends Animal Society's goals. But achieving No More Homeless Pets is a daunting task in a metro area of 4.5 million people that euthanizes 90,000 animals a year.
However, the battle in Atlanta is on.
Under the direction of Rebecca Guinn, who previously had co-founded Atlanta's Lifeline Animal Project (LAP), Best Friends oversees a variety of programs that are having an impact.
"It really is kind of a war in Atlanta," Guinn says. "The numbers are still really poor.
"I'm really looking for a consciousness change ... where euthanasia is not some sort of sad reality," she says.
The first step toward making that happen was to try to get all of the humane organizations in the city to pull together.
"I think the animal welfare community in Atlanta is very focused and works better together," Guinn says. She notes that the alliances that have been formed are "southern handshake partnerships."
"There are no official rules," she says. "We find common ground and go from there."
AtlantaPets.org
One of the most successful collaborative efforts has been AtlantaPets.org, Atlanta's "virtual animal shelter."
The program brings 70 rescue groups and a dozen animal control facilities together on one website (complete with links to individual sites). At any given time there are 1,800 animals listed. The site is visited 15,000 times a month -- with between 6,000 and 8,000 unique visitors.
In addition, No More Homeless Pets Atlanta helps generate individual websites for agencies unable to do so on their own. And, under Project Pawprint, the group even sends volunteers into shelters to take the photos that are posted on the Internet.
Although precise results are difficult to measure, the impact of AtlantaPets.org has been huge. One organization reported that its adoptions doubled after its animals were posted, and one animal control agency adopted more animals in one month than it had the previous year.
And traffic to the website -- and the resulting adoptions -- will only increase, thanks to a vigorous advertising campaign through the use of billboards and donated Atlanta-only ads in several high-profile, national publications such as Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report and Sports Illustrated.
Catlanta
The legions of stray and feral cats around the city are the focus and beneficiaries of the Catlanta program.
When Catlanta was launched, Janet Bogle, a cat lover and long-time Best Friends member, donated $1,000 toward the purchase of 15 humane traps. There are now 30 traps available through the "trap depot" for people caring for outdoor cats. Once the cats are trapped, they are taken to the No More Homeless Pets Atlanta clinic, where they are fixed for a nominal fee of $15, and then returned to their original location.
The long-term goal is obvious -- to reduce the population of stray and feral cats through humane means. In the short term, Catlanta supports existing caretakers, and encourages people who live near feral cats to start doing trap/neuter/release.
Kitty Motel
The Kitty Motel is a low-cost boarding facility that plays host to cats from area shelters -- often animals who have been long-time occupants of shelter cages, or those who are having trouble adjusting to the shelter environment.
The cats who board there live in a cage-free environment while they await adoption. The rescue groups then take the cats to various adoption events.
This facility also was affected considerably by the largesse of Janet Bogle. During a visit to an open house, she engaged in conversation with Guinn and others, and before long she had donated $7,000-plus in labor and materials, primarily for the cat room. In recognition of her efforts, that facility is being renamed the Ed Lowry Kitty Motel, in memory of her late husband, who loved cats (as a couple, they had a dozen).
"Dogs were OK, but cats were his thing," Bogle says fondly of her late husband, who died in May.
Of the people involved with No More Homeless Pets Atlanta, she says: "They all seem to care about the animals. I think they have to in that business, because there's no money in it. You're not going to get rich."
Dog House
A companion to the Kitty Motel is the Dog House. The two facilities are unique in the animal care world -- the first of their kind.
The Dog House is a boarding facility for homeless animals, functioning as a sort of "doggie day care" for foster home overflows, and for those animals that don't do well in a foster care environment.
These lucky dogs have individual, five-by-seven-foot runs, and get plenty of play time and socialization each day. The play groups are organized according to temperament and size, and the few who can't "play well with others" get individual play time with one of the Dog House staffers.
As with the residents of the Kitty Motel, these dogs are taken to various adoption events by assorted rescue groups.
Sharon Eikey oversees the kennel, putting in many hours there while still running a hair salon. Three full-time and three part-time employees help with care for the 45 dogs in residence.
Special Friends
Kathy Schneider handles the unique Special Friends program almost single-handedly, scanning websites for mature animals or those with special needs. She then works very hard to get these animals placed with rescue groups.
According to Guinn, these are the hard-core hard cases -- those who are very old, animals with eyes missing, heart murmurs, leg deformities.
But to Schneider, they are simply loving creatures who need a break. To date, she has found homes for some 200 of these "unadoptables."
"What she does is incredibly worthwhile," Guinn says. "It's a great example of how one person can make a difference."
Clinic
The No More Homeless Pets Atlanta Clinic opened in September and began performing spay/neuter surgeries. It is not open to the public, but works with numerous shelters and rescues. For example, the program partners with DeKalb County Animal Control to spay or neuter every one of that agency's animals before they are adopted.
Suzanne Kinman, kennel manager there, says the clinic has had a dramatic impact on the DeKalb program.
"They're doing all our adoption animals now. We're able to get everything done pre-adoption. We think it's great," she says.
Guinn hopes the clinic will be open five days a week by March, and that the clinic will perform 7,000 surgeries before the year is out.
Targeting specific communities within Atlanta will be a key part of the spay/neuter program. Guinn says the various animal control agencies will be asked to identify the areas of the community that produce the most homeless pets. Once those locations are identified, contact will be made with area churches, YMCAs and others to set up "spay days" there.
That program received a significant boost in November when a nearly-new van was donated to the organization. It means that animals can be picked up at a "spay day" site, delivered to the clinic for surgery, then returned -- all for a $10 or $15 donation for each surgery.
A promising future
In coming months, No More Homeless Pets Atlanta will also host some Super Adoption events, for which animal organizations from throughout the Atlanta area will bring animals to a central location. The expectation is that hundreds of pets will find homes during these events.
A Best Friends Brigade (click to learn more) also will benefit area rescues. Brigade members are volunteers who provide support to shelters and rescues -- from painting walls to cleaning kennels to landscaping a visiting area.
Recent personnel additions also make the future promising.
Kerry Moyers-Horton, a graphic designer, has come on board No More Homeless Pets Atlanta as project manager. According to Guinn, she puts in 16-hour days while serving as a liaison to the assorted rescues and shelters, managing adoptions, and overseeing volunteers.
Tammy Shu, who had previously founded a feral cat support group called Cats in the Hood, is now the program coordinator, and her experience has helped revitalize the Catlanta program.
Amber Beane, the former assistant director of the Humane Alliance in North Carolina, is a paid consultant for the program.
"Now I have someone who knows how to run a high-volume spay/neuter clinic," Guinn says.
Looking at the broad picture, Guinn says, "We're really very lucky here. In addition to Best Friends' involvement, we have donors who have been very supportive of the kennel. We've been fortunate with people who want to support what we're doing."
And it's clear that Guinn didn't give up her lucrative legal career for nothing.
"I want the (homeless pet) problem solved. I don't want to do this day in and day out and see no impact."
And she thinks Best Friends has the vision and inspiration to pull it off.
"We need to do it," she says emphatically. "If not us, I don't think there is anyone else.
"This is not rocket science. We should be able to figure it out."
