{"id":1588,"date":"2017-02-03T00:07:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/pets\/acs-open-house-message-from-the-community-be-the-change-that-you-want-to-see\/"},"modified":"2017-02-03T00:07:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:07:00","slug":"acs-open-house-message-from-the-community-be-the-change-that-you-want-to-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/pets\/acs-open-house-message-from-the-community-be-the-change-that-you-want-to-see","title":{"rendered":"ACS Open House Message from the Community: Be the Change that You Want to See"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Disclosure: The author is a volunteer at ACS, Fix Long Beach, Friends of Long Beach Animals and Helen Sanders CatPAWS, and does various and sundry other efforts. She also has one shelter-adoption cat and one foster-failure cat from ACS, a foster from CatPAWS, and one attitude-heavy tortie picked up off the street and whom she agreed to foster. That cat, too, became a foster failure.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBe part of the change!\u201d was the spirit of this year\u2019s Long Beach Animal Care Services\u2019 (ACS)<\/a>\u00a0Open House on Saturday, January 28 at the P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village and Education Center. The well-attended event included scores of animal lovers and advocates; Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, Long Beach City Auditor Laura Doud, and Herlinda Chico, field deputy for Long Beach, Signal Hill and Avalon\/Catalina with Supervisor Hahn’s office, were also in attendance.<\/p>\n

The decline of shelter intake and euthanasia rates (see \u201cCommunity Invited to Animal Shelter Open House on Saturday”<\/a>) and the corresponding uptrend of live release, which comprises adoption, rescue pulls and pet\/human reunions, is a result of strong passionate and impassioned efforts by the area\u2019s animal-welfare groups and concerned individuals coupled with those of the staff and manager. ACS Manager Ted Stevens said that the shelter spent over $98,000 in spay\/neuter assistance, which also affected the drop in euthanasia. The numbers are not yet at the respective zero and 100 percent numbers and rates, but Stevens is hopeful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re making a dent in this, and we\u2019re seeing a big trajectory,\u201d Stevens said of the euthanasia rate.<\/p>\n

The number of euthanized dogs has decreased from 1,579 in 2005 to 437 in 2016. The total 2016 euthanasia rate of 1,662 from 6,167 in 2008 shows a drop of 73 percent. This is a slide in the direction of the goal of zero euthanasia, which has been the demanded target for years of vocal animal-welfare advocates and organizations (see the full stats at the end of the article).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are fewer dogs coming in here,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cCats, too\u2014another drop. This has a big impact on euthanasia, too. All this is because of the hard work of volunteers working together as a team. I shouldn\u2019t go on the record here, but we hope to get below 1,000 this year. And then to zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zero euthanasia, as with all shelters, doesn\u2019t include gravely ill and injured animals, aggressive animals and those impounded for attacks on people. These pets will be subject to euthanasia in any case.<\/p>\n

Honoring the Voices of the Voiceless<\/strong><\/p>\n

The role of the advocate and rescue community in the numbers going in the right direction was represented by the recipients of the ACS annual awards. The Spirit of Dr. Loren Eslinger award is named for a veterinarian who donated her medical services to shelter pets before her death late in 2009. It\u2019s given to a volunteer who\u2019s gone over and above the call of duty. The One Too Many award is presented to a group or organization that has mitigated anything that there\u2019s at least one too many of\u2014and even one is too many: one too many unwanted litters, backyard breeders, abandoned animals, irresponsible owners and anything detrimental to animals. The winners of the awards are community members and vocal proponents for animals who regularly exhort shelter management to try something new and to reform and tweak what may not be working. They often succeed in their efforts. And their work doesn\u2019t stop at ACS, and they have the creds to show it. They\u2019re ubiquitous throughout the pet-welfare community, and they\u2019re definitely not \u201cyes people.\u201d<\/p>\n

April Smith Devane won the Spirit of Dr. Eslinger award. Devane\u2019s day-to-day life as a volunteer looks like a mosaic\u2014it includes but is not limited to volunteering for ACS events, participating in pet transports to out-of-town rescues and owners, running the shelter-cat adoption program at Pet Food Express<\/a>, executive directorship and volunteer for Fix Long Beach\u2019s spay\/neuter program<\/a>, trapping feral cats and showing others how to do it, bottle-feeding newborn kittens, bringing pet food and supplies to families who cannot afford it, and rescuing and fostering both cats and dogs. Devane is also outspoken about the need for city funding and community involvement in the success of the goal of zero euthanasia; in an emotional acceptance speech, she was forthright about becoming aware of this herself.<\/p>\n

\"April<\/p>\n

April Devane, with Mayor Garcia and Ted Stevens, in acceptance of the Volunteer of the Year award, calls on the public to become stakeholders in furthering ACS’s success. Photo by Kate Karp<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to stop saying someone should do something and realize that I am someone and I can do something,\u201d she said during the award presentation. She urged the shelter visitors to \u201cbe the change that you want to see and work together to make LBACS a shelter we can be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deborah Felin, co-founder of Helen Sanders CatPAWS<\/a>, was no less frank when she accepted the One Too Many award for her organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot one entity\u2014not the shelter, not rescues\u2014can do it alone,\u201d she said. \u201cThe public has to be part of the solution, too. If you give them the resources, give them the education, tell them what the resources are and ask for their help, I think that together we can save them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CatPAWS\"<\/p>\n

CatPAWS cofounder Deborah Felin, second from left, accepts the One Too Many Award, flanked by a number of the organization’s volunteers. Photo by Kate Karp<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Helen Sanders CatPAWS is a cat rescue centered in Seal Beach. They pull cats and kittens of all types and needs from the shelter and facilitate their adoptions, making sure that they\u2019re vetted and altered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working with them for a couple of years,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cThey help us with unwanted litters, adult cats, fostering cats, and they send adopters to the shelters.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it was their efforts toward involving the community in bottle-feeding newborn kittens that won them the One Too Many Award. During kitten season, which lasts several months from early spring (and even late winter) to late in the fall, the shelter is flooded with litters of kittens, many of which undergo euthanasia because the shelter is not equipped to care for them all and rescues can only take so many. In order to directly involve people who find the litters and bring them in, Helen Sanders CatPAWS put together 80 bottle-feeding kits in plastic containers that each held a bottle and nipples, cans of formula mix, a warming disc, a small fleece blanket, and a kitten-care guide and information about obtaining spay\/neuter vouchers when the kittens are old enough. The containers can also be used for bathing.<\/p>\n

\"bottle-feeding<\/p>\n

Helen Sanders CatPAWS’ bottle feeding kits. Photo courtesy of Helen Sanders CatPAWS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of giving [the kittens] to us, where they\u2019d have a very unlikely chance of being saved, we have these free kits here, and we show you how to do it,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cA lot of people took us up on this, and thus, the kittens survived. There are a lot of caring people out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevens added that the new bottle feeders were offered help in finding rescues and CatPAWS assisted with boarding, but many became involved enough to themselves find their little charges homes when the kittens became 3 or 4 weeks old. ACS assisted with vouchers for spay\/neuter for all the thriving kittens.<\/p>\n

Every year, one shelter volunteer is awarded Volunteer of the Month. This year, six people were awarded the honor: Ricky Kim, Rookie of the Year; Pamala Machado, Helping Hand; John Czopek, Cat\u2019s Best Friend; Pauline Standish, Dog\u2019s Best Friend; and Dee Glick and George Themelis, Dynamic Duo. Machado teaches ACS\u2019s level-two volunteer classes every Saturday, and Czopek applies his talents with cats to the ones in the shelter\u2019s Cat Cottage as well as those in Pet Food Express\u2019s permanent shelter-cat condos. Themelis is a professional photographer, and he and Glick, as his assistant, volunteer their efforts in showing each pet\u2019s inner and outer adoptability.<\/p>\n

\u201cDee is a certified smile maker,\u201d Stevens said of Glick.<\/p>\n

\"VolunteersofYear\"<\/p>\n

Volunteers of the Year, front, from left, \u00a0Dee Glick, Pamala Machado (lost in thought about which dog to walk next), Pauline Standish, Ricky Kim; rear, from left, ACS Manager Ted Stevens, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia (photobombing), and John Czopek. Photo by Kate Karp.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Boy Scout Chris Williams received an award for his Eagle Scout project, a chicken coop that stands next to the Bunny Barn (see \u201cThe Sky May Fall, but Chicken Little Will Be Safe and Sound”<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Chris\"<\/p>\n

Nobody here but us chickens. Boy Scout Chris Williams accepts a special award from Ted Stevens for his plucky Eagle Scout project. Photo by Kate Karp<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

2016 Progress<\/h3>\n

Stevens was joined by Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia in presenting the progress made in 2016 and priorities for the year to come. The shelter\u2019s recent hire of Jessica Gonzales as the new marketing and outreach coordinator filled the position vacated by Kelly Miott, who had left the area. Among other duties, Gonzales helps to manage transports and adoption facilitation. The videos she creates of the pets at play, which Stevens said are greatly helpful in showing an animal\u2019s personality and adoptability, can be viewed on ACS\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Catio\"<\/p>\n

A felicitous feline basks in the refurbished Catio, made possible by an anonymous donor, created through the Florence Jones Trust with the assistance of \u00a0Sid Melnick, an ACS volunteer. Photo courtesy of ACS.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Stevens also underscored the following accomplishments:<\/p>\n