ACS manager Ted Stevens with one of the many shelter pets deserving of a forever home
Here’s a chance for everyone in the animal community, no matter what your take is, to ask questions about our shelter and what it’s doing to make Long Beach the “safest large city for people and animals”—especially for animals.
On Saturday, Feb. 22, Long Beach area residents are invited to the City of Long Beach’s Animal Care Services Bureau’s (ACS) open house. The event takes place 10 a.m. to noon on the shelter side of the P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village at 7700 E. Spring St. in Long Beach, inside El Dorado Park (see photo below in Virtually Pets section). No RSVP is necessary.
Attendees will be given a report card on the past year as well as an overview of new programs and technologies available to residents in 2014. Refreshments, tours and comments from residents will be included. Information on animal adoption—see Virtually Pets for candidates, licensing, spay and neuter programs, and other animal-care information will be available.
ACS open houses have been taking place annually since the torch was passed in 2008 to John Keisler as ACS manager and subsequently in 2011 to Ted Stevens. Community involvement has grown, and while ACS still has a way to go toward perfection, the shelter has been making continual progress in providing for pets and educating people.
“In the past year, ACS was able to increase adoptions, partnerships, live-release rates, and conducted more outreach events in the community for low-cost vaccination and spay and neuter clinics,” says George Chapjian, director of Parks, Recreation and Marine. “The coming year promises to be an exciting year for building on the vision of becoming California’s safest large city for people and animals.”
If this year’s attendance consists of more than just the shelter supporters and those who have been working hard (and often vociferously) to bring ACS forward, there may also be excitement during the public comments, especially if the attendees comprise people with conflicting ideas about how the shelter is run. Stayin’ Alive Long Beach, an organization whose stated mission, as I understand it, is to have a save rate of 90 percent of our shelter animals, has been making suggestions and some demands for shelter improvement. As stated on their Facebook page, the organization is “working to raise public awareness of the high kill rate in Long Beach and help city leaders understand the need for the city to take a PROACTIVE rather than REACTIVE stance toward sheltering animals [all caps theirs].”
Here’s my oft-repeated disclaimer: In the years that I’ve associated myself and worked with the shelter, ACS has been increasingly proactive—as proactive as its limited budget and staff permit—stimulated and indeed prompted by a vocal community. Reactive? Maybe in the face of demands and accusations, some of which are unfounded.
Stayin’ Alive does have good ideas. The idea of changing the message on the answering machine to direct people to the adoption center? Great. Adjust the signage so that people know that it’s free to get in and that adoptions are available? Very much needed. Put up adoptive animals on the shelter’s Facebook page? Uh—that’s been going on for a heck of a long time. Here’s the link (see any you like?). There’s also been a solid spay/neuter voucher system in place at ACS for years despite claims to the contrary on Stayin’ Alive’s web page, and there’s huge support for programs like Fix Long Beach that offer education and free spay/neuter to people who can’t afford it, won’t consider it, or both.
Stayin’ Alive also believes that performing euthanasia on any healthy pets is unconscionable. Damn, we all agree. First of all, though, I don’t think that we have the resources for it, and this is horribly sad. We can’t spay/neuter our way out of pet overpopulation, and we can’t adopt our way out of it either—both of these were said by people at opposite ends of the belief spectrum. I can’t see any way out of it., but that’s just me, and in the spirit of Don Quixote, none of us seems to be giving up, no matter what side of the fence we’re on.
The other seemingly insurmountable obstacle is the population—and it is legion—that won’t or have never considered altering their pets. And the shelter gets slammed with the results of this ignorance and ultimately with the blame. Really, who’s the perp here?
But I’m digressing into another article. I hope that people with questions about the shelter do come and ask them on Saturday, and I also hope respect reigns—I know firsthand how hard it is to keep a civil tongue when your teeth are itching. It’s sad, I think, that the animal community is hissing and growling at one another—we all want the same results but differ in how they can be achieved. Hope still springs where love is the motivator.
We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
~ Mohandas Gandhi
Virtually Pets
If you’re attending ACS’s Open House, here are previews of coming adoptions. We hope you’ll take one home forever. Remember, enter here:
If I can get in two for one, I will. From left, Genny (ID#A513606)andElaina (ID#A513608) are bonded and are about 1 year old. Two foot warmers are better than one.
Brandon (ID#A515024),you’re a fine rabbit. What a good pet you would be. You’re gray and white and neutered, and you’re 3. Years old. With apologies to the Looking Glass.
And here’s Vienna (ID#A514056),one of those purebreds that people insist never wind up in shelters. She’s a red-and-white Alaskan husky.
Pet Projects
Lost Dog
Have you seen Denver? She trotted out through an unlocked gate sometime on Sunday, Feb. 16 and was last seen at the dog park on Wardlow. Denver has a collar and an ID tag with her owner’s phone number. If you take a good look at that photo, you may have an idea why she wandered off. Here’s hoping that she’s returned to her owner before she has pupcakes in the oven. Her owner promised me that he’d have her fixed immediately after he heard about some options—this will solve wandering problems, not to mention shelter overpopulation. If you see Denver, please e-mail [email protected].
Friends of Long Beach Animals’ Free Adoption for World Spay Day, Saturday, Feb. 22 and Sunday, Feb. 23, Long Beach Animal Care Services, P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village, 7700 E. Spring St., 10AM–4PM
The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International celebrate the 20th annual World Spay Day on Tuesday, February 25. The day shines a spotlight on spay/neuter as a proven means of saving the lives of companion animals, community (feral and stray) cats, and street dogs who might otherwise be put down in a shelter or killed on the street. In recognition of the significance of this monumental day, Friends of Long Beach Animals is paying the adoption fees for any animal whose application for adoption is received by Long Beach Animal Care Services on February 22 and 23 for any of their pets up for adoption. This offer is to individuals and families, with a limit of one subsidized adoption on these two days. For more information, contact FOLBA president Bob Carlton at [email protected].
Friends of El Dorado Dog Park volunteer meeting, Sunday, Feb. 23, El Dorado Dog Park, 2800 Studebaker (north side of Spring Street), Long Beach 10AM
Friends of El Dorado Dog Park (FEDDP) will hold its first volunteer meeting this Sunday. Bring something to sit on and something to write on (and with). FEDDP is excited about organizing a new community-based volunteercommitte and hopes you’ll join us!
Disaster Sheltering for Companion Animals Class, Monday, Feb. 24 and Tuesday, Feb. 25, P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village, 7700 E. Spring St., 7AM–4PM
Are you prepared for the next disaster, and are you including the pets? Join spcaLA for a two-day interactive workshop by Diane Robinson of Disaster Animal Shelter Education and Response. The community will look toward animal care and control officers, vets, humane officers and other responders for safe, secure shelter. Be ready. $175 for both days.
Community Day for Friends of Long Beach Animals, Thursday, Feb. 27, Whole Foods Market, 6550 E. PCH, Long Beach 7AM–10PM
Whole Foods Market will donate 5 percent of their store net sales for this specific day to Friends of Long Beach Animals (FOLBA). FOLBA is dedicated to responsible pet ownership, education and humane treatment, and spay/neuter programs. Good for you, good for me and good for our animals!
Pet Adoption Day, Sunday, March 9, Gelson’s Market, 6225 E. 2nd St. (and PCH0, Long Beach 11AM–3PM
You know those items at the checkout stand at the market—gourmet chocolates, candy, silly tabloids—that you just gotta get? On March 9, they’ll be outside the store in kennels, on leashes, in the arms of rescuers. Gelson’s Supermarket Long Beach is co-hosting the second West Coast Animal Rescue and Long Beach Spay and Neuter Pet Adoption Day, featuring pets from West Coast Animal Rescue, a local all-volunteer dog adoption network of friends, professionals, volunteers and local organizations that spays and neuters homeless dogs, walks and socializes them, gives them medical care and finds them forever homes; and Long Beach Spay and Neuter, also all volunteer, which engages in feral and free-roaming cat trap/spay-neuter/release and finds homes for the tame kitties.The ultimate goal is to educate first-time and existing pet owners about the growing need to adopt and/or foster dogs and cats that need a second chance. Long Beach Animal Care Services will be there with adoptable pets, and Friends of Long Beach Animals and Fix Long Beach will be there with information tables, and Gelson’s will be supply free samples from their pet partners and will give away a free reusable bag and store coupons with any donation to these groups. For more information, contact: Gelson’s Marketing Department 818-377-6494.
Fix Long Beach Free Spay/Neuter Clinic, sponsored by Hope for Paws’ Eldad Hagar, Saturday, March 15, MacArthur Park, 1321 E. Anaheim St. in Long Beach, 7AM–approximately 4PM
More than 700 pets fixed! Accomplished: Exponentially fewer unwanted animals born, shelter overpopulation further exponentially reversed, and residents of all ages educated! (Check out the Facebook page for photos and donation information.) Fix Long Beach, a community grassroots organization dedicated to help end shelter overpopulation, invites you to visit our free mobile spay/neuter mobile clinic on Saturday, March 15. The event, sponsored by Hope for Paws’ founder Eldad Hagar, takes place from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. approximately at MacArthur Park, 1321 Anaheim St. in Long Beach. Free spay/neuter procedures have already been booked in advance, but visitors are encouraged to come in person to make appointments for future clinics. If you arrive at 7 for the waiting list, make sure that your cat or dog hasn’t had food or water after midnight. Microchipping, deworming and flea-control products as well as nail trimming are offered at discounted prices, and appointments are not necessary to get required shots for dogs and cats. If you live in Long Beach and are of low-income status and want to get your pet fixed, or know someone who is and does, please join us and make an appointment to help provide every pet with a healthier, happy life and to help reduce shelter overpopulation!