You asked for more details on our partnership with Maricopa
County Animal Care and Control and asked how you can help HALO, so
I'm here to happily answer these questions!
Details
For the last 15 years or so, HALO has partnered with Maricopa
County Animal Care and Control (MCACC) and is part of MCACC's New
Hope Program. Being a New Hope Partner means we can take
animals from their shelters that meet the criteria to be eligible
for the New Hope program. These items consist of the dog or
cat that are not put up for adoption due to
being too young, too sick, too scared, possibly having a bite
history, being a nursing mom or being injured. The other
animals that are eligible are animals that they've put up for
adoption but they have not been adopted for whatever reason.
Generally these animals are available after being up for adoption
for somewhere between an hour to a day. While HALO does take
animals that are considered "healthy" and are not at risk of
euthanasia at that very moment from MCACC's shelter, the vast
majority of the animals we take are those that are either on the
euthanasia list, or that we feel have a good possibility of being
put on the list within a day or two. 85% of our intakes
consist of animals from MCACC's or the AZ Humane Society's shelter,
6% are animals being returned, and the remaining 9% are public
intakes (which are owner surrenders and animals that are abandoned
at our shelters or in one of the many PetSmart and Petco stores we
feature our pets at). We strongly believe in focusing our
attention on those animals "most" at risk; the ones already in
shelters and who may be euthanized within hours or
days.
HALO has been MCACC's largest New Hope partner for
many years, meaning, we take more animals out of their shelter
than any other rescue in the area. This does not
discredit the work of the other rescues in any way, it just
helps you understand one of the reasons MCACC chose HALO to
partner with for their first-of-its-kind space sharing endeavor we
embarked on in April 2011. If you've ever visited our
shelter, you know that we are packed in to a 3,000 sq foot
building. All 25 employees, 55 cats and 50 dogs. There
are 14,000 "treatable" (dogs and cats that are too shy, sick,
or young to put up for adoption at the time they arrive at the
shelter or they become ill during their stay) dogs and cats killed
in Maricopa County every year in the open admission shelters,
and HALO's goal is to grow to enable a strong animal welfare system
for these animals. We'd like to save all 50,000 from
euthanasia some day, but it is one step at a time. Taking
charge of the treatables is the next step in the triage chain
to make a big impact on the numbers of animals that are killed who
are otherwise highly adoptable they just need a little medical
care, foster care or extra TLC to attain adoptable status.
Don't get me wrong, we treat cases of Parvo and other medical
conditions that are considered "unadoptable" in the list of
behavioral and medical issues but by and large our focus is on the
treatable population.
HALO is part of the Alliance for Companion Animals, a group of
animal welfare professionals in the Phoenix area that sit around
the table to collaborate on ways to reduce euthanasia as well as
increase adoptions, spay/neuter efforts and educate the public on
just how big the problem is here and what we can all do to change
the plight of homeless animals. In creating a strategic plan
with the Alliance in November 2010, HALO's portion of the plan was
to increase our adoption outreach as we don't currently have a
spay/neuter or a formal education program. We keep our focus
on what we do really well and that is care for the sick, injured
and young, and adopt them out. HALO's goal was to increase
adoptions in 2011 by 20%, and in order to do that we needed to
increase our ability to house and care for more dogs and cats as
well as find adoption avenues for them. With that goal in
mind, I negotiated with MCACC for HALO to use 20 of their cat
kennels that were sitting empty due to their significant decrease
of cat intakes following an implementation of a $96 stray cat
surrender fee in 2010, as well as use one of their kennel buildings
for dogs that has 40 indoor/outdoor runs in it. This increase
in capacity enabled us to double our dog capacity and gave us a
good size increase in our cat capacity. We are up and running
with an additional 68 dogs and 36 cats at MCACC's facility as of
this moment. The number of animals will vary depending on how
many are puppies/kittens and how many are housed together.
With this space increase we were able to add 3 more PetSmart/Petco
stores that have adoptable cats up for adoption to give our newly
added cats a place to go once they were ready for show time.
We've also added a few days to our dog adoption schedules on the
weekends at a few PetSmart locations to showcase our additional
dogs.
We're just getting our feet wet in this new project and finding
ways to balance the incoming population and finding adopters for
the animals that are ready. As soon as a kennel opens up
we've got it filled with the next needy dog or cat. The volume of
needy animals far outweigh our ability to get to them in time to
save them from death, so we continue to work in full scale crisis
mode every day with the hopes that someday the pressure may give
just a bit and we can focus on that next tier of animals that are
in need; those that are harder to place due to high medical needs
or who have behavior issues that require rehabilitation.
How You Can Help
There are so many ways you can help! Choices you make in your
everyday life affect the animal population in a positive or
negative way. There's just no way around that fact.
There is no neutral. I'll list a few ways that you can help
HALO and ways you can help all the animals:
HELPING HALO
- Adopt your next pet from us.
- Volunteer to help at the shelter, help at offsite adoptions or
foster animals in your home. For those of you with good office
skills we can use help with some administration work. Our
thrift store also needs help! The more volunteers we have the more
animals we can help. Contact Danielle Miranda at danielle@halorescue.org
or 602-971-9222x108 for more information.
- Donate dollars and/or supplies to the shelter. Our annual
expenses are likely to reach $1.5M this year due to the new
partnership with MCACC. Nothing in life is free even for a
non-profit! Becoming an Angel Club
member is a great way to give a monthly donation we can rely on
to help us further our mission. We will use every dollar to
its fullest extent! You can check out our Wish List
too.
- Tell your friends and family about us! www.halorescue.org
- Become our friends on Facebook
HELPING THE CAUSE
- Join www.peoplesavingpets.org
It is a movement that is bringing awareness to just how large the
pet homeless problem is in this world. Most people know there
is a problem, but most are stunned to learn just how big the
problem is. Most don't know that 4 million dogs and cats die
in shelters every year. Joining the movement and spreading
the word will help others learn about it as well.
- Choose to adopt rather than buy your pets from a pet store,
breeder, newspaper, Craig's List, the internet or any other source
that sells animals for a profit. A good adoption organization
will only adopt out animals that are sterilized (unless there is a
true medical condition that makes it unsafe that a vet has vouched
for. Being too young doesn't count.). There are breed rescues
groups for just about every breed of dog or cat you're looking
for.
- Ensure your pets are fixed and that you're not adding to the
population. Remember, every choice you make does impact the animals
that are currently homeless. Even when you find homes for
your pet's babies, others in the shelter won't get that home. Don't
forget, this includes the cats outdoors you're feeding. You
can get free or low-cost help by calling the Spay Neuter Hotline
which covers all of Arizona at 602-265-SPAY
- Microchip your pets, even your indoor cats. "Have legs,
can travel" I always say! Microchipping your pets and ensuring the
registration stays current is one of the best ways to help your
pets return home safely if they become lost and are impounded in a
shelter. Cats have a less than 1% chance of being returned to
their owner when they enter a shelter! WOW! Dogs don't do much
better at 9%. Microchipping your pets will significantly
increase their odds of returning home. We offer chipping at
the shelter for $25 and that includes registration. We even
have specials at times for less than that. The best money
you'll spend for that extra peace of mind.
- Spread the word!
Thank you all for taking part in Helping
Animals Live
On!
Sincerely,
Heather