These are exciting times at DuPage County’s Animal Care & Control, starting with the return of our newsletter. We look forward to sharing both our advancements and our challenges with you, our loyal supporters. You are an important partner in helping us save more lives.
DCACC’S Live Release Rate, or LRR (the percentage of animals taken in that are successfully re homed), increased from approximately 70% in 2015 to 75% in 2016. While we are happy that more lives are being saved, we will not be satisfied until all treatable animals will eventually be in a loving, responsible forever home.
Being an open admission County-run facility, we will never turn away any domestic animal regardless of breed, age, medical condition, or temperament. Our pet population can be described as categorized by the Asilomar Accords. The Asilomar Accords separates Healthy from Unhealthy, and then further separates Unhealthy Treatable and Unhealthy Untreatable. DCACC accepts many animals that are incredibly unhealthy and are often refused by limited admission shelters. For these animals, their state of mental and/or physical health makes them unsuitable for adoption. To address these concerns, we currently work with a board certified veterinary behavioral specialist and have created a hospice program. Euthanasia ideally would only be an option for the Unhealthy and Untreatable, but not all Unhealthy and Untreatables need to be euthanized. I encourage you to click the link and learn more about Asilomar Accords.
The first of many exciting changes at DCACC since I arrived was to become a Network Partner with Best Friends Animal Society. Best Friends has been an incredible resource and soon we are excited to start a program (introduced through Best Friends) called Playing for Life...stay tuned to soon learn the exciting details. Another rewarding change we have made this past year is to not euthanize healthy feral cats. We identified an opportunity to re-home them as working barn cats after we spay/neuter, vaccinate, microchip, and provide any other medical care. The feral cats are provided food and water but are not confined indoors and therefore are able to help control the barn’s rodent population. Our goal is to save as many Healthy and Treatable animals as possible. Our society is too advanced and its passion for animals is too great to accept managed killing as an answer to the problem of homeless pets.
DCACC is committed to acting as a safety net for the animals that have nowhere else to go, but we cannot accomplish this alone. Through education and awareness, we can engage the community: volunteers, fosters, donors, leaders, educators, legislators, and the media to help us solve this problem together. People are both the problem and the solution with animals caught somewhere in the middle.
So we ask for your help. We ask that you share this newsletter and especially let people know that we need volunteers and fosters. We know that when animals move into foster homes we can save more lives. When animals pour into DCACC on an almost daily basis and the adoptions do not keep up, then space becomes a problem. This is our struggle. This is our reality. Foster homes are desperately needed to get animals out of stressful situations and into more normal environments. So please, tell your friends, family, coworkers, and others that we have animals that need saving and we invite all of you to be part of the solution.
As I write this, today is my one year anniversary as the Veterinary Administrator at DuPage County Animal Care & Control. I am continuously amazed by the dedicated and talented staff and volunteers that I work with. Our goal is simple: save animals while helping people. Together we are unstoppable. I look forward to your thoughts, concerns, and ideas.
Barbara Hanek, DVM
Animal Care and Control Administrator Veterinarian
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DuPage County Animal Care &
Control lost a dedicated volunteer, generous supporter, and dear friend
to both staff and animals. Barbara Hartel was an active shelter
volunteer for over 15 years. She was a true animal lover with a special
place in her heart for shelter dogs. She had a special talent for
comforting dogs that were overwhelmed and frightened by the shelter
environment and was especially drawn to the little ones.
Barb
spent many volunteer hours with a Chihuahua on her lap, reassuring the
dog that he or she was loved and that everything would be okay. Barb
gave generously to DCACC and DuPage Animal Friends Foundation
and her support over the years has helped to provide countless animals
with a second chance at life. Though her health prevented her from
visiting the shelter at the end of her life, our animals were never far
from her mind. We and our animals miss our friend dearly.
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A Loving Home For Every Pet
For the second year in a row DuPage County Animal Care & Control teamed up with NBC and Telemundo to participate in the nationwide Clear the Shelters adoption event. According to the ASPCA, roughly 6.5 million animals enter the United States shelter system annually. Clear the Shelters is an opportunity to bring extra attention to these pets in need and to help find loving homes for each and every one.
In an effort to find homes for as many animals as possible DCACC, with the help of the DuPage Animal Friends, offered fee-waived and fee reduced adoptions. Food and pet items were sold to visitors with all proceeds going to the care of animals sheltered at DCACC . Because we work with such an amazing group of rescue partners, we invited Bunnies United Network, Belly Up For Adoptions, Pittie Please Rescue, One Tail at a Time, and Underdog Railway to join us for the day and bring out some of their adoptable pets. We are happy to share that over 30 animals found their forever homes at this event. Thanks to the dedication of the DuPage Animal Friends, the DCACC staff and volunteers, and our rescue partners, the event was a smashing success!
Time in the Spotlight
A special thanks to NBC’s Leanne Trotter and Chris Coffey who came out and spent the day with us at DCACC to spotlight adoptable animals throughout the day. Their love and dedication for the animals was obvious and the animals certainly loved having their time to shine on camera!
The Results...
The results are in and Clear the Shelters was a success! Nation-wide 80,150 animals were adopted this year. At DCACC we found loving homes for 19 cats and kittens, 6 dogs, and 3 rabbits! Our rescue groups adopted out another 6 dogs making the grand total for our day a whopping 34 animals in loving forever homes!
Next year we hope to empty every single adoption cage in the shelter. We plan on making Clear the Shelters 2018 a bigger and better event with more rescues, food sales, music, and fun! We hope to see you there!
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