By Barbara Tucker<br><a href="mailto:tuckerb@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Barb</a>
At the SPCA of Erie County, some really good news has caused a backlash of not so good news.
On Wednesday, Maddie’s Fund, The Pet Rescue Foundation announced that the SPCA on Ensminger Road, Town of Tonawanda, had been successful in its efforts to obtain a $5 million grant that will be shared with its partners to make all shelters in the Animal Alliance no-kill facilities within five years.
Thursday morning, a frantic call to the News from Gina Browning, SPCA director of public relations, related that after the story was released, 102 cats and kittens had been left at the shelter.
In an effort to find more cats more homes and to prevent the spread of any contagious illness, the SPCA has drastically reduced or completely waived adoption fees through Sunday.
Cats and kittens 21 weeks and older can be adopted free of charge. The regular adoption fee is $85 or, during special incentive months, $50. Kittens five months and younger can be adopted for $25. The regular adoption fee is $100.
Feline adoptions include the animal’s spay or neuter surgery, first set of vaccinations, feline leukemia/FIV tests, microchip identification and 30 days free veterinary insurance.
“On a normal day, and on every day of our operation at least over the last several decades, adopting animals out for free has never been the better option,” Browning said. “Today it is. There are simply too many risks to their health and livelihood in this kind of setting, and that is of utmost concern.”
The grant money coming to the local facilities — scheduled to begin flowing Oct. 1 — could have been misperceived by the community. The term “no-kill” has different meanings in different places, Browning said. Some don’t euthanize any animals, but others simply won’t euthanize healthy animals. Still others turn away the animals that aren’t healthy enough for adoption, leaving owners to deal with euthanization on their own.
The local SPCA hasn’t euthanized a healthy animal in more than a year.
“The treatable ones are another story,” Browning said.
So how did the past 28 hours impact on the facility?
“Absolute chaos,” Debby Williams, veterinary services manager at the SPCA, said. “It may be a cliché, but that’s the best way to explain it here. The shelter has turned into absolute chaos. The auditorium is filled with cages and we’re working to clean everything up.”
She said the huge influx was stressful, not just to the cats, but to the workers and volunteers.
“We had to borrow cages from other organizations in the Animal Alliance,” Williams said. “The cats are housed throughout the building. In fact, we had to cancel dog training sessions which take place (in the auditorium).”
“Yesterday,” Williams continued, “we did almost 50 (spay/neuter) surgeries, with our normal amount 20 to 25.”
She said surrendering cats is hard on the animals as they leave everything familiar: sounds, smells and food.
“It’s like a person going to sleep and waking up in a foreign country,” she said. “Being stressed out can lead to sickness as well. We have soft music playing, which calms cats.”
The recipe of stress and proximity leading to sickness is the primary concern of SPCA staff, since there’s only so much room to isolate sick animals. If things like respiratory disease begin to spread rapidly in the close quarters and animals start developing pneumonia, the facility will be looking at treatments costing hundreds of thousands of dollars it doesn’t have. That would be bad news for all the felines, but Browning said before she left Thursday 45 cats had been adopted compared with 52 in the previous three days. While more than 30 were brought in during that same period, the pace of adoptions spurred by the relaxing of fees is hoped to turn the tide and alleviate the strain.
“If adoptions keep going the way they’re going, we won’t have to worry about it,” Browning said.
Still, she pointed out that the animals will not be simply given away to the first people who walk through the doors.
“There is still an adoption procedure,” she said, “an interview with an adoption counselor who will do his or her best to ensure the desired animal isn't just going to any home, but to a loving home where he or she will be loved and properly treated.”
The foundation will award a $501,550 grant beginning Oct. 1, to support the first year of a five-year community project targeted at guaranteeing a home for every healthy or treatable dog and cat abandoned in Erie County. An additional $177,600 will be dedicated to the sterilization of feral cats, and of cats owned by income-qualified residents.
If the goals are achieved, the fund will eventually provide approximately $5 million over the course of five years to help Erie County project partners continue fulfilling these objectives for the cats and dogs of the community.
Partners with the Erie County SPCA include Buffalo Humane, City of Buffalo Animal Shelter, HEART, Operation PETS: The Spay/Neuter Clinic of Western New York, Second Chance Sheltering Network and Ten Lives Club.
Reporter Dan Pye contributed to this report.
