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Avoiding Vet Lag
Healthy-pet clinics return this spring, creating more opportunities for financially challenged owners in Syracuse to have their loved ones vaccinated, examined, flea-treated and referred for just $10 per animal. Three previous clinics have been held, providing treatment for hundreds of pets. The clinics are sponsored and organized by a partnership of animal care organizations known as the Central New York Animal Welfare Coalition that brings in veterinarians from Cornell University to work alongside volunteer vets from local offices.
The most recent event, held Nov. 13, drew about 150 patients. Joy Green was there with her 10-year-old Pomeranian Jordan, who received surgery after a vet at a previous clinic detected a serious illness.
“This is a dog that we did surgery on at my practice the other day,” explained Dr. Nancy Freeborough of the Nottingham Pet Clinic. “Through the clinic it was identified that she needed surgery, but the owner couldn’t afford surgery. This dog came to our practice as a fairly urgent case. So we donated the surgery and the Shamrock Fund donated some of the surgical testing.”
Green, who credits Jordan with possibly saving her life by alerting family after Green suffered a stroke, was very grateful. “I couldn’t afford the price {of surgery},” she said. “They {Nottingham Pet Clinic} said they would help me and they did. It was a godsend”
The clinics have not only provided an opportunity for low-cost veterinary exams and treatment, they’ve become a one-stop center for encouraging and enabling responsible pet ownership in city neighborhoods.
Participating organizations include the Shamrock Animal Fund, Spay and Neuter Syracuse, the Animal Alliance of Greater Syracuse, the Central New York Cat Coalition, Kitty Corner, German Shepherd Rescue and People For Animal Rights, all supplying volunteers and promoting various aspects of animal wellness and safety. Susan White, a representative of the city’s dog license office, was on hand in November taking applications.
Shamrock Animal Fund founders Matt Mulcahy and Jamie Pomilio-Mulcahy researched the clinics with the assistance of veterinary programs at Cornell, where they had taken their dog Shamrock, the fund’s namesake, for treatment. “Matt and Jamie had originally contacted the head of the teaching hospital to find out how to go about starting a clinic like this,” explained Dr. Elizabeth Berliner, director of Clinical Programs for Shelter Medicine at Cornell. “The head of the teaching hospital put them in contact with me because, as a shelter medicine clinician, I oversee a lot of outreach to local shelters and outreach to the community. Cornell also has something called the Southside Healthy Pet Clinic. We have an outreach program that works every two weeks down in Ithaca and it’s a subsidized wellness clinic. They came down to see how it ran and asked me to try to help their organization.”
Some pet parents were educated at the November clinic about the deadly parvovirus while others were given referrals to trainers. If there’s one major emphasis among the groups represented, it’s the importance of sterilization to reduce the population of unwanted pets. “They know these things and they do want to do the right thing,” noted Robin Yager of Spay and Neuter Syracuse, passing out coloring books to the kids on hand. “We just have to make it affordable.”
Neil Emerson arrived too late to get his pug/lhasa apso mix in for the previous clinic, but this time he was on the list that guaranteed service. Brad Dailey waited more than two hours to have his pit bull China seen for shots, while Tashia Thomas brought in three cats.
“These pets are neighborhood pets that I brought in: Princess, Baby Girl and their mother, Fat Cat,” Thomas said. “They’ve been camping out on my porch. We’ve been feeding them and letting them stay in the hallway when it gets cold at night. I heard about this and I said I’ll bring them in and make sure they’re healthy.”
West Side pet owners were primarily serviced at the November clinic. Low-income North Side residents have their chance on April 29 from 1 to 4 p.m. at St. Claire Theatre at the Assumption Church campus, 812 N. Salina St. For more information, call 415-8563.
—Kevin Corbett
Hot Dogs
Are you looking to change your wardrobe as spring arrives? Why not afford the same pleasure to your pet? Pet apparel has evolved from the Halloween-themed costumes you can find at your local Walmart, to an industry with a variety of choices you can see at your local pet store.
“Ninety-nine percent of the apparel we sell is for dogs,” says Mark Spoto, general manager of Petco, 310 Northern Lights Plaza, North Syracuse. He says the remaining 1 percent of purchases tends to be for cats and ferrets.
“Ferrets are always popular, people will try to accessorize with collars and leashes,” says Spoto, adding that he doesn’t typically see that with cats. He says that his store has been selling out of ferret-related accessories, adding, “People are starting to socialize with them more.”
Pet apparel is seasonal, Spoto continues, adding that winter and summer apparel tend to be the most popular choices for pet owners. Quilted coats and jackets are often sold for winter, while life jackets remain a popular choice for pet-owners who own boats in the summer. Raincoats, he says, sell well in the fall for owners who want to keep their dogs dry.
But overall, it’s all about the style. “They want their pet to look stylish, they want their pet to look its best,” he says.
—Sarah Loguidice
Kitty for Kitties; Dollars for Dogs
A Syracuse-based animal shelter is a candidate to compete in a national competition for thousands of dollars in grants. Now it needs online votes. The Central New York chapter of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or CNY SPCA, is competing against 107 other shelters across the country for a chance to qualify for the national challenge. Fewer than half will advance.
To qualify, the shelter needs online votes from Thursday, April 5, to April 16, on the contest’s site: votetosavelives.org. With enough votes, the shelter will compete in the 2012 ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge, a contest created to increase adoption of homeless cats and dogs.
The challenge is intentionally set up to involve more communities than will ultimately compete. Participating shelters can learn new ways to engage their supporters and learn how to improve their outreach through competition and training from the national organization.
“This inspires a whole lot of creativity and innovation that we can then take back out to the entire field so that all shelters can advance,” says Bert Troughton, vice president of community outreach for the ASPCA. “It’s a really nice mix of local and national work.”
One of those key advances was the use of social media, Troughton notes. When the challenge began in 2010, few of the shelters had Facebook pages. Now in its third year, the ASPCA is using the social media powerhouse for its challenge, but offering training to all its shelters on how to use it to engage the public.
It turns out the platform is perfect for putting photos of local cats and dogs up for adoption in front of a wide audience. And when more people see these animals, there’s a noticeable bump in adoptions, Troughton says.
The 50 shelters selected for the challenge will try to adopt out at least 300 more animals from August through October than during the same period last year.
The shelters with most additional adoptions—or saved lives, as they’ll point out—will receive the $100,000, and $20,000 will go to divisional winners. CNY SPCA is one of two New York shelters and will compete in the Northeast division. There are other rewards, such as dividing up some $500,000 in grants to participating animal shelters. The goal is to boost adoption among the competing shelters and raise awareness with the public.
—M.T. Elliott
