Saving the bees, one dog at a time!

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Saving the Dogs of Puerto Rico's Ghastly Dead Dog Beach

It is almost impossible to fathom the atrocities that take place every day at Puerto Rico's infamous "Dead Dog Beach." There, sweet mutts (Satos, as they're called) are left to starve and die -- vulnerable to heartless kids who stop by for the "fun" of beating and tormenting helpless animals. Thankfully, the SATO Project of Puerto Rico rescues as many of these castaway canines as possible, transporting them to animal shelters in the Northeast, where they are made available for adoption.

Last Tuesday, six Sato survivors arrived at Kent Animal Shelter in Calverton, New York. As is typical of this sweet species of mutt, no two are alike -- Satos come in every size and stripe, each one uniquely adorable. Their transport to safety was part of Kent's rescue program in partnership with other humane organizations saving lives -- not only in the Long Island-New York metro region, but as far away as St. Croix and the Turks & Caicos. 

Kent Animal Shelter is an award-winning nonprofit that was established in 1968 as a no-kill haven for abandoned, neglected, or abused animals. Saving the Sato Six was Kent's first partnership with the SATO Project. Executive director Pamela Green recalls her first contact with the rescue group. 

"When I heard about Dead Dog Beach and what happens to the animals there, when I saw the photos on the Internet and heard the stories of torture, I knew that we had to help," she says. "Like so many other islands of paradise, it's no paradise for strays. The whole scenario of Dead Dog Beach is extremely disturbing, where animals are abandoned to die. The fact that youths come to the beach at night and randomly torture dogs there is disgusting and hard to digest. We can find these animals loving homes, and they don't have to suffer like that."

Pamela also had a personal reason for reaching out to help: "I visited San Juan a number of years ago and saw large numbers of stray dogs infested with mange, pitifully thin and totally ignored. So it makes my day to be able to reach out and help dogs in this place where it is unfortunate to be born if you are a canine."

She promises that Kent will continue to help the SATO Project, adding it to its list of rescue partners, which includes municipal animal shelters in the South and Western United States, as well as Best Friends Animal Society, which rescues dogs from puppy mills in the Midwest.

"The Dead Dog Beach rescues are highly adoptable and are all relatively small," Pamela concludes. "Their personalities are great. Maybe they know they have been rescued and are just grateful!"

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No Kill Conference 2011: Shelter directors who are saving 90 percent and more

Here at the No Kill Conference in Washington DC. we’re hearing from what’s called “The  90 Percent Club” — communities that are saving 90 percent and more of their dogs and cats.

The panel is being moderated by Ryan Clinton of FixAustin.org (another community that’s been saving 90 percent for several months now), and includes Bonney Brown of the Nevada Humane Society, Reva Laituri of the No Kill Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter in Marquette, Mich., Mitch Schneider of Washoe County Animal Control, Michael Linke, Director of the Royal SPCA in Tasmania, Australia, and Suzane Kogut, the Executive Director of the Charlottesville SPCA, an open admission animal control shelter that is celebrating its fifth year of no-kill.

The panel opens with Mitch Schneider talking about the public-private partnership between animal control and the Nevada Humane Society. He was “against” no-kill, thought it was a divisive term, but when Washoe County decided to go no kill and brought in Bonney Brown, he figured he’d just “do my job and stay out of her way.” But that didn’t last:  “She changed our world for the better.”

Bonney points out that Nevada Humane takes ALL Washoe County’s owner surrendered pets.

Mitch: In a transformation in ANY field, you can retrain a third, fire a third, and a third will quit.

Bonney says that’s pretty much what happened at Nevada Humane — only four original staffers left.  Says board became receptive after a scandal damaged the shelter’s image in the society.

She says that all team members have to be on board with the mission. Tough decisions are what you’re being paid to make and the animals lives depend on it. You will have to fire people.

Susanne Kogut: Their board also wanted to do something different – thought her ideas were crazy. They told her she couldn’t use the term “no-kill,” and she said that it was her best tool for fundraising and community support. “Good thing I have trouble with authority.” She said it anyway and one day the board started saying it, too.

“Do not hate or make your community mad at you; you absolutely need them to do this.” “Need a passion to save lives and a relentless determination to succeed.”

Once to quit once a month and seriously, 5 or 6 times. “You just gotta push through it and keep going, because you fundamentally know you’re doing the right thing…. because it’s all about the animals.”

Ryan: Reva, you were the president of a board of directors. Didn’t have control of the shelter, but you had a vision. How did  you see something many boards of directors don’t? And what’s it like doing this transition from the board.

Reva: Got on board in early 80s until mid-90s. Came back around 10  years later.

We had around 60 percent adoption rate when she left, but when  she came back they were killing over 60 percent.

She went to conferences given by big national groups with the shelter director, and realized she got a lot of rhetoric  from her, maybe burnout or bad experiences. Adoption procedure was ridiculous.  People called them “animal nazis” who would rather kill than adopt. Couldn’t keep volunteers, high turnover of staff. Donations down. Everything was bad.

Then in 2006 got introduced to “Meet Your Match” and the philosophy that you let the adopter take ownership of the process.

Also, more visionaries on board.

Director was always poking a stick  in the wheel, would go behind the scenes and do things against new rules, making adoptions harder.

In 2007, another board member read Redemption, and the board started making a lot of changes. The director wouldn’t go along with it, found out director was lying to the board, and in July of 2007, she resigned. She had resigned before and board had always begged her to stay, but this time they said “Thank you.”

In her last six months she did her best to obstruct change (resignation was effective six months later, which she says in retrospect was  mistake).

Director left the animal welfare movement.

Ryan: “Which is probably a good thing for animals.”

Ryan asks Michael Linke about the toll of the transition on relationships. Staff of 60, only has 2-3 remaining. “You have to make tough decisions sometimes.”

Discussion of working with union workers — know your laws.

Ryan asked Mitch, what do you do when you have shelter directors who aren’t interested in saving lives/

Mitch: Dealing with someone who is entrenched in old thinking, doesn’t want to change, cause failure. He worked with someone like that who ended up retiring, then the fight was with the people who sided with the old guy. Most of the people changed “kicking and screaming.”

Ryan: But why were YOU reachable, as a self-described former no-kill hater/

Mitch: “No-kill” was always used as a weapon against animal control by humane societies and rescue groups, traditionally. But I didn’t come into animal control as a profession, had a lot of experience as a trainer, saw pet owners differently and wanted to treat them as I’d like to be treated. I believe in doing the right thing for the right reasons. Not to say I’ve never made mistakes, but I’m always trying to do the right thing for the right reason. Gov’t should never stand in the way of no-kill — there’s no logical justification for it.

His love of logic is why he has focused on return to owner. Dog’s better off, owner’s better off, taxpayer’s better off.Around 65 percent return to owner rate for stray dogs. Seventy five percent are back to owner same or or next day.

“We hire staff who love animals but are asked to do the ‘dirty deed’.”

Michael started in animal welfare 2-3 years before “Redemption” came down. People who worked in that industry told him that they were just a “recycling center” and couldn’t worry about the animals they killed, and he said it took him almost no time to realize he didn’t want anything to do with that way of doing things.

Within 8-9 months were rehoming more than 90 percent dogs.

Figured it was ridiculous to kill to create space for another pet, “You have to solve the problem in front of your face first, not just kill them.”

Susanne: Planning needs to be fast, short-term and flexible. Don’t waste time planning for things that might never happen.

Bonney: There’s a lot of power in just doing it and seeing what happens. There’s always more than one good solution. Our challenge was just to think of one of those solutions. As Seth Godin said yesterday, people are looking for a leader. Just stand up and say, now we’re going to do this. You can’t be terribly risk-averse. Show great confidence to your staff and they will rise to the occasion. Doubt and negativity are contagious, but so is a can-do attitude.  I think we don’t see more no-kill communities because people are timid, and think “What if this, what if that.”

But Bonney says she does like documentation and setting things up like manuals, because it needs to be able to keep happening without her.

“Create and adjust.” The “create” part is really important. When you’re doing it, you keep adjusting it. It doesn’t have to be perfect right out of the gate.

Susanne: Eliminate “we can’t because” and “it won’t work because.” Focus on solutions, not what won’t work. If you can’t offer a solution, just shut up.

Mitch: Document what you’re doing, and as things work, make them part of your policy and procedures. Leave people who come behind you a road map. Bonney and Mitch aren’t going to live forever.

Ryan: Now, speed-dating questions. No comments, no experiences.

Q to Reva: Why didn’t you accelerate the resignation of your director?

A: We should have.

Q to Bonney: How increase adoptions and foster homes?

A: Customer service, streamlining adoption process, making it friendly. We see lots of adoptions each day, adopters only adopt a few pets in their lifetime. They’re heroes! Make a big deal about it! Let them leave your shelter feeling really good!

Susanne added marketing, don’t make it so hard — true with fosters too. Don’t put up a lot of barriers. The minute someone wants to do it, don’t make a big process out of it. If they walk in the door to foster, send them home with some kittens!

Q: Have any of you made complete career path changes and did any of you take a big step backward to do it?

A: Susanne: Do you mean in how much you make? Absolutely. But it’s about how you define success in your life.  I was doing very well financially in the corporate world, but I wanted what I did with my life to have meaning. It was a huge step back financially, but what I have is myself. As hard as it is at the end of the day, I know that I’ve made a difference in animals’ lives.

Q: For Mitch, what is RTO program secret?

A: Ah, you should have gone to my show! Email me mshneider@washoecounty.us. I will send you my white paper.

(Missed a couple of questions when I had a brief computer issue, sorry.)

Q: Best tool to reach out to communities?

Susanne: Cute animals! All the other non-profits hate us.

Reva: Community ownership. People can sponsor part of adoption fee, advertising, vaccination, cat condos — we get the money like nobody’s business. We acknowledge them right on the page. People love that. Our website is a lot of people’s home page.

Q: During first 6 months- 1yr, during staff turnover, how do you find new staff and keep up morale of staff that’s there?

Michael: We were open and honest with existing staff.

Susanne: You are better off with a person who has no knowledge and doesn’t want to sabotage everything than the reverse.

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Officer down: The saving of Shadow

I had the honor of working on a true hero last week; Shadow the K9 police officer. The story surrounding how we met is tragic, but Shadow was able to pull off one small bright spot in midst of a lot of pain and suffering, of both the human and animal variety.

I received a text message first thing in the morning about a police dog whowas being brought to the Purdue Veterinary Teaching Hospital for treatment that morning. I had few details at that point, but as I drove into the teaching hospital (I have about a 90-minute commute) I caught several news reports on what had happened the previous night. I had never before heard about one of my patients on the radio prior to meeting them. It was a strange feeling, and a bit of a portent for the media blitz that would follow.

Shadow was accompanying his handler, officer Brent Long, on an arrest warrant call. This was no usual warrant mission: along with officers of the Terre Haute Police Department, where Shadow and Long had been serving for several years, were agents of the US Marshals and several other law enforcement entities. They were looking for a very bad man, indeed, and they had found him at home.

As the day unfolded, and police surrounded the property, the man they were looking for hid in a closet and then shot both officer Long and Shadow. Long received two shots to the head, and Shadow took a bullet to the face.  The perpetrator was killed in the ensuing firefight, perhaps by Officer Long returning fire. Tragically, Officer Long died of his injuries at a nearby hospital soon afterwards.

Details on exactly what went on inside the house are still sketchy, but when the gunsmoke cleared two men were  dead or dying and a dog was critically wounded and bleeding.

Shadow was taken to a local animal hospital, where he was stabilized before being brought to the Animal Emergency Service at Purdue for definitive care. He was being accompanied by other officers of the Terre Haute PD, and had been brought on the two-hour journey in a squad car with an escort.When we got the call that Shadow was almost there, we prepared for the worst. Oxygen, gurney, bandages all were at the ready in case he should arrive in rough shape. When he walked out of the car and into the hospital under his own power, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. He looked remarkably good for having been shot in the face and having just lost his best friend and handler.

Police dogs are trained to be loyal and fierce. They exist to protect their handlers, take a bullet for them if needed, and to get the bad guy by cunning, cornering or chomping. For all their positive and potentially life-saving attributes, they are not the most cooperative of patients. We need to do things to patients that can be uncomfortable, and we are utter strangers. To a police dog, a stranger could just as easily be a bad guy out to get the handler as a well-meaning doctor out to dress their wounds. We knew we would have our work cut out for us, and we were at a disadvantage in that we didn’t have Shadow’s handler there to tell him it was OK. Luckily, officers (especially K9 officers) are a tight-knit group, and we had one of officer Long’s friends on the force there to help us with Shadow. Shadow knew and trusted him, and he was of great help in assisting us in the task of getting Shadow back together.

In the exam room, Shadow looked around warily, uncertain of the new folks in white labcoats. He had been shot on the right side of his face, and had bled into the space below his jaw, causing a pocket of blood (called a hematoma) to form. The bullet had entered just below his jaw and traveled upward. What it hit along its trajectory was anybody’s guess at this point. The fact that he had not met with the same fate as officer Long was miracle enough for us, but the possibility of serious injury was still present.

We took Shadow to the anesthesia induction room. We decided that a CT scan of his head would give us the most information about what had been damaged, and what we needed to do to fix it. The area under the jaw has some major nerves and blood vessels running through it, and the possibility that his jaw had been shattered and would require surgery meant that I had to coordinate lots of different specialists that day.  Anesthesia, dentistry, orthopedics and soft tissue surgery all had a handle in the plan. Trying to coordinate all of these doctors and services on a moment’s notice was a stressful and herculean task, but each one did their part and did the best they could to make themselves available for Shadow. Things moved with a greater than usual ease, likely because of the high degree of emotion surrounding the  case. I was also lucky enough to have one of our best interns with me that day, as well as two bright and highly capable veterinary students on “Team Shadow.” It is asking a lot for students to be thrust into the middle of a big and high-profile case (not to mention the unanticipated TV appearances that would crop up later), but they all performed admirably, and I am proud of all of them.

In order to get an animal under anesthesia, a process known as induction, an IV catheter needs to be placed. This requires close proximity to the patient, and about 5 or 10 minutes of time. For animals who are likely to bite us during this process, we will often use a muzzle. For Shadow, we felt a muzzle would not work out as his injury was exactly in the area where a muzzle would fit over his snout. This put is in the precarious position of having to handle a dog who was trained to bite, without the means to protect ourselves. This was one of the first of several technical hurdles we would have to face during Shadow’s time with us. Luckily, the anesthesiologist was able to devise a plan that involved an intramuscular injection to render Shadow unconscious, followed by placing the IV catheters and hooking up monitors soon afterwards.  There would be a short window where we would not have IV access if we needed to give drugs, but with the help of one of the officers we were able to give the injection and Shadow was safely asleep a short time afterwards.

As we were working on diagnosing the extent of his injuries, a media presence slowly built up outside the teaching hospital. The whole incident, from the tragic loss of Officer Long to the efforts to save Shadow, was becoming a major local story and we were right in the center of it all. There is always a lot at stake when an animal or person is critically injured, but the high emotional toll that the deaths had taken on all involved, coupled with the scrutiny and intrusiveness of the media, made the stress level in the hospital soar that day. We were able to keep our cool and function as a team, however, as we knew that that was the best way to ensure a good outcome for at least one member of the police team.

We are lucky enough to have a very capable and adept media handler and coordinator at Purdue, and he was able to keep the media noise down to a dull roar so we could get on with what needed to be done for Shadow. We did not allow the news crews into the hospital, but made the concession that a Purdue videographer would be there to film the events for later use by the media.

Once anesthetized, Shadow was hooked to all the whirring and beeping machines that monitor life signs. We were also then able to pull blood for lab analysis, to get a better picture of his overall health and how much blood loss had occurred. Once we were satisfied that he was stable under anesthesia, he was wheeled into the CT room for imaging of his jaw.

CT stands for computed tomography. It is sometimes called a CAT scan; it used to only be able to produce images along one plane of the axis of a patient’s body, hence the extra “A” for axial. Technology has advanced such that we can now reconstruct images at any angle we like, so the A has been dropped. CT scanning uses X-rays to produce images, known as slices, that have a far better ability to see through patients when compared to plain X-ray images. They are quick to perform, and within about 15 minutes we had lovely images of Shadow’s head, including the path of the bullet.

The news was better than we had dared hope. The bullet had entered the underside of his jaw, hit the bone at the angle of his jaw, and broken apart. There was damage to the area of his jaw just below the joint; the bone had shattered into hundreds of fragments in a small area. There were two larger bullet fragments; the rest was a constellation of little blips on the CT readout. After confirming that the authorities did not need the fragments for evidence, the decision was made to leave them in. The body would efficiently wall them off, and they were unlikely to cause future problems for Shadow. About the only levity that day was when someone reminded us that, in order to conform to Hollywood stereotype, if we did need to remove the bullet, time-honored tradition required us to drop it into a metal bowl for the requisite “ping-plunk.”

The decision of what to do with his jaw was at hand. The surgeons and radiologists amassed and pored over the images. A 3-D computer reconstruction was made of the slices from the CT scan. As I watched from the control room, a spectral image of Shadow’s head appeared on the monitor as he slept inside the gantry of the CT scanner. I could only hope that he was dreaming of getting the bad guy. The reconstruction allowed us to flip and position his skull as we liked, so we could see the damage from all angles.  After a brief consultation, it was determined that the damage was not in a load-bearing area, and was not near enough the joint to require surgery. The second wave of relief spread through everyone that day upon hearing this. It was the same feeling you get when the Space Shuttle takes off without a hitch.

After attending to his entry wound and closing one small wound inside his mouth, Shadow was fitted with a muzzle while still asleep. The muzzle would keep him from opening his mouth too far and moving the fragments, but would allow him enough room to lap up the gruel that will be his diet for the next six weeks or so as the jaw knit itself together. My suggestion of a Hello Kitty muzzle was rejected in favor of a royal blue one more befitting an officer. The irony was not lost on us that one of our original concerns was of how we would be unable to place a muzzle on Shadow so we could handle him initially, but that same muzzle was now a major component of his recuperation plan.

As he recovered in a warm and quiet spot from his anesthesia, wound care and CT scan, we pulled some follow-up lab tests to assess his progress. We found that his hemoglobin count had dipped perilously low since arrival, probably as a result of blood loss and the fluids we had placed him on during anesthesia to support his circulation.  I ordered up two units of blood from our blood bank, and he was transfused without any problems as he woke up from anesthesia. His hemoglobin count stabilized overnight. He was placed on a continuous drip of weapons-grade painkiller (fentanyl, the same drug that is sometimes used in epidurals during pregnancy) as well as antibiotics.

He turned out to be a better patient than we thought, and the nurses were able to monitor him and check his vitals without danger to life or limb. True, he had a muzzle on and couldn’t really connect if he intended to, and it is a tad hard to land a good bite with a partially broken jaw, but the most we got out of him was a low growl, as if to say “I’ve had the worst 24 hours you could possibly imagine –  are you absolutely certain you want to put that thermometer there?”

The following day was a hazy kaleidoscope of interviews, phone calls and medical documentation and organization. From the officer who brought Shadow in, I learned that Shadow would most likely be retired from the police force and live out his days by the hearth of the Long family, where he had lived prior to the incident. Shadow walked around the hospital, seemingly enjoying his star status, and hopefully blessedly insulated from the horrors that had transpired to bring him to us.

We originally planned on releasing Shadow back to the family and the force the day after he came to us, but we elected to keep him another night to make sure he wasn’t continuing to lose blood. He started eating the morning after the CT scan, and once he started getting better he never looked back. We discharged him two days after he arrived, and he was met with a parking lot full of police cars and news media. Shadow’s story was on every evening news report that night, providing the positive counterpoint to the stories about officer Long’s upcoming funeral and memorial service. Most of the news reports that night made mention of the fact that Shadow seemed to be searching for his lost partner as he left the hospital and looked out at the sea of blue uniforms waiting there to take him home.

Shadow was able to attend the memorial the next day, partly because all those working on him helped him through the dark night of his injury, but mostly because he’s made of tough materials, and is a survivor as well as a fighter. I know that if he could, he would have saluted his fallen friend, handler and colleague as the procession carrying his remains rolled by under the scorching July sun.

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