Heat advisory for pets (& their parents)

The following heat advisory comes from Animal Protection League of NJ. It's a good idea to read and re-read it, save it, print it, post it and carry a copy in your car. And most of all, to follow it!

Are your cat's or dog's gums suddenly bright red? Is the animal lethargic? Is she panting excessively, even when the temperature is cooler? These could be signs of heat stroke, a potentially fatal condition, and you should bring your cat or dog to the veterinarian immediately.

Even before bringing your animal to the veterinarian, your immediate goal is to cool the animal down. Place the animal in tub of cool water (not cold), wrap her in cool, wet towels, ice-packs, or simply use the hose to bring down body temperature. Take your animal immediately to the veterinarian in an air-conditioned car.

Never leave companion animals outside or in enclosures on hot days, and provide cold, fresh water at all times. Dogs, cats, rabbits, and all other animals are all susceptible to heat stroke.

Never leave your dog or cat unattended in a parked car. If you see a dog or cat in a parked car, enter the closest store and ask that the owner of the car be paged. If the animal is obviously under duress, immediately call the local police because it's against the law to leave an animal in a car in extreme heat.

In a relatively mild 85-degree day, it takes only 10 minutes for the interior of a car to reach 102 degrees-and within 30 minutes, the inside of the car can be a staggering 120 degrees. New Jersey is under an extreme heat wave, where the temperature is reaching 100 and above and cars can get much hotter and quicker.

Leaving car windows open a few inches does not help. Dogs cool down mostly by panting and the car can become an inferno with the addition of hot panting breath. In only a short amount of time a dog with a high body temperature can suffer critical damage to his nervous system, heart, liver and brain, resulting in death.

For more information about Animal Protection League of New Jersey and our programs, please visit www.aplnj.org.

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A choice of actions

Neither is “wrong,” and both would help, but the issue of animal experimentation can cause animal advocates to argue either (1) make it less painful and treat the animals involved better, or (2) stop it altogether as the immoral and often unnecessary thing it is.

Should we stress improving conditions for animals in laboratories or hold out and work for a total halt to animal experiments?

These questions were suggested by the last two issues of All Animals, the magazine of the Humane Society of the US. The May/June issue carried an article titled “Behind Closed Doors,” which talked only about lessening lab animals’ fear and suffering.

Then, in the July/August issue, two letters to the editor pointed out that the article had omitted entirely any reference to the alternative: non-animal research.

These letters prompted a response from the organization’s animal research dept., whose representative claimed to agree with the letters’ overriding goal of eliminating animal research. She advocated working toward both goals – end use of animals “in the long term” and eliminate their suffering now – and directed readers to www.humanesociety.org/animalresearch.

The unknown: whether animal research could be stopped even sooner if those who work only to ameliorate suffering concentrated instead on the bigger goal.
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Easel: volunteers fighting homelessness

Mark Phillips, executive director of Easel Animal Rescue League, shelters two feral kittens and two older feral cats in his office.

He hopes the kittens – now in a big multi-level big wire cage -- can be socialized; he doubts that can happen with the older cats, who may not have been caught in time to learn to trust people. They’re “at large” but typically invisible in the two rooms he can close off from the rest of his business.

Regarding cat adoptions – now underway everywhere because this is the height of the “kitten season” – Phillips says, “It’s the cat, it’s not the group [behind the adoption].” His purpose is “to get animals adopted” from the huge adoption pool; he’s not about having to take credit.

Most of Easel’s adoptions result from internet contacts. There’s Petfinder.com and Adoptapet.com, Phillips says. And every couple months, he prints out color posters showing 10 cats and 10 dogs in the Ewing shelter that are displayed at markets and other sites.

If people who respond arrive too late for specific animals, there are many others to choose from.

As all-volunteer Easel continues working toward its own shelter, the focus is on the Ewing site. Only kittens are fostered.

Organization members also take animals for adoption to PetSmart and PETCO (whose foundation Phillips lauds), as well as Rosedale Mills and Cutter’s Mill (whose generous manager he also praises).

Even if animals aren’t adopted at these stores, “It’s a good day for those dogs,” he says: “They get out of the shelter.”

(See February 23 post about Easel – www.EaselNJ.org)
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SAVE's future will allow more saves

Wondering what’s been happening at SAVE, a friend to homeless animals, in Princeton? A visit and talk earlier this week with Piper H. Burrows, SAVE’s executive director, provided the information update that follows.

Burrows indicates that while the organization has “a very big presence” on FaceBook and Twitter, it’s hard to maintain these social media outlets when most energy is expended on the animals, first, and fundraising through a variety of means, second.

Petfinder.com, which sends queries directly to SAVE’s website, continues to be a major source of contacts, and Burrows also mentioned www.LocalSplash.com. A feature every other week in Princeton’s Town Topics showcases a dog with his/her image and a blurb.

A recent story in the Princeton Packet focused on SAVE’s volunteer program, and last Sunday’s Times of Trenton ran a story about animal adoption from shelters, with images from SAVE.

One of Burrows’s main concentrations: SAVE’s “New Beginnings” capital campaign. The goal is $3 million, which will make a new, state of the art shelter a reality. Current conditions at the organization’s Herrontown Road site cry out for a new facility.

With about $1.5 million “in hand,” Burrows anticipates a ground-breaking date this fall.

(See 6/29/10 post about SAVE -- www.savehomelessanimals.org.)
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Save the date . . . save a cat!

(Blogger's note on 7-27-11: The event described below has had to be postponed and will be rescheduled asap. Please watch this blog for news of the new date.)

Mark your calendar for Saturday, August 6 between 10am-3pm: “Adoption Day” for cats and kittens, an event sponsored by Trenton TNR at the Trenton Farmers Market (960 Spruce Street, Lawrence Township; 609-695-2998).

Look for the big blue North Shore Animal League bus in the parking lot.

The shelter and foster homes are “full to the brim” with cats and kittens who need loving forever homes. Every adoptable cat is fully vetted, and every cat adopted is a cat saved.

Fee (cash only): $50 kittens and $40 adult cats. If you adopt 2, the second cat or kitten is half price.

If you can’t adopt, please consider dropping off food and/or litter to help out. (And if you can adopt, please consider dropping off food and/or litter to help out!)

For more information or to be pre-approved to adopt before the event, contact Sandra at TrentonTNR@gmail.com.

Please tell your friends who need cats in their lives: come to Adoption Day on August 6 and save a cat.
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Invaluable ants

Ants, one of the smallest of all the animals, come highly recommended by E. O. Wilson, a biologist who studied them.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1929, he said in answer to potential critics of his famous specialty,

For a skeptical audience who says, '. . . how could studying ants be very important?' Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They're the cemetery workers. Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them. In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems. Take away humans, and everything would come back and flourish. But I don't want to go down that down that road for a broad audience.

(According to the Writer’s Almanac, the source of info here, Wilson’s books include The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967), Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), In Search of Nature (1996), and most recently, The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct (2010).)
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Keeping pets and families together

People can make arrangements for their pets after their own deaths (See post for April 13, '11), but what happens to pets while their people are dying? This is a time when pets might be forgotten, or worse.

A Times of Trenton community news story on July 9 described a “Pet Peace of Mind” program now offered through Trenton’s Greenwood House. The volunteer program provides pet care services for clients who are unable to care for their pets while in hospice.

These services include financial assistance for food and routine vet care, transporting pets to vet appointments, pet boarding and walking, and more.

Susan Whitman, coordinator of volunteers at the Renee Denmark Punia Community Hospice of Greenwood House, credits a grant for helping provide such services. The Banfield Charitable Trust (BCT) is behind the good deeds for pets, as part of its goal -- to promote the human-animal bond, keeping pets and families together.

(http://www.banfieldcharitabletrust.org)

One Banfield program is “Pet Peace of Mind,” which “enables hospice patients to keep their pets at home with them throughout their end-of-life journey, with the comfort and companionship of their pet, without worrying about their pet’s current or future needs.”

The Greenwood House hospice is the only one in New Jersey to offer this program. Ms. Whitman says so far, a hospice patient’s dog was groomed through it. She anticipates helping in many other ways, and possibly taking the program to the community, where more people may need help.

Isn’t it great that this program is all about keeping pets in place while taking care of their needs?

(For more info about Pet Peace of Mind at the Greenwood House hospice, phone 609-883-6026 or visit www.greenwoodhouse.org.)
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(Note to Linda, whose comment follows: Yes, please do, and thanks!)