Juneau Animal Rescue's monthly newsletter

Happy Tails

Monthly Newsletter from Juneau Animal Rescue

July 2023

Dear Animal Lover,

Juneau Animal Rescue is thrilled to announce that this week marked the first week of employment for the organization’s new executive director, Rick Driscoll. JAR’s board of directors selected Rick after an extensive national search and were fortunate to receive applications from strong and impressive candidates, which allowed for the selection of the candidate that is best aligned to JAR’s mission, values, and future.

Rick comes to JAR with a great wealth of senior leadership experience in the non-profit sector and a passion for having a positive impact in his community of Juneau, where he has lived for 18 years. Prior to Juneau Animal Rescue, Rick worked for many years at both REACH, Inc. and Juneau Youth Services and has served on the board of several local and state-wide non-profit organizations. The board is incredibly grateful to Samantha Blankenship for serving as Juneau Animal Rescue’s ED for the last 6 years, and 14 total with the organization. Samantha has agreed to support Rick with his onboarding and will stay on with JAR through the next few weeks.

Sincerely,

Aurora Hauke

Board President

Pet Story of the Month

Adoptive Families Needed!

Juneau Animal Rescue has seen more pets come into the shelter in need of homes this year than we have seen in the last 15 years! Our number of adoption animals increased 57% in the last twelve months. If you are currently in search of a pet, please consider ADOPTING NOW! We need your help to spread the word that OUR PETS NEED HOMES.

Visit our website to see our adoption animals and find adoption applications. We have visiting hours every day, except Tuesday and Sunday, from 1:00pm to 5:30pm (last visit with animals begin at 5:15).

Many adoption animals that come to JAR are surrendered by their former owners. While most dogs are brought to JAR as direct owner relinquishes, most cats are left anonymously, with little or no information, like Rose Cotton (6 month old spayed female domestic shorthaired cat).

The ASPCA encourages Managed Admissions at shelters, with the owner or caretaker speaking directly with shelter staff. "Many shelters doing managed admission have seen significant reductions in owner surrenders, which they attribute in part to communities being willing to consider other options before surrendering an animal. Managed admission also means agencies can plan for maximum staffing on surrender days, allowing more individualized attention to both the animals and the people surrendering them."

JAR prefers individuals to directly relinquish animals during our business hours so we can ensure the pets receive prompt care from both our kennel technicians and our clinic staff. Direct relinquishing also ensures that you can provide JAR with as much information as possible about the pet so we can provide appropriate care and more quickly and effectively find a fitting home for the pet, like Margie (spayed female, black St Bernard).

Stray pets are frequently successfully reunited with their owners by good samaritans who share information about the found pet via community resources such as Facebook. However, you should always contact your local animal control agency for lost or found pets as well, since they are the agency tasked with reuniting pets with their humans. If you find a stray pet in Juneau, you can fill out a Found Pet Report online or call Animal Control directly at (907) 789-6997. Stray pets in need of immediate veterinary attention should ALWAYS be turned over to Animal Control directly by bringing the pet to JAR during business hours or calling (907) 789-6997 to reach an officer.

If you are interested in adopting Rose Cotton, Margie, or one of our other amazing pets, check out our adoption page.

Juneau Animal Rescue can house and care for the special and extended care of many of our adoptable pets through funding from our Second Chance Fund. You can help us maintain this valuable fund so that we can continue to help animals that need extra veterinary care.

Will you please consider contributing to our Second Chance Fund by clicking on the button below? Your donation goes directly to help pets like Havarti or Connie. Help us help them by donating today.

Samantha Blankenship

Executive Director

DONATE TO JAR NOW

Pet Overpopulation

What is Pet Overpopulation?

Pet overpopulation is caused when there are more pets in an area than safe and loving homes for those pets. Animal shelters like JAR exist to help mitigate this by providing care for stray and surrendered animals while helping to rehome them. While Juneau is lucky to have a more controlled pet population than many high-volume shelters in the continental US face, the resources available to shelters and animal welfare groups in Southeast is also limited.

Unfortunately, these limited resources have been paired with an increase in relinquished and stray animals being brought to JAR. We have been consistently at or near capacity for several months, with more animals in our care so far this year than we have seen in fifteen years!

These animals need help and homes now, but what can you do to help prevent overcrowding in the future?

Spaying & Neutering

The #1 way to prevent pet overpopulation is to have your animals spayed and neutered. Cat and dog spay/neuter surgeries are routine procedures that most every vet office is able to perform. This is a guaranteed way to prevent breeding amongst your animals or prevent your pet from getting pregnant or impregnating other animals if it escapes your home or is allowed to roam unsupervised.

If you have puppies or kittens in your home along with the mother, be sure to keep them separate as the offspring reach sexual maturity: animals won't distinguish between family members when it comes to mating, and both dogs and cats can be sexually mature as early as six months. If intact animals have had any opportunity to mate, you can get the female spayed as soon as possible to prevent an unwanted litter.

In addition to preventing expensive and unwanted pregnancies, spaying and neutering also prevents potentially lethal health issues for your pets. Pyometra, or an infection in the uterus, is often deadly and can be difficult or even impossible to detect before becoming lethal. It is completely preventable by having your cat or dog spayed. Likewise, testicular cancer can be lethal, and neutering your pet is 100% effective against the development of testicular cancer.

JAR offers spay/neuter services for pet owners through an application and appointment process. If you are low-income and cannot afford the standard cost of a spay/neuter surgery for your pet, check to see if you are qualified for JAR's low-income spay/neuter program.

Responsible Rearing

If you have a pet that cannot safely undergo a spay/neuter surgery, such as a small animal or exotics, the best way to avoid contributing to pet overpopulation is through careful and responsible husbandry, or care of the animals.

Rodents in particular can reproduce very quickly and repeatedly. Hamsters can reach sexual maturity at as little as six weeks of age. A female hamster can get pregnant as briefly as 24 hours after giving birth. If you have pets of different sexes, the only way to ensure they won't breed is to keep them separate at all times. Small pet populations can very quickly spiral out of control, resulting in unmanageable numbers.

While most reptiles prefer to be isolated and may not be able to easily breed without proper temperature and environmental conditions, unwanted offspring are easily avoidable. Though it usually requires intentional care and incubation to hatch reptile eggs, a single gravid female can lay dozens of eggs. If you find eggs in your reptile's enclosure and think there is even a small chance that the eggs could be fertile, you can place the eggs in the freezer until they are frozen solid. This will quickly and safely prevent development of the embryo.

By keeping your pets from reproducing, you can greatly help JAR; every unwanted litter that is avoided keeps animals out of shelters, allowing more space for the many pets that need our help and care.