Posted on 06/16/2008 6:08:49 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Star Prairie, WI - Chako isn't the kind of dog that's likely to find a home through the local animal shelter.
An aging Siberian husky, incontinent and partially paralyzed, he needs round-the-clock care that his owner, widowed, and with arthritis herself, can no longer manage.
But Chako has a home, along with dozens of other aged or maimed or once-abandoned animals, on a 40-acre spread along the Apple River in western Wisconsin.
Chako lives at the Home for Life Sanctuary near Star Prairie, the final residence for an eclectic menagerie of dogs, cats, bunnies, birds - even an African desert tortoise - many of which would have faced almost certain death had they not found their way there.
"The animals that come here are out of options," said Lisa LaVerdiere, who founded one of the nation's first home-for-life animal sanctuaries, in Wisconsin's St. Croix Valley, in 1999, and hopes to replicate its success in communities around the country.
"We take them or they're put to sleep," she said.
LaVerdiere has staked an increasingly popular place in the often fractious debate over animal welfare, where advocates argue the ethics and realities of no-kill vs. traditional shelters, and adoption into a home is the overriding goal.
Her nonprofit organization offers what she calls "a third door" for animals that in the past had just two: adoption or euthanasia.
"Our goal is to give these animals a true home, a good quality of life," said LaVerdiere, a lawyer who developed the concept while volunteering with a Twin Cities no-kill shelter in the 1990s.
"When you think that 4 (million) to 6 million animals are euthanized a year, we need to think more expansively about what it means to have a home."
LaVerdiere's third door opens onto a gated compound of new but modest buildings, fenced runs and open wetlands and prairie about an hour and a half northwest of Eau Claire.
Every animal here has a story, many horrifyingly tragic, and yet they appear content, adjusted.
Ben, a shepherd pup, blinded and brain-damaged by a beating, jumps playfully in circles as a photographer shoots his picture. Ashley, a chow mix paralyzed by a stomp to the spine after she'd wandered into a homeowner's yard, tears across the grassy run in what can best be described as a wheeled prosthesis.
Inside one of the three catteries, Kobi hobbles along on the stumps of her legs. The brown tabby had been found in a park, his ears, all four paws and tail severed.
Not all of the animals have been abused. Some, including Chako, were surrendered by loving owners who could no longer care for them. Chako's owner pays a monthly fee, but about 10% of the animals arrive through the Angel Care program that offers care for life in return for a one-time fee.
Goliath, a 30-pound Sulcata African tortoise, was found abandoned.
Candy, a 20-year-old male Moluccan cockatoo, has all the charm of a gold-chain-wearing, disco-dancing lothario - he shouts "Hey babe" and worse at the cats and visitors on tours - and might be considered ill-mannered.
"He's destructive and he bites," said LaVerdiere, who estimates the bird could live to be 80. "I wouldn't go out of my way to get 10 of him."
Yet Candy's found a refuge in this place that has drawn animals from around the country, Canada and Korea, and where every activity is geared toward their care and quality of life.
There's no caging here. Animals that can live together do so, in groups of like temperament. (Candy the obnoxious cockatoo, believe it or not, lives with about 30 cats.) Those that can't - take Hal, who loves people but will fight any dog after a lifetime spent as bait for other pit bulls - get their own "townhouses."
Twenty employees, many of whom have studied animal sciences, fix their meals and administer their meds. They make sure the animals are exercised daily - the appearance of a worker with a leash sets off a deafening cacophony of excited barking - and get plenty of affection.
Those with serious health problems receive even more intensive care. Chako and others that get around on wheeled carts are cleaned and wrapped twice a day to keep their sores from getting infected. There are regular vet visits and, for some, physical therapy.
Such intensive care would have been impossible for Anne Gale of New Jersey. She tried caring for Chako herself after he injured his spine in a freak accident, but found his needs too great.
She drove him cross-country to Home for Life crying much of the way - and again this month as she recounted the memory.
"But when I walked onto the grounds of that place, when I met Lisa, I had no doubt in my mind that I'd found the one place on Earth I was going to be comfortable leaving my dog."
Chako doesn't get around much these days. But for many of the animals, the Home for Life door swings outward, too, not for adoptions but for outreach programs LaVerdiere has developed to educate the public about the sanctuary and the larger societal problems that have landed many of the animals there.
As many as 300 volunteers take animals to visit local hospitals, senior centers, domestic abuse shelters and a home for teenage boys who've had felony-level scrapes with the law.
It's moving, LaVerdiere said, to see the impact the dogs have on the troubled boys whose job it is to train them to become therapy dogs.
"One of the things you notice with these kids is how hard their faces are. Within a couple of classes, their eyes soften, they're so much more receptive," she said.
"They'll think twice before they abuse an animal, I guarantee it."
All of this is financed through donations and grants. The Sanctuary's annual budget: about $1 million.
Not everyone supports the home for life philosophy. LaVerdiere's been criticized by adoption-only advocates who question a sanctuary's merits as a "home." But others say it plays an important role, especially as the no-kill movement gains momentum.
"This is where I think Home for Life is ahead of the curve," said Nathan Winograd, founder of the No Kill Advocacy Center and author of the book "Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No-Kill Revolution in America."
"As the no-kill movement becomes dominant, we're going to start to have ethical debates about those animals at the margins. But that doesn't mean we have to wait to save those animals," Winograd said. "If someone is willing to take care of these animals - even if it's not a traditional home - and it's funded with private dollars, what's wrong with that?"
Care for life also means preparing for death at the sanctuary, where the animals' ashes are interred in a memorial garden in the shape of a labyrinth, near the wooded entrance to the grounds. Euthanasia is used, but only when an animal's suffering can no longer be managed with medication, and the decision involves many, including veterinarians and staff.
It's a prospect Anne Gale knows she may be facing when she returns to visit Chako in the coming months. And she will be ready, she said, to do what's right for him.
"I don't want him to suffer," Gale said.
"If he's in pain, if there's no more quality of life anymore, if he can't smile - and huskies smile all the time - Lisa and I will work out what we feel is best."
Uh, No. I love animals just as much as the next one, but I think spaying and neutering pets are the key. No extra animals, no need to kill 'em! :)
Nice slide-show at the link, too.
ping
My wife and I tried for a while to adopt a second dog via humane societies and the St. Francis society down in Kenosha. It’s amazing how many very rough, and likely dangerous, animals there are in shelters. A couple struck me as overtly vicious as they tried to come through fencing, teeth bared.
Not to say that some can’t be rehabbed, but I saw plenty of risk there - and have to wonder if “no kill” is really a responsible policy.
In the end we adopted a puppy mill dog that unfortunately didn’t work out due to our at home pack structure — she now lives with my parents and after almost 2 years of hard work has made a wonderful recovery. A passive little dog that still needs to be top dog.
DEFEND THE DOGS!
On July 9th a peaceful STATEWIDE RALLY will be held at Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis from 11:30 a.m-2:00 p.m. We’re requesting all animal lovers and humane people to join us at this rally, demonstrating Indiana citizens will no longer tolerate INDIANA PUPPY MILLS. Please pass this information on to everyone who is ready to raise awareness and to make changes in Indiana! ACT NOW - promote this event to the fullest extent. Make plans now to attend! The dogs in Indiana mills desperately need you to attend. And remember, more people means more media, and that is how things begin to get changed!
DEFEND THE DOGS RALLY
July 9, 2008 11:30a.m.-2:00p.m.
Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis
Please RSVP to defendthedogs@yahoo.com if you will be attending.
The rally is in conjunction with Jana Kohl’s book tour for “A Rare Breed of Love”, a book about PUPPY MILLS and ANIMAL ABUSE. Jana is attracting national attention while speaking out against PUPPY MILLS on her summer book tour. It’s exciting she’s chosen Indianapolis for a stop on the tour.
There’s not much time to promote this, so please act now. If all rescues and individuals will come together on this project, our voice will be heard! Please print out and copy the attached flyer. Distribute them to veterinary clinics, pet stores, grooming shops, doggie day cares, etc.
It’s time to pull together, Indiana! We look forward to seeing you at the rally!
For more information on puppy mills, please visit: www.petshoppuppies.org.
Information on Jana Kohl and her book can be found here:
http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=1&pid=345542
*Please do not bring your dogs.
Spaying and neutering is the best way to go, but also let us honor those who go the extra mile to give a home to those animals in the greatest need. :)
Excellent writeup. :)
PING this over to Hair of a dog and Slings and Arrows. :)
Bookmarked.
Bookmarked to a few folders dedicated to certain animal companions.
“Not to say that some can’t be rehabbed, but I saw plenty of risk there - and have to wonder if “no kill” is really a responsible policy.”
It isn’t. I adopted a dog that was abused; I worked with him constantly (as in socializing him to other people and other animals) and he ended up nipping (nothing severe; but still!) a sister in law and a dopey lady that came onto my farm uninvited and got out of her car, even after I told her, “Don’t get out of your car! My dog bites!” *Rolleyes*
However, he was an absolute ANGEL with myself, husband and our three boys. We were HIS pack and everything was of danger to us in his twisted, grateful little doggy-brain.
Anyway, God took care of it in the guise of a lady in a red minivan one day when he strayed near the road. *SHRUG*
You know, I love animals, but please. They’re animals. If we could only generate the horror over the fact that we kill CHILDREN through abortion on a daily basis in this country!
But, people would rather get wrapped around the axle over humanely euthanizing dangerous animals. I don’t get it.
Well, you’re not going to like my post #9, LOL!
However, ALL of my barn cats have been rescue animals; many of them just “dropped off” here as most City Slickers think, “Hmmm. A farm! Cats like farms!”
I like barn cats for their self-sufficiency and work ethic. And that’s about it. :)
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