AN ALBUM OF RESCUES AND HAPPY ENDINGS
Abigail & Her Babies
Abigail was rescued in May 2009 and she is one of the bravest mother cats we have ever seen. Usually when you surprise a feral mother cat with a nest of kittens, she will flee. This doesn't mean she doesn't love her kittens (and she will always come back later). She is just so terrified of humans that her survival instinct tells her to run, no matter what. Not Abigail! Although her fear of humans is intense, Abbie lunged and lashed out at a group of humans ten times her size, to protect her kittens... not knowing if she would live or die. While Abbie stood her ground, we were able to gently scoop her up in a net, then collect her one week old kittens and transport the entire family to a foster home. When the kittens are weaned, Abbie will be released in a safe place where she will be fed, and the kittens will find good homes. Her kittens will be available around June 13. Update: all found great homes!
We have rescued a record number of mother cats and kittens in 2009. You can help by making a donation, or volunteering as a foster home.
Church
This is what happens when a young male cat is allowed to roam. Church (Winston Churchill) was rescued by PAN in September'09 in Holmdel. Church is a sweet, tame cat and once upon a time, a long time ago, someone probably loved him as a kitten. But they did not neuter him, and this is the result. Male cats, even adolescent kittens, will roam literally for miles in search of female cats to mate with. Eventually they get hit by car, lose their way home, or are picked up by the local animal control and put down. Along the way they acquire diseases, parasites and injuries from fighting. We hear this story so often: someone tells us their unneutered male cat was outside "having a good time" and then disappeared. The next line is always, "He is such a nice cat, I am sure someone took him in." That is wishful thinking. Most lost male cats if they survive, end up like Church. He was covered in scars and parasites, scrounging from meal to meal, and he is FIV+ ("Feline AIDS" which is spread by bite wounds when male cats fight). We are working on getting Church into good shape. Cats with FIV, in a stable indoor environment, can usually live a normal lifespan, and are not highly contagious with casual contact (we will be creating a chapter on this web site soon that explains the various cat diseases). When we first got him, Church was scared and had to learn to trust humans again. Now this gentle giant loves to be held in his caretaker's arms. He is even starting to look handsome! This photo was taken when he first came in, and you can see in his face that he is tired and his spirit is broken. We hope to be posting an "after" picture soon. If all goes well, Church will be available for adoption in a few weeks. He deserves a loving home.
East Orange Pound
For much of its history, this dismal concrete block building was the end of the road, literally, for any animal brought there. It was a dog pound from the dark ages, located next to the junkyard in a rundown section of East Orange, New Jersey. No one came there to adopt, and the euthanasia rate was nearly 100%.
Some time in the 1990's a progressive director took over the pound, and began reaching out to rescue groups throughout the region, trying to get some of the animals into foster homes where they would have a good chance of being adopted. At this time, it was fairly innovative for kill shelters to reach out to private rescue groups for help. This practice accelerated with the advent of the internet and email and is now commonplace (although millions of dogs still die in shelters every year). In 1997, 1998 and 1999 (when the pound was closed down) Pet Adoption Network pulled hundreds of dogs, cats, puppies and kittens from this "death row" and placed them in loving homes. It is a part of our history of which we are most proud.
Although our East Orange era ended in 1999, PAN has continued to pull animals from kill shelters in NJ and other parts of
the United States. We have been consistently amazed at how lovable and good most of these animals are, some of them just hours
away from death when we rescued them. One of our main missions in PAN is to encourage people to adopt rather than buy a dog (or cat).
Here are stories about some of the animals we have rescued from East Orange and other places.
Fargo
How's this for before and after pictures? This large, young pit bull mix
was very depressed when he arrived at East Orange, and a PAN volunteer agreed to foster him. It soon became apparent
that this stray dog needed more than just cheering up. In the foster home, he was lethargic and had trouble eating.
We took him to the vet, who discovered a large sliver of bone embedded in Fargo's jaw. The injury probably
happened when he was eating garbage as he tred to survive on the streets. The doctor said he must be in excrutiating pain,
yet Fargo allowed himself to be handled and examined without so much as a grumble. Surgery was performed to
remove the shard of bone from his jaw, and he was neutered at the same time. You can see by the big grin how
much better he felt after his surgery. Once he had fully recovered from this horrible ordeal, Fargo was adopted by a couple
in Middletown who agree that he is the sweetest and most gentle dog ever. He insists on sleeping
cuddled between them in the bed at night, and has convinced them that adopting a shelter dog is the way to go!
Hannah and Her Puppies There was no central heating system at East Orange Pound. Employees kept a couple of kerosene heaters going on the coldest days
to provide a little relief for the animals. Hannah gave birth to five puppies at the pound in the dead of winter. Without a proper
bed to contain them, one of the newborn puppies rolled under the gate of Hannah's kennel during the night and onto the freezing concrete walkway.
This frantic mother badly injured her front paws during the long night she spent clawing at the chain link, trying to get to the puppy.
But he had died of exposure by the time the first employee arrived in the morning and discovered him. As soon as we heard this horrible
story, we whisked this little family away to a safe and warm foster home. Hannah was a wonderful mother to the surviving four pups and
they grew happy and healthy and found good homes through Pet Adoption Network. Below is a picture of Hannah looking shiny and fit
in her pretty pink collar, right before she was adopted to a family in Montclair, NJ.
