Yesterday was allegedly celebrated as “National Dog Day,” so I posted a succession of photos on Facebook of pack members, past and present.
Having written the book shown on the left, it shouldn’t be a secret that I love animals. My dogs are all spoiled rotten, and they should be.
All of them were rescued.
Once upon a time, every one of our dogs and even the cat were homeless strays or abandoned, surrendered by former owners: purebred German Shepherds, a Dalmatian…and this list especially includes Blossom, the Maine Coon cat.
In return, our pack have rewarded us with their stories. The majority of them came through our connections with our favorite “local” Humane Society, the Humane Society of Forsyth County.
Lisa and I volunteered for that organization over a number of years fostering animals, working at adoption events, walking dogs at the shelter, helping raise funds, and doing anything we could that would save another life. The HSFC operates as a no-kill animal shelter, but has limited capacity.
Please don’t confuse the local Humane Society for animal control. When no kennel space or foster homes are available, animals to be surrendered must be turned away.
In my opinion, no domesticated animal should ever be unwanted. For that reason, animal activists like my wife and me put magnets on our cars that preach messages like “Adopt, don’t shop.”
Adoption from a shelter is a win/win situation, and even cheaper than taking a free dog from a neighbor.
Don’t believe me?
Listen to this real world example: Sheba the German Shepherd was given to me as a “free” puppy — but the veterinary services cost more than $500 to have her fully vaccinated, spayed, and microchipped. In contrast, Amazing Gracie had her story immortalized in my short story collection titled Always a Next One, and she was adopted from the Humane Society of Forsyth County. We spent a grand total of $150 and that included the adoption fee, all of her vaccinations, spaying, microchip–and a great story.
Also remember, if you purchase a dog from a breeder, you’re going to pay several hundred dollars for the animal, and you may be helping someone operate an unethical business in the process.
For example, a “puppy mill” was recently raided in the Atlanta area, and 357 dogs were rescued from some truly deplorable conditions that would break your heart, make you angry, or both.
And where were all these horribly treated and neglected dogs taken? To the local Humane Society in Cherokee County, of course. Not the HSUS.
Now if you’re like me, when you read a story about the mistreated puppies at a puppy mill, your instinctive reaction is to want to help, so you reach for your wallet.
Perhaps you don’t live close enough to the shelter to adopt one of those puppies, but you still want to make a donation. You don’t know how to find the website of that specific shelter, in this instance the Humane Society of Cherokee County, but you want to help the animals.
Your heart is definitely in the right place.
But you decide instead to make a donation to the Humane Society of the United States, incorrectly assuming that your money will help those dogs you were reading about.
And there would be your mistake.
The Humane Society of the United States has literally nothing to do with your local animal shelter. The HSUS is a political and marketing organization who are expert at raising funds, but they have very little to do with actually helping or saving animals. Only one percent of their total budget is redirected to local shelters. One percent. That’s outrageous.
Sure, for a $50 donation they will probably send you a cool t-shirt that says something like “Club sandwiches, not seals”, but they aren’t going to stop anybody from actually clubbing a seal. However, they will show you pictures of a seal about to be clubbed in their commercials, so you’ll open up your checkbook or pull out that credit card, and donate your money.
It could be true that the Humane Society of the United States might have invested a few pennies from your donation to take some great PR “action” photos of an actor wearing body armor petting an allegedly abused dog on a chain, but nobody is in any real danger in this obviously staged photo op — except maybe the puppy.
Between spay-or-neuter clinics and vouchers, operating a food pantry for people who can’t afford dog food, reuniting lost pets with their owners, and helping homeless animals find forever homes, even our small and struggling no-kill shelter in Forsyth County manages to help a few thousand animals per year on a tiny fraction of the HSUS advertising budget, and there are no six-figure employees on the payroll.
According to public records, the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States was paid a whopping $350k salary in 2013. For that same amount, the Humane Society of Forsyth County could pay the entire staff, plus all the utility bills for the year, and almost surely would have funds left over to pay for food, medicine, and veterinary bills (because unlike the HSUS, the HSFC actually cares for sick and injured animals.)
Now I’m not as familiar with the inner workings of the much larger Atlanta Humane Society, which serves the metropolitan Atlanta area, but I’m quite certain they help many thousands of lost or homeless animals every year. They’re still local to the community, and deserve our support.
I don’t know about their financial needs, but I do know how painful it was when we asked for donations for the Humane Society of Forsyth County, only to be told money had already been given to our “parent” organization, the Humane Society of the United States.
However, unlike the Humane Society of the United States, your local Humane Society can’t afford to waste money on expensive commercials to be aired during prime time because we’re too busy trying to save animals from certain death. With the economy struggling, we have had to get very creative with our efforts to raise money, because the really big bucks seem to go to all the wrong fundraising organizations like the HSUS, or PETA.
For example, the Humane Society of Greater Savannah operates a thrift store that now provides a significant portion of the operating budget for the animal shelter. It’s a win/win situation for the community. People who can’t afford to donate cash can still support their local Humane Society by giving gently used items to the thrift store. Bargain hunters have found their idea of heaven on earth, and all the proceeds go to help homeless animals. Following their example, the Humane Society of Forsyth County opened its own thrift store, but we remain light-years behind Savannah in terms of being established in the community. But it’s young, and growing.
Each local Humane Society (whether city or county) is an independent organization, but all share several things in common. For example:
- Most of the staff, and the board members of your local Humane Society are unpaid volunteers. Paid employees are typically underpaid — not because they don’t deserve higher salaries, but local organizations have very limited resources in part due to competition due to name confusion with the national organization and local both having “Humane Society” as part of their name.
- The paid employees almost always have to work on major holidays even when the shelter is closed to the public because volunteers aren’t normally available on holidays: low pay and bad hours. Not a dream job for most people–it’s a labor of love.
- Local Humane Societies are very frugal and often struggle to raise funds. Many have become “no-kill” shelters, but that often means some animals must be turned away and sent to animal control.
- Virtually all of the money donated to your local Humane Society goes directly to help homeless animals. As little as possible is spent on staff salaries or overhead.
In contrast, the HSUS don’t operate animal shelters or directly help any animals. Instead, they pay for expensive television commercials that play on the viewer’s heartstrings and siphon off funds that are desperately needed by these local organizations.
So, the next time you see one of the commercials for the Humane Society of the United States, think about how many homeless animals that your local Humane Society could have saved with a fraction of the $15.75 million the HSUS paid to settle a racketeering lawsuit or that CEO annual salary over $350k.
If you ALSO want to donate money to a national organization, please consider making a contribution to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (the ASPCA runs animal rescue shelters in New York City), but not a penny to the HSUS. And if you do nothing else, by all means support your nearest LOCAL Humane Society.
Please volunteer your time if you can’t afford to give money. The dogs would love to be walked, and sometimes the cats even want your attention.
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