ORA on Herbivores - Animal Frequency (NewsClipTV)

via Herbivores - Animal Frequency on Facebook: "Nadia and Bob found some serious issues from the Herbivores - Animal Frequency studio's city of Hamilton. It was the Hamilton Animal Control (HAC) that has many Veterinarians and Vet Technicians very mad. This seems to be the worst Animal Control in the area and we were able to bring in a couple of ladies that have taken the action on and trying their best to change this for the better. Claudia Vecchio and Corinne Thaw from Organization for the Rescue of Animals (ORA) joined us in the studio to speak to us on how they got involved with HAC." See the show: http://newscliptv.com/shows/ora-organization.html.

September 2011 at ORA: Celebrating Cross-Posters

September 2011 -- ORA celebrated Animal Cross-Posters all month long at http://www.facebook.com/ora.animalrescue! Thank you, CP honorees, and all of the Cross-Posters out there, for sharing photos, stories and links to help save more lives every day. This month was dedicated to all of you. (http://orarescue.org)

Back to School with ORA's Six New Kittens!

L-R, Top to Bottom: Miss C, Max, Bandit, Felix, Monkey and Bear. For more information, and to give six sweet babies a loving home in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada, please call ORA's dedicated volunteer founders at 416-726-5762 or 416-726-8895 today, or visit our website at http://ora-animalsrescue.org.

G.T.A. Events SEP 30 to OCT 2--please mark your calendars and come on out!

"Meet your rescue colleagues, forge new relationships, get connected!"

Friday, September 30, 2011:
"IS ALL THAT KILLING NECESSARY? BILL BRUCE, DIRECTOR OF CALGARY ANIMAL SERVICES, PRESENTS THE CALGARY MODEL TO THE TORONTO AUDIENCE: Bill Bruce's lecture, "the Calgary Model" providing solutions to reduce euthanasia and end pet homelessness presented by ORA-Organization for the Rescue of Animals. Intercontinental Hotel, 220 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1T8. Two minutes East of the St. George subway station. Valet parking available and Green P parking at the back of the hotel (entrance from Bedford Road). Friday, September 30, 2011, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Tickets: $11.30 (tax included). Advance sale only, call 416 726 8895 or info@ora-animalsrescue.org. 200+ attending now - anyone and everyone in the rescue/shelter community should attend - not only will you gain incredible information, but you'll also be able to network and build relationships with your colleagues in rescue - you never know when or how that new rescuer in your life is going to be able to help you move your next animal to safety.."

Saturday, October 1, 2011:
"ONTARIO DOGS VOTE - Anti-BSL Rally - Support Hershey's Bill - October 1, 2011 - Queen's Park, Toronto. More Info - http://www.facebook.com/messages/?action=read&tid=id.289110551104705#!/event.php?eid=269249293087591"

"Hamilton's Success Story Begins: Cat Registration & Microchip Clinic at the Hamilton Animal Control. Saturday, October 1, 2011. "The City of Hamilton Animal Services will be co-hosting with the HBSPCA clinics at two recreation centres in the lower city on Saturday, October 1, 2011. Our goal is to provide our Lifetime Cat Registration and microchip up to 500 cats (250 cats at each clinic) for the cost of$12.50 (a value of over $100). This is for Greater Hamilton residents only (Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook, Hamilton & Stoney Creek). All cats must be in a carrier or a box. I have attached a copy of the poster for more information. Please contact me if you have any questions. Tiffany Trebych City of Hamilton Animal Services Phone: (905) 574-3433 Fax: (905) 574-8877 247 Dartnall Road, Hamilton, ON, L8W 3V9 E-mail: animalcontrol@hamilton.ca Web: www.hamilton.ca/animalcontrol" (Shared via https://www.facebook.com/groups/NoKillYorkRegion/)"

Sunday, October 2, 2011:
"Paws to Love: St. Francis Feast - Blessing of the Pets Event at Thistledown in Uxbridge 10 am to 4 pm - Pet Blessings 11 AM - 12:30-1:30 Vet Guest Speakers - 2:00 PM live auction with cool products - 3:00 PM Canine Unit Demo - First Aid Demos all day - Dog Trainer ongoing demonstrations - Oh joy, oh bliss: "We will be having the Police Service Mounted Unit at this event" - C4P is the BIGGEST Toronto Mounted Police Unit Fan - and i'm not talking about the cops! (altho quite a few of them are really very handsome) - Thistledown is located at 4766 Concession 7, Uxbridge which is a short 15 minute drive from Stouffville. Take Bloomington Side Road east from Stouffville or Highway 404 until you come to Goodwood traffic light and intersection. You can only turn right (left goes into a small community centre/park). Turn right at this intersection and continue to travel east for about 7 minutes to concession #7 where you will turn left and Thistledown is a short way down the concession on the left just past a Miller Construction site which is on the right. We are putting signage up to direct people on the day of the event. 905.852.5648 www.thistledown.info"

Content by M. Michelle Nadon, from C4P's Sunday AM Newsletter--http://www.c4panimalrescue.com/

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ORA-Organization for the Rescue of Animals
http://orarescue.org

ORA Member News: Surgery for Beau

ORA Member News--Beau, a nine month old black and white kitty, is the unfortunate proof of what neglect and negligence can do to a poor defenceless creature at the mercy of an uncaring human. Beau had been living in terrible pain for several days due to a neglected leg injury. Beau's caregiver did not tell us what the injury was caused by or when it happened, but unfortunately, the guardian's neglect allowed the paw to become severely infected. As soon as we found out, we immediately took Beau to the vet but the paw was already gangrening with a general infection spreading through the bloodstream. Following a week on three different antibiotics to bring the infection down in Beau’s blood, the veterinary team concluded that the entire leg had to be amputated.

Thursday, September 15, 2011. 12:10 AM. Post Surgery Update: Beau’s leg was amputated earlier this evening, and he is eating and recovering well.

Monday, September 19, 2011. 3:38 AM. In the pre-surgery photos (warning: graphic photos!) you can see the bone of the back paw digit exposed, with one digit falling off in the examining room at the vet office. It is unbelievable that someone could be so negligent and uncaring.

Beau must have been in excruciating pain.

Amputation is a serious surgery. Though he is on several painkillers, Beau is eating and recovering well under the direct care of ORA. We thank Dr. Memon, Dr. Bhatti and the staff at Lorne Park Animal Hospital for their amazing care and professional attention given over ten days, day and night, to little Beau, and for helping ORA by greatly reducing the bill. However, the bill is still very large at over $3000, so please help us if you can, with any donation.

Make a donation to ORA any time via PayPal at:
http://ora-animalsrescue.org/donations.html - scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the PayPal Donate button to get started with your donation today.

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ORA on Twitter: "It's Adopt-A-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week @petfinder! DSH black cat 3-legged Beau. Less adoptable, but no less lovable. 416-726-5762 @ORA_Rescue"

ORA on Animal Housecalls - CP24 Talk Show

Must Watch TV!: ORA's Board Member, the lovely Corinne Thaw, will be a guest on CP24's Animal Housecalls with Ann Rohmer tonight, Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 7:00 P.M., to speak about our upcoming Bill Bruce event in Toronto, and to introduce Coco, a rescued Chihuahua looking for a forever home. You can also catch the show online later at CP24.com.


ORA-Organization for the Rescue of Animals

ORA on Facebook | ORA on Twitter

No More Homeless Pets and Calgary is Leading the Way, Part 4 of 4

From left to right: Animal Health Technicians, Wendy Weed and Arlene Johnson scanning for microchips in a “found” cat.

Animal Services employs four qualified teachers. The interactive presentations are all curriculum-based, geared to classrooms and not whole school assemblies, with grade-appropriate support materials. There is no cost to the school; the programs are funded by licensing. Topics include dog bite prevention, dogs in our society, urban coyotes, and a Junior Bylaw Student Project. Animal Services not only works in partnership with the Calgary Humane Society, but sees that the Humane Society receives a $244,000.00 grant each year. Bill also provides grants for the MEOW Foundation. As well, Animal Services provides support to partnering organizations in other ways, too. For example, they loaned Animal Control’s Virkon ‘fogger’ to the Humane Society when theirs broke down during a disease outbreak in their facility.

When the Humane Society is overflowing with cats and kittens, Bill takes some of their animals and sees that they are adopted into forever homes. According to the Humane Society’s Patricia Cameron, Animal Services and the Humane Society have the same future vision and goals - humane care for all animals and homes for all adoptable animals, including the belief that animals are important and the lives of animals must be valued and respected. The support of mutual agreement to vision and values is the foundation on which many other collaborative actions, large and small, can be based.

Three additional components of the work taking place in Calgary are: police officers working with Animal Control Officers in cases of abuse; firefighters trained in animal rescue (all trucks have animal oxygen masks on board); citizens finding injured animals knowing they can take them to an emergency clinic where the veterinarians will treat them at no cost to the citizen. In Bill’s words, “no animal should be left to suffer at all because of money.” What has been accomplished in Calgary is nothing short of amazing, although Bill says “it’s not rocket science.” He comments that he awakes every morning wondering “what can we do better for the animals today?” One very interesting part of this progressive and humane model of Animal Control is that it is not based on enforcement or creating more laws. There is no mandatory spay/neuter, no breed specific legislation, and no pet limits. They do have an anti-tethering requirement. “No animal shall be left tethered and unattended in a place that is accessible to the public and no animal shall be tethered on its owner’s property unless someone is home to care for it should it be in distress.”

What is provided through Animal Services and what gets these results are valued services. Great achievements for the animals and the citizens are attained not by forcing compliance, but through extensive education, a PR campaign that speaks to the importance of being responsible for pets and reasonable licence fees: all under the supervision of a leader who is a professional mediator.

A final note from Bill: “We have a number of exciting initiatives launching this year. Impound rates are dropping both here and at the Calgary Humane Society. Euthanasia is dropping at both facilities, adoptions are up as is return to owner. It just confirms what we all believe, the answer is promoting and enabling responsible pet ownership, not more control. Control is an endless chase with few rewards whereas promoting and enabling responsible pet ownership creates outcomes of no more homeless pets, reduces aggressive incidents and eliminates animal suffering. Might even help us become a kinder, gentler community.”

Calgary Animal Services provides the model for any Canadian center that wants to follow suit and implement a truly humane and compassionate society. Every village, town and city can choose to move in the direction of becoming a member of the “No More Homeless Pets” community. [FIN]

Parts 1-4 are available on the web on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ORArescue and the Best Friends Network at http://network.bestfriends.org/members/orarescue.

--
EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL EVENT INVITATION:

Calgary’s Bill Bruce brings his shelter expertise to
the Intercontinental Toronto-Yorkville Hotel at
220 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1T8 CANADA
on Friday, SEPTEMBER 30, 2011, at 7:00 PM.



NB: We have upgraded to a larger room for the
Bill Bruce event, so a new series of tickets is now
available for sale. Please call to reserve your space.

Tickets are $11.30 (tax included)
Advance Ticket Sales Only—Call 416-726-5762
or visit orarescue.org for more information.

ORA: "Help a Pet, Without a Sweat!"

ORA Trio: Ready for Sponsorship

Suppose you would like to adopt a homeless companion animal, but you cannot add another resident to your house. Perhaps you travel intensively, or you are never at home. Maybe you have a partner who does not want another pet, or you are too busy, too tired, and you just don’t have the inclination to clean cat litter boxes or walk a dog after work.

If you recognize yourself in any one of these above scenarios but a part of you still strongly urges you to help, you can, by ‘virtually adopting’ a companion animal. We are not talking about an aberration of our times, the adoption of a virtual pet proposed by many websites. That is nothing more than another computer game. We are talking about taking meaningful responsibility for a real live animal by sponsoring them. The extent of your patronage and commitment to the virtually adopted animal may vary. You may select to pay a fixed amount monthly for the cost of food and supplies, or you may decide to cover all of the expenses of your protégé, including veterinary bills and medications or alternatively, to pay for their insurance coverage. The idea is that you help an animal for life without doing the work of caring for them. No stressful trips to the vet, no frantic runs to the pet store before closing, no cleaning up after them, not even cat or dog hair on your clothes. Doesn’t that sound great?

If it does, give ORA a call, or visit the ORA website at http://orarescue.org and select a cat or dog whose looks or story speak to your heart.

As soon as you enroll in ORA’s sponsorship program, you’ll receive a photo and bio of the ‘virtually adopted’ animal, as well as a certificate of adoption. And you’ll get periodic updates and updated pictures upon request. You can call or e-mail ORA anytime you wish to know what your pet is up to, and every so often, when scheduling allows, you are also welcome to come and visit your pet, to take the sponsored dog for a walk or to spend some playtime with your cat. These are not requirements for virtual adoptions, just prerogatives that active sponsors may choose to exercise if they like.

Most of the pets available for virtual adoption are animals who, for a variety reasons, are considered to be un-adoptable. However, you can also sponsor an adoptable animal. And if the animal you sponsor is adopted, you can then pass your sponsorship on to another animal.

How does this benefit the animals? By sponsoring or virtually adopting an animal and covering their expenses you make it possible for ORA to rescue another animal. Your sponsorship allows us to allocate the money towards the needs and care of another animal.

What is the cost of a virtual adoption? Consider what you would spend monthly to care for a cat or dog if you actually adopted one. You may decide to donate the same amount to care for your virtually adopted pet. As a general guideline, one cat in ORA’s care costs between $45 to $55 a month, and one dog costs our organization approximately $75 to $90 a month.

If you prefer, you can also co-sponsor/co-adopt a pet, starting from a monthly contribution as low as $25. As an added benefit, your contribution is treated as a charitable donation and therefore enjoys the same taxation advantage. For more information, please visit us online at any time or call 416-726-5762 today.

ORA-Organization for the Rescue of Animals
http://ora-animalsrescue.org

No More Homeless Pets and Calgary is Leading the Way, Part 3 of 4

Smiling faces: from left to right, Doris Porter AHT (Animal Health Technician) , Patty Parent AHT, Dr. Marta Alguacil DMV and Wendy Weed AHT posing with Bugsy, the first animal to be spayed at the Animal Services Centre Clinic opened in July 2009.

The statistics from Calgary are impressive. In 2008, 85% of dogs impounded were returned to their owners with 27% of the 4,830 dogs going directly home via the specially designed, climate controlled vans. Of the dogs that ended up at the shelter, 9% found adoptive homes. Only 6% were euthanized and, in this case, the word is used correctly. Euthanasia is defined as ‘a good death.’No healthy, adoptable animals are killed at this Animal Control. Animals too sick or injured to be provided with a decent chance at a good life are euthanized after a team decides that this is the only humane option. The team consists of a licensed veterinarian, a vet tech, and a senior administrator. This is the only acceptable way that any animal should face death in an Animal Control facility, but this is not what typically happens. This is where transparency fails the animals. We should be able to get the information about how many animals are killed, how they are killed and who makes this decision at our Animal Controls.

As in every city, Calgary’s homeless cats and their offspring provided a challenge to those trying to save lives and reduce the number of kittens born. Several different programs were implemented in the last few years to cope with this issue. At first, a city subsidized program, supported by the veterinarians in their clinics, was launched. Then came the Veterinarian Aid Society, a vet operated spay/neuter and special assistance program. Next, SNIP/SNAP programs were introduced, subsidized by Animal Services but run through rescue teams and the Humane Society. Thousands of animals were spay/neutered, but the numbers still were not enough to get the desired results. With all partners, including the veterinarians collaborating, the idea of a spay/neuter clinic owned and operated under Animal Services was born.

In July 2009, the new Animal Services Centre Clinic opened its doors. This facility has two veterinarians who perform any medical needed interventions, assisted by qualified vet technicians. The goal of the clinic is to help reduce the number of stray and unwanted cats and dogs in Calgary. Spay and neuter surgeries are now more accessible because Animal Services provides free surgery for those on low income. As well, all animals arriving at the shelter are examined by one of these professionals and minor surgeries such as dental care are performed, as needed, to improve chances of finding new homes quickly. This clinic is funded by the cat licensing program.

When you enter this shelter, you are struck by two things – no smell, and no distressing animal sounds. People working here are trained in ‘T Touch,’ a hands on way to calm the cats and dogs. Even though the average stay of a dog is three days, they are walked by staff and volunteers. The cats are played with and socialized. All resident animals are monitored for signs of stress, and interventions are put into place when required. The dogs wag their tails, and the cats come to the front of their cages to be petted. None of this happens by accident.

Since opening in July last year, the clinic is now providing spaying and neutering surgeries for the feline companions of low income residents. The goal is to do 7,000-10,000 a year. Many other procedures have been completed including 29 dental surgeries, 1 entropion surgery, 2 lump removals, 2 biopsies, 4 wound repairs, and 1 pin removal from the leg of a cat. This pin had been improperly implanted, was too long, and was protruding through the skin of the cat. As well, one animal had a full set of x-rays done while under sedation.

The MEOW Foundation, supported by Animal Services, takes care of the Trap/Neuter/Return programs. All of these cats are microchipped, and Animal Services keeps the data on file. If a cat arrives at the shelter, a MEOW volunteer is contacted and the cat is returned to its community under the care and supervision of the community caregiver.

Sounding good so far? Just the beginning!

To be concluded in Part 4.

--
EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL EVENT INVITATION:

Calgary’s Bill Bruce brings his shelter expertise to
the Intercontinental Toronto-Yorkville Hotel at
220 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1T8 CANADA
on Friday, SEPTEMBER 30, 2011, at 7:00 PM.



NB: We have upgraded to a larger room for the
Bill Bruce event, so a new series of tickets is now
available for sale. Please call to reserve your space.

Tickets are $11.30 (tax included)
Advance Ticket Sales Only—Call 416-726-5762
or visit orarescue.org for more information.

Animal Massage Therapy with ORA's Corina Grecu

Cutzie, 12 and a 1/2 years old, has been suffering from a back injury possibly incurred as a result of jumping from a cat tree. Cutzie is currently receiving massage therapy from Corina Grecu entirely pro bono, and is really benefitting from the treatment! We wanted to take some time today to honor and thank Corina for her great work with animals and our Cutzie.

Corina Grecu is proud to be a friend and volunteer of ORA-Organization for the Rescue of Animals. In 2003, Corina received the Accredited Animal Health Representative Diploma from the University of Guelph, Ontario. She has been working as a veterinary technician since 2004. Desiring to do something extra special for animals, she decided to become an animal massage therapist. She enrolled at the Northwest School Of Animal Massage in Washington, USA, where she graduated in 2006. Corina would like to see massage therapy being practiced in all animal clinics.

"OUR PETS DESERVE THE BEST! Animal massage is recommended by veterinarians and experts in animal science. Only twice a month, a massage session for your pets can prevent common problems and maintain good health. Once you try it, you will know that pet massage really works!" -Corina Grecu

Visit Corina and Massage for Pets at http://www.massageforpets.com/ for more information, and be sure to mention that ORA sent you!

ORA-Organization for the Rescue of Animals
http://ora-animalsrescue.org/

ORA on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/ORArescue

ORA on Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/ORA_rescue