Sanctuary Animal Updates
Wow has it really been over four months since my last update? There has been so much excitement and success at Pets Alive Westchester in that time! We’ve collaborated on two mass rescues saving hundreds of animals. First there was the Itty Bitty Kitty Rescue where Pets Alive saved 108 cats and kittens (rescued from death at the NYCACC), in just two weeks! Next we were contacted by the ASPCA to assist in a shelter rescue they were working on in Baton Rouge, LA. The county shelter was overflowing and facing euthanasia of hundreds of dogs. Pets Alive did not hesitate and committed to 80 puppies and young dogs. In just a few weeks nearly all of those sweet pups were in loving homes, when the ASPCA called again we immediately said yes to 89 more! Because of all of you, and your amazing support, we have been incredibly successful in placing nearly ALL of these mass rescue animals – and still placing many of our legacy animals in forever homes as well!
Intakes and Adoptions:
In May, our total intakes were 128 animals (dogs, cats and rabbits) and total adoptions were 73. In June our total intakes were 56 and total adoptions were 73. In July our total intakes were 53 and total adoptions were 78. In August our total intakes were 150 and adoptions were at 118. In September our total intakes were 49 and adoptions numbered 116! That’s a total of 458 lives saved in five months! That alone is cause for celebration – we are so proud of our staff, volunteers, and all of our supporters for being a part of such an amazing achievement. Thank you! Thank you for sharing our tweets and Facebook posts. Thank you for spending your days off onsite at the adoption center walking and socializing all of our amazing animals. Thank you for believing in us in every endeavor, in every rescue, in every precious life we save.
Featured Adoptions
LUPO:
When I first met Lupo he was introduced to me as the dog that licks the walls. Yes you read that correctly. This adorable sweet boy spent nearly all of his waking hours with his back to his kennel door, licking his walls. Many times he wouldn’t even notice you had entered his run and were telling him it was walk time, he was so focused on that wall. Everyone would walk by him and say “oh that’s Lupo, the poor thing” but nothing was ever really done to explore this behavior or limit his ability to lick the concrete painted walls. At one point he became very ill from ingesting paint chips!! When I learned of this history we decided that this was no longer acceptable and something HAD to be done to help him. We started looking into different materials that could be hung on the walls that would still allow the caretakers to disinfectant the kennel- but would also inhibit Lupo from licking the concrete walls. We approached multiple volunteers to please pay special attention to Lupo and get him out as much as possible to escape his boredom. He joined the PAW Therapy Dogs and started taking trips to the local VA’s and to Skyview Rehabilitation Center. This seemed to help, but only slightly- most days I would still walk through and find Lupo staring at his wall- not always licking, but staring at it like it was a deep contemplation “to lick or not to lick” was Lupo’s daily conundrum.
The day a spot opened up in the front office nearly the entire staff voted for Lupo to fill it. His file said he was dog aggressive and should never be around other dogs – but just like with Sam, Chester, and the rest of the Legacy Dogs who were mislabeled we decided to introduce him slowly and see how it went. Sure enough he fit right in with the rest of the office crew and quickly became a favorite! What was even more amazing is that Lupo never stared at another wall or licked another object incessantly (except the many faces who came to see him) again!!
Just a few short weeks later, a very nice man walked into the adoption center near the end of the day and asked if Lupo was still available. We couldn’t believe our ears. He explained that he had met the sweet Lupo nearly a year ago unfortunately he was not able to adopt a dog at that time but had never stopped thinking about him. We were ecstatic and quickly brought him out from behind the front desk to meet his potential dad. When the two saw each other I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place. They both smiled from ear to ear and it seemed like an immediate connection was made.
Lupo has been in his forever home now for nearly two months and we have received such amazing updates, like this one:

 
Here’s my favorite picture to date of the Love Hound. He is a fantastic dog and doing great. He loves his bed and he loves to cuddle. He’s already been a wonderful therapy dog to John’s wheelchair bound severely disabled brother. I swear they converse with each other in some “higher power” language.
I would love to bring Lupo to Skyview one Friday when you are there with the troop. I freelance and have an erratic work schedule. I know the afternoon before what my next day’s schedule is. So the next Friday 2pm I have free from work, I’ll email you the Thursday before to make arrangements.
Thanks for doing what you do over there. You all do great, meaningful work.
Talk soon…
 

Lupo, 8 years old- surrendered in 2004 because he was no longer wanted- ADOPTED!Sanctuary Update
As many of you know our most recent facility projects have been updating and renovating the cat rooms. Thanks to all of you we were able to raise the funds needed, nearly $4,000, to purchase brand new tile, paints, and feline enrichment items. The old rooms were simple concrete floors with a few Kuranda Cat Towers- now every room will have beautiful (and clean) tile floors. The walls were pale and uninteresting, now they will each have a fresh paint job and include fun, bright and engaging themes. We have kept the Kuranda Cat Towers, the cats love to perch on them throughout the day, but we have also added built in shelving for more climbing, hanging toys for enrichment and interactive play, and all the rooms have been given scratching posts and boards to help keep their paws active and nails filed!! The kittens now have their OWN room!! No more towers, crates or cages for these sweet juveniles. Now they can socialize and exercise while waiting for their forever homes!
Thank you to everyone who donated to our Cat Room Makeover fund and special thank you to cat staffers- Anna & Sage as well as Sage’s sister, Gabbie, for all the wonderful artwork!!
The Pets Alive Clinic at Pets Alive Westchester
At the beginning of September Pets Alive Westchester announced the opening of the Pets Alive Clinic. We are proud to serve our community in offering low cost spay/neuter and vaccines for owned pets as well as in support of local TNR efforts. In just a few weeks (one to two days per week) we have serviced nearly 40 animals at the Clinic- we expect this number to continue to grow as we increase our available veterinarian days! In order to provide services to more we still need YOUR help! Please consider a donation to the Pets Alive Clinic to help keep our costs and service prices low, and increase our budget for onsite veterinarians!

Biggest Needs this Month!!!
We DESPERATELY need some transport vehicles! Ideally we would like two SUV’s, or cargo vans, that can be outfitted with several crates and/or a larger transport vehicle for big offsite adoption events. Currently PAW is limited to just one cargo type van that can only fit a few animals at a time and costs us A LOT of money to fill the tank. This is really limiting how many off site events we can attend! The more vehicles we have available, the more events we can attend, the more our animals are seen, the more lives we can save! Please help us save even more animals – email info@petsalivewest.org if you think you can help!
Working and in good condition LAPTOPS – once again we have added some wonderful key staff members to the Pets Alive team and we are in need of laptops!
From all of us at PAW – Thank you for your continued support. Nearly 650 animals have found their forever homes since January this year from the Elmsford location. We are so proud of all of you for being a part of saving lives every single day!!

Our mission is to improve the lives of companion animals everywhere by any means possible, including rescue, adoption, advocacy, collaboration, intervention and education. Please consider making a donation to help us.