AWC NEWS A Newsletter of the Animal Welfare Council/ Allegheny Spay & Neuter Clinic “For friends of animals” Spring 2016 Animal Welfare Council/Allegheny Spay & Neuter Clinic - 1380 Shawville Hwy, Woodland, PA 16881 814-857-5280 – www.animal411.net – visit us on Facebook – Centre Hall Satellite, 2481 General Potter Hwy, Centre Hall, PA 16829 814-364-1630 Welcome Spring! We welcome this season of hope and renewal and the opportunity to continue to make a difference in the lives of area animals. We invite you to join us in the activities we have planned to provide support to needy animals. Our activities and fundraisers help to raise awareness about the need for good pet care, being kind to animals, and the great need for spay and neuter to decrease overpopulation so that there are loving homes for all animals. Our fundraisers help keep our prices affordable, so our services can be available to those with the greatest need. Thank you for your continued support! Together we can make a difference in the lives of animals! AWC Board of Directors and Allegheny Spay and Neuter Clinic Staff AWC/Allegheny Spay & Neuter Clinic Wish List……………………… Dog food, cat food, cat litter, paper towels, stamps, copy paper, envelopes (business size), garbage bags (tall and 55 gallon), dog shampoo, dish detergent, soap, bleach, iodine/Betadine, totes and coolers to make outdoor cat houses, straw, and monetary donations are also appreciated in any amount. Memorial or Honorary donations can be made and will be recognized with a notification card. Gift certificates are available for spaying and neutering. Items can be dropped off at the clinic during business hours – 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM - Mondays/Tuesdays/Thursdays. Thank you for helping us help area animals. All donations are tax deductible.
All proceeds will benefit needy animals in this area.
What to Do If You Lose Your Pet - How to Reunite With Your Best Pal
When your beloved DOG strays from home, it can be a traumatic experience for both of you. Here are some tips from the Humane
Society of the United States that we hope will help you find your pet.
1. Contact local animal shelters and animal control agencies. File a lost pet report with every shelter within a 60-mile radius of your
home and visit the nearest shelters daily, if possible.
To find your local shelter, search online or check your phone book. If there is no shelter in your community, contact the local police
department. Provide these agencies with an accurate description and a recent photograph of your pet. Notify the police if you believe
your pet was stolen – Clearfield County SPCA 765-2220.
2. Search the neighborhood. Walk or drive through your neighborhood several times each day. Ask neighbors, letter carriers, and
delivery people if they have seen your pet. Hand out a recent photograph of your pet and information on how you can be reached if
your pet is found.
3. Advertise. Post notices at grocery stores, community centers, veterinary offices, traffic intersections, pet supply stores, and other
locations. Also, place advertisements in newspapers and with radio stations. Include your pet's sex, age, weight, breed, color, and any
special markings. When describing your pet, leave out one identifying characteristic and ask the person who finds your pet to describe
it.
4. Try the Internet/FaceBook These sites may be able to help you: Pet Recovery of Centre County, Centre/Clearfield Lost Pets,
Clearfield County SPCA, local Veterinarians.,
5. Be wary of pet-recovery scams. When talking to a stranger who claims to have found your pet, ask him to describe the pet
thoroughly before you offer any information. If he does not include the identifying characteristic you left out of the advertisements, he
may not really have your pet. Be particularly wary of people who insist that you give or wire them money for the return of your pet.
6. Don't give up your search. Animals that have been lost for months have been reunited with their owners.
Top 10 Tips For Finding Lost Cats from Petfinder
1) Not all missing cats are lost or want to be found. Cats are notorious for hiding in impossible places. Before you assume kitty is missing, make a thorough search indoors, around the porch, garage, and yards armed with a flashlight and the tastiest, smelliest treats. This is when a cat trained to respond to the “come” command pays off. If a cat is injured, trapped, or hyper-stressed, they may not respond to a command but it improves the odds. Yes, some cats leave home for whatever reason and don’t want to be found. Try anyway. The stats for lost cats returning home without intervention are about 2%. The odds are improved by having a microchip and wearing a collar and tag.
2) If you know your cat is missing, grab your cellphone with a photo of your cat uploaded, flashlight and treats and head out. Wear comfortable clothes and comfortable soft-soled shoes. Don’t panic. Breathe, try to be calm and think like a cat. If you were a cat where would you go? Begin around your house and spread out to the immediate neighbors on all sides. Where does your cat normally head? What is the most likely escape route? What are their favorite bushes or hiding spots? Crouch low under porches, scan high on roof lines and tree branches. Could something have recently happened to spook them? Construction or a new neighbor’s cat or dog? Or has anything happened recently in your home to upset them; like the chemicals from getting your carpets cleaned or bringing out suitcases for a trip?
3) While you’re searching, ask pedestrians, knock on neighbor’s doors and show the photo. Ask if you can check their garage, sheds, under the porch. This is no time to be shy. To save time, multi-task during the search: leave a missing cat report with your vet, Animal Control, all the other local vets, shelters and rescue groups.
4) When you return home, leave food and water outside your door. Fearful cats will often slink out after dark. Leaving a baby monitor near the food may detect faint meows. Local TNR rescues will often lend a trap. Using their suggestions, set up a trap. Be prepared, you may trap a raccoon or other cat. Go outside one last time to check and call your cat’s name before bedtime. Try to get some rest. Leaving no stone unturned to find your cat takes energy. In the quiet darkness, try to communicate with your cat. Imagine their face, call their name and connect heart to heart. Try to tune into where they might be. It may be a feeling, an image or sound. Reassure them that you will help get them home.
5) If you haven’t already made a missing cat poster, make one. It doesn’t have to be fancy but make sure the words “Lost Cat” are large enough to be visible from a passing vehicle or pedestrian. Luckily most of us have a gazillion photos of our cats of. Choose or crop a large close-up showing details of the face and another photo showing the entire body, ideally standing up. If you’re not computer savvy, you can glue a photo on a piece of paper and use a marker to write the text by hand. Color photos are preferable especially if your cat has a unique color or markings. Copies printed on neon bright paper show well and use plastic page covers in case of rain. Include: your cat’s name, description, any special identifying marks or collar, when last seen and where (cross street), your phone and e-mail but for security reasons not your name, address or amount of reward in case you are offering one. I also like adding contact info at the bottom of the page cut into four or five vertical strips that can be easily torn off.
6) Enlist family and friends to help post flyers and spread the word. Have push pins, tape and a staple gun depending on the surface. The best posting spots include street intersection poles, local bulletin boards at grocery stores, library, laundromat and community center.
7) Post missing cats reports online Pet Recovery of Centre County, Centre/Clearfield Lost Pets, Clearfield County SPCA,
local Veterinarians, newspapers. Use social networking like Facebook and Twitter. Ask everyone to share. Radio is
helpful.
8) Visit all your local shelters even if say they don’t have a cat of your description.
9) If you’ve recently moved, extend your search to your old neighborhood.
10) Persevere! Cats have returned weeks and months later. Keep networking, and asking neighbors if they’ve noticed anything. Keep your flyers or posters fresh with a “Still Missing” header.
A pet - even an indoor pet - has a better chance of being returned if she always wears a collar and an ID tag with your name, address and telephone number. Microchips work! They are available at the Allegheny Spay & Neuter Clinic – with an AWC Membership Discount Card, they are $5.00 off! Call 857-5280 for more info.
April Is Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month!
April is special because it is officially Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month! Every year, supporters are
asked to celebrate this month by helping to raise awareness about important issues facing animals—and we
Outside, Harold Walstrom, the driver, has arrived with the van; for Harold the morning began even earlier than it did for Debbie since
he had to drive about an hour and a half just to get here. His scheduled departure time from TCARC is 6:30 AM. Harold worked 20
years as a dog warden for Clearfield County so he knows animals. He’s the kind of guy you want driving the clinic transport van:
friendly and easy going with kind eyes; his white hair and neatly trimmed beard make him seem distinguished and wise. He speaks
gently; if he dressed in a robe and sandals he could pass for a 21st century version of St. Francis of Assisi. As he tugs at a big crate
with a Spaniel looking type dog inside I hear him say reassuringly to
the dog, “let’s put you sideways so you won’t tilt!”
Harold talks about how the Allegheny Spay and Neuter Clinic got
started: he and some other animal advocates got together to figure
out a plan that would have the greatest impact on curbing pet
overpopulation in Clearfield county. The Allegheny Spay and Neuter
Clinic was their brainchild and grew out of their strong conviction
that “the best way to fix pet overpopulation is by fixing your pet,”
Harold explains.
Tri-County Animal Rescue Center is a small rural, no-kill shelter that
operates on a shoe string budget with support from a loyal following
of dedicated volunteers. Since first opening its doors in December of
2011 the shelter has advocated the no-kill rescue, rehabilitation,
adoption, rights, and welfare of companion animals in Clarion,
Jefferson, and Forest counties. An integral part of that mission has
been an unflagging commitment to helping pet owners spay and neuter their pets.
Debbie Stephens, who serves on the Board of Directors for TCARC and supervises the intake and care of shelter cats, early on
recognized the value of an affordable spay and neuter program. She recalls, “I wanted us to have a low cost spay and neuter program
so I researched for a place locally to help us, found Allegheny Spay and Neuter, made contact and since then we have had clinics
about every 6 weeks from March through November each year.” That continuing partnership has benefited more than 700 animals
and their owners in the Tri-County area since the program began.
At first glance, fees for the clinic’s spay and neuter surgeries may not seem like bargain prices (for a female dog, $105, a male dog
costs $95, a female cat costs $65, and a male cat is $55) but in fact those amounts represent a substantial discount, sometimes by as
much as 30% to 70% off what local veterinarians charge. In addition to these modestly priced surgeries, the Spay and Neuter Clinic
also offers vaccines and even micro-chipping at more affordable rates.
Last summer a kind driver found a gentle chocolate Lab wandering along a rural road and brought the dog to TCARC; within two
weeks “Sweetie” had delivered 9 healthy puppies. More recently, a small black and white cat that was hardly more than a kitten
herself delivered 5 healthy kittens at TCARC. Imagine the impact in just one year if Sweetie and her 9 puppies continued to breed and
have more puppies, and those puppies had puppies, or if Happy and her 5 kittens each had more kittens and those kittens had kittens. .
. . You don’t have to be a mathematician to see how quickly the pet population can sky rocket when animals are not spayed or
neutered. Thanks to TCARC’s proactive partnership with Allegheny Spay and Neuter Clinic, Sweetie and her puppies were all
“fixed” and found loving homes; they will never contribute to pet overpopulation and neither will Happy or her kittens.
It’s worth imagining how much all of us could help end pet overpopulation everywhere if we simply practiced the Clinic’s signature
motto: “Fix the pet overpopulation problem by fixing your pet!”
On this Thursday morning, some pet owners have heeded that call. Soon all the crates are stowed, dogs in big crates on the van floor
and cats in their smaller crates bungee corded across the top. Muffin, the cat with the switchblade arm, has scored a berth up front
with Harold on the passenger seat beside him. Harold secures the paper work and then this precious cargo of pets is on its way to
Woodlawn. As the van peels away, the early morning dark is peeling away too, softening to shades of light and gray.
4th Annual Youth “Be Kind to Animals” T-Shirt
Design Contest If you love animals & are between the ages of 6‐17, you can create a design that may be
printed on the Animal Welfare Council (AWC)/Allegheny Spay and Neuter Clinic
T‐shirts.
The design contest is being done in conjunction with "Be Kind to Animals" week
(May 8 – 14). Here are the rules for submitting a design:
Artwork should be on high‐quality, white, 8.5‐inch by 11‐inch paper;
Should be drawn in dark pencil or dark ink.
The design will be one color.
Name, age, & an adult contact’s name & telephone number should be in pencil on the back of the artwork.
Included in the design should be the theme: “Be Kind to Animals”
Designs are due to the AWC/Allegheny Spay & Neuter Clinic by Thursday, May 5, 2016.
They can either be mailed or dropped off at the Allegheny Spay & Neuter Clinic, located at 1380 Shawville Hwy., Woodland, PA
16881 (adjacent to the Woodland Post Office).
Please note that AWC may have to modify or reproduce the design to fit the specifications of the T‐shirt printing company. All
designs are owned by the Animal Welfare Council and cannot be reproduced.
Please contact 814‐857‐5280 or email [email protected] with questions about the T‐shirt design contest or the Animal Welfare
Council/Allegheny Spay & Neuter Clinic.
They’re Here --New AWC 2016-2017Membership Cards Are Available With Great Discounts Take Advantage of Some Great Savings While Helping Animals……………………………………….. Animal lovers are invited to show their love of animals and become members of the Animal Welfare Council/Allegheny Spay &
Neuter Clinic. Your membership in the AWC will help support animals in the local area by providing affordable spay/neuter plus
other veterinary services, pet food through our pet food pantry, straw and housing for outdoor animals, and information and
education about good pet care.
A yearly membership costs: $10 per year for an individual and $15 for a family.
With your AWC/Allegheny Spay & Neuter Clinic Membership you receive:
** Membership Discount Card – Discounts good through May 2017 - Card entitles members to discounts for pet
services and at other area businesses. With your AWC membership card, members will enjoy many values and discounts
for a wide variety of animal related care, supplies and services including food, grooming, kennels, plus other businesses
including restaurants. Check out these great sponsors for the 2016-17 AWC Membership Card - all are offering great
