November 2024 Report
December 22nd, 2024
Yes, it's the 22nd and I am just getting time for this, my apologies. This has been a month....
Attaching the stats here, you will see that we are still way below our intake level of the last 2-3 years, we simply do not have enough foster homes. The demand is still VERY high, we are doing our best. You can also see that postings for others are still below the past years, adoptions have been slow the past months but have been a bit better the last week or two - we are just a little encouraged. Times are tough in rescue/sheltering world and we're doing all we can. The recent months have brought some pretty darn sad stories from owners, making us aware over and over how lucky we are... and how lucky the dogs who land with ODH are.
With that cheery message, I send my very best wishes to all of you for the holidays - and thanks for caring enough to make such efforts to help the old dogs. The people in ODH are what keep my faith in humankind!
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
October 2024 Report
November 4th, 2024
Shockingly early, but it was in the way on my desk so....
Intakes climbed again this month a bit, and way more from shelters than owners; the 3 we took in this past weekend (so November and not included here) were also from shelters - quite a change! Still nothing from Tacoma but plenty of others in need (this week it was Whatcom, Kitsap, PAWS and Olympia). We have 7 on the waiting list today (after 5 coming off it this past week!) plus two in temporary ODH homes who need to move, and there will be more of course pretty much every day. The from-owner dogs are the most difficult both to assess, to place, and to deal with emotionally. Too many times owners change their mind at the last moment, and to often the dogs have little vet history to even evaluate where they should go - and the owners themselves are heartbreaking stories.
Our referral adoptions are doing pretty well; the stats here for "shelters" are a bit misleading since several of those posted officially by Save-A-Mutt rescue are really still Everett Animal Shelter dogs but in foster; this lets SAM staff evaluate the applicants (the shelter legally can only reject if landlord approval isn't given or there is history of abuse/neglect). We would still really like to have more shelters ask us to crosspost but can only ask so many times - I think they lack staff time to put profiles/pictures in an email. Ideally we would have volunteers at each of the shelters who work with us at all, watching for seniors that we could post or perhaps consider for care.
Deaths were down also (fewer dogs in care, fewer deaths) but the "winter months" surge is ahead now! Kim and I are bracing ourselves.
As always, I'd really welcome questions. Thanks to all for being part of ODH.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
September 2024 Report
October 19th, 2024
Very late this month, very busy even though the stats don't look like it.
Intake and postings-for-others and even deaths are down this month significantly, perhaps leftover from all the summer vacations, also down because several of the owners changed their mind at the last moment before the dog came to us (this happened yesterday again, actually!). But quite a change. As our census goes down, we will have less deaths; we'll see whether the normal "winter period" increase in those continues this year.
I do note that our census as of 9/30/24 was about the same as Feb-August 2023. Last year, however, it jumped up a great deal in September.
And of course we're still not being asked to take dogs from Tacoma HS, which is a terrible shame for their poor dogs but perhaps for the best since we are struggling to find new foster homes. But it means that we're taking more and more dogs from owners rather than shelters, and they are a much dicier situation that I'm not anxious to send to a new foster.
Tonight we have 8 dogs on the waiting list, in addition to the one who's safe in a temporary (wonderful!) ODH home but will need to move for a permanent hospice home pretty soon unless her heart failure worsens . We have a few open spots but for very specific types/sizes of dogs and there is only one possible match I see (will pitch him to the newly approved home tomorrow but he still needs a week in kennel-cough foster before moving). This has been the situation for several months now! Not enough homes for the dogs in need, for various reasons. It mirrors what the other rescues and shelters are going through but it's heartbreaking sometimes. Tina is in the middle of the heartbreak since she hears from the owners who are often in pretty desperate straits and need a place for the dog who may also be in desperate straits. We can sometimes help the dog but not the human....
That's my report for tonight, as always I really welcome questions.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
August 2024 Report
September 16th, 2024
Well, it's only mid-month, right?
Attached is the report from August and YTD. You will see that our intake was the lowest of the year, and out total YTD intake is quite a lot lower than 2023 at this time. This seems to be due to:
- Shelters are absolutely at capacity so not getting owner-surrenders, and thus not asking us to take them. Yes, we are hearing from lots of owners directly but we don't have the option of sending them to the shelter to have a thorough vet assessment before we can decide if ODH candidates.
- We have basically been ignored by the Tacoma shelter for much of this year and then the outgoing veterinary director (whom I know from way back and had taken over all the animal management over the last year) decided that we were too much trouble. I'm told that the new COO wants to rebuild relationships with ODH (and undoubtedly others! including many volunteers and staff) but so far I've not heard from her. We really would like to help their dogs - they are hugely overcrowded! - but will have to wait and see if we (and Erica the longtime shelter "rescue volunteer" who now concentrates on ODH candidates) are welcomed back.
- The shortage of capable and reliable ODH foster homes. We are getting fewer applications, and approving fewer of those we receive, and then nearly half of the newly approved homes bail out before getting a dog (or get their first dog and ask me to move it in the first day). Shirley and I are working hard on updating the Be An ODH Home material on the website and what she sends inquiries, and she has updated the foster application, but they're not quite ready for prime time yet and I fear it won't change the realities of current life. Right now we have 190 active foster homes; we ran with about 220 for many years. Big difference. This is a difficult assignment to take on, and more so in the recent years - maybe we won't find more homes that can and want to do it, perhaps it's our limiting factor, but I surely hope not.
Meanwhile, Tina is posting fewer dogs for adoption than in the past but the last two months have been almost exactly similar and it still being quite successful (though mostly for the small dogs!). As I've said before, we would LOVE to post more adoptable seniors for the shelters but I fear they are so short-staffed and pressured that they can't take the time to even send profiles/pictures. Everett is the exception because Elizabeth posts nearly all of their adoptable seniors under the SaveAMutt name, thus letting her evaluate adopters (the shelter can't do that). Most of the dogs listed posted for rescues are really for SAM and Everett Animal Shelter. It works!
This is a very very tough time in rescue/sheltering, the toughest in our 20 years - and I hear the same from my friends in the "business". Two weeks ago the Director of Animal Welfare at Kitsap Humane said they were adopting out an average of 1 dog daily, and taking in 10. "Not sustainable", for sure. The need is really great, we have to figure out how we can help more.
The North foster picnic was really nice despite threatening weather, Kelly did a fantastic job as our Event Planner and lots of helpers made it work. I was thrilled to see Sandy Krutsinger, who was our very first foster parent 20 years ago. Her health is no longer letting her do this, but she and Phil have moved to Marysville (from maybe 10 years in Sedro Woolley) so I hope we'll at least see them sometimes. It really brought back what a long time 20 years is and what terrific people have made it work.
As always, I really welcome questions.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
July 2024 Report
August 11th, 2024
See attached chart. We continued to lose more dogs than we were able to take in, net loss of two in July.
We also continued to have fewer dogs to post for adoption: the shelters are barely asking us to crosspost but we are helping SaveAMutt adopt out a LOT of their dogs. The trend continues of the bigger dogs being much the hardest to find fosters or adopters for - too many of them are "no other pets" which makes it far more difficult.
We all have a great hope that summer vacation time will come to a close soon and we'll have more foster applications and adopters. There are two approved homes on our list who've been unavailable so far; one is taking a dog from our only wonderful temporary foster tomorrow! We'll see what happens with the other.
The shelters continue to be just stuffed, many not accepting any owner-surrenders which puts a huge pressure on us and other rescues. In addition, so many vets are refusing to owners' requests to euthanize their dog when they can't care for it and can't find someone else - that is a heartbreaking situation that we seem unable to change. Fortunately the mobile services are much more understanding, but they are more expensive and out of the reach of many owners. We're trying to help with those when we're asked.
If this sounds pretty depressing, you're right! But we will really hope that late August starts to bring more homes and we can help more. All of us Suckers For Old Dogs are doing as much as we can, we need more suckers.
I welcome questions as always ---
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I intended to include this with my stats report, sorry. Seahawks preseason on in the background (they looked good in the first half!)...
The attached came from WAIF (Whidbey Island shelter) a week or so ago, with a story that is probably about the same for every shelter we work with - it's pretty overwhelming. This situation surely isn't likely to change soon.
I should also say that WAIF hasn't been asking us to take dogs for some time now but I sent a note to the current manager: we can help with crossposting their adoptable seniors and would really like to hear about any seniors that don't seem healthy enough for adoption. We can't promise anything but we can try. It's hard for me to believe that they are taking in so many dogs and none are seniors! My sense is that, as with a few other shelters, what we need to consider their dogs (medical records, picture, some idea about personality) or even post them (profile including weight, picture, contact info) is too much for their staff so they don't bother. We so often can refer adopters to these shelters, Tina has been very succesful! but if staff is too overwhelmed to even send information... nothing is done. Sometimes even when a volunteer alerts us to a dog who maybe should be on our list or could use crossposting, staff are too busy to give us information.
And I should also say that at this point we aren't taking dogs from the Tacoma shelter, they became very aggressive/hostile with Erica who has been their rescue volunteer for 19-20 years and the last few only as liaison to ODH, and very aggressive/hostile to many of their volunteers. They decided that they wouldn't send dogs to shelter foster for 7-10 days "kennel cough watch" before going to us, and that makes it impossible since there is SO MUCH contagion in that hugely overcrowded old kennel. Nor would they do labwork for us (even if we paid for it through our lab account). This is a real tragedy from my point of view, that is the busiest shelter in the state and they are beyond capacity, giving animals away, turning down intakes, etc. but don't want our help with the seniors. I hope this will change at some point (leadership is the issue) but for now, this is how it is.
Sad days for shelters and rescues, that's for sure.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
June 2024 Report
July 4th, 2024
Needed to get this off my desk, so early this month!
Attached are the stats through June, you can see that June was a quiet month in general - fewer dogs taken in, fewer dogs posted.
We are being asked less often by shelters to take in dogs; I'm not sure whether that's because we are "asking too much" (labwork if possible, quarantine if the shelter has lots of kennel cough) or because they aren't getting seniors as much as big middle-aged dogs? Huskies! bully breeds! We will likely stop taking dogs from Tacoma HS at least for a while, and I'm not going to consider Seattle Animal Shelter dogs for a while either, so we'll see what happens. But even Everett hasn't had as many seniors coming in as in the last months.
We are thus taking many more dogs from owners, 45% this month and a fairly high percentage all year (we were used to 10%). These are much harder in many ways, but people are desperate so if we can help we will.
We continue to not have enough homes for the need AND we aren't getting many foster applications AND we have having people drop out after getting half or all the way through the application process. Sign of the times, I fear.
This was a month of two tragic dog deaths, bringing us to much more emphasis on keeping our dogs safe from predators of all kinds. Who would have thought that a deer would kill your dog? We are working on updates to foster procedures and the introductory materials we give potential fosters so everyone knows what will be expected. No doubt it will rule out even more homes (and perhaps make folks angry), but it's important. We keep refining our standards for ODH homes, which makes it harder to find them of course, but the grief from the ones that don't work out and put the dogs in danger is just too great.
As always, I welcome questions! Hope we and the dogs all survive the holiday evening that is about to start! AARRGGGHHH!!
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
May 2024 Report
June 11th, 2024
We had an odd and challenging month.
First, Tina (plus Dee and Lahni) had great success referring adopters to owners/shelters/other rescues especially SaveAMutt. 27 referral adoptions! Really terrific. Lots of work involved for what we call FSBO dogs.
Second, our intake went back down again - not so many dogs coming onto the waiting list or at least dogs that we could consider (age, health, but most importantly ability to live with others). Not many open foster spots either of course, and many applications being just not very appropriate for our dogs. We shall see what happens now, the shelters are still STUFFED but two of our regular "sources" have almost stopped asking us to take dogs - evidently because we want them to have a kennel-cough quarantine first (both shelters are full of it) and we want at least some medical information. A couple of shelters have had so much staff turnover that we're not getting info about dogs in need, we've relied on volunteers who then have bailed out. So we'll see what happens this month.
Third, we had a lot of deaths again, 17 this month. We have lost total dogs in care every month this year, we're down to 18 fewer than we started the year with. That's good! if we are keeping up with the need and I'm not sure sure right now.
Fourth, we're really struggling to find fosters who will/can take bigger dogs - especially bully breeds or huskies (the two types that are filling the shelters) but even sometimes just retrievers. That's definitely been the case for adoptions, you can look at our Adoptable page and just cry. Even sometimes black lab mixes who love to swim - there's one sitting there now, has another possibility pending but not confirmed. Pretty amazing. Cost to feed, difficulty in housing, not enough time for exercise? I'm not at all sure. The cost of vet care is clearly a factor for adoptions (and for surrenders) but it shouldn't be that much different between sizes of dogs. A mystery right now but very sad for some NICE dogs who are just sitting there and we can't help them either.
See attached data, as always I really welcome questions.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
April 2024 Report
May 5th, 2024
Amazing, but too many things on my desk so I'm clearing one out on a rainy day!
We had a pretty stable month for intakes, limited primarily by the homes available (almost none for the bigger dogs).
However, Tina and Lahni and Dee did a whole lot of posting Adoptables for others and were quite successful. It's upsetting to look their our Adoptables page and seeing how many are larger dogs (with the most difficult being those who shouldn't live with other dogs - those seem almost impossible), but they have even sent adopters to some of those which is wonderful. It's particularly nice to get updates/thanks afterward for their efforts on those adoptions. Takes a lot of work on their part!
Now we will hope for the need easing off somewhat as folks head out for vacations again, and as our fosters seem to be having an epidemic of accidents, surgery, illnesses, etc. This has been a tough tough time but the dogs make it worthwhile!
As always I very much welcome questions.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
March 2024 Report
April 21st, 2024
Yes, it's April 21st, sorry. REALLY REALLY busy right now!
Attached are stats for March and YTD. We had another busy month for intakes and posting for others; so far we are behind the pace of this quarter last year but primarily I'd say because of lack of foster openings. The shelters remain stuffed though primarily with big dogs that are SO MUCH harder to get adopted, we have had terrible trouble finding ODH spots for the big dogs also. We continue to take in more dogs from owners than we used to, 42% this quarter were from owners, last year 33% at this time and that was an increase from previous years. And again it really seems like the economy (particularly cost of vet care as we know too well! and cost/availability of housing) is a big factor.
I'm encouraged that we're starting to get requests from shelters again, last month was very quiet that way, and that we've had some former/very former fosters want to re-up recently. That will help a lot and makes me feel a ton better - and puts me in contact again with really nice people besides.
The adoptions in March were the third puppy - and a dog we took from another rescue and placed with one of the most wonderful vets ever, Dr. Sean Sanders the neurologist, who is mostly retired from practice after selling SVS Kirkland to Blue Pearl but is keeping involved with other projects in vet med. He took in Ike the border collie (knowing there were likely significant neurologic issues on a really old dog) and then adopted him so ODH wouldn't have to pay the bills. Ike's doing great, I get updates that make me smile, and I am so very pleased that Dr. Sanders (who taught me a ton in our earlier years) was still watching ODH and wanted to be involved. One of the highlights of the year for me!
As always, I welcome questions.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
February 2024 Report
March 4th, 2024
Amazing, it's only the 4th but I am desperate to get things off my desk!
Attached are the stats through February with comparison to Jan-Feb 2023. We have taken in significantly fewer dogs that last year, which is good for workload and costs, but the trend is going toward more from-owners and fewer from-shelters. The fewer-from-shelters is very odd, especially since they are SO FULL but with Tacoma Humane evidently deciding that it's too much work to ask ODH to take their seniors.... that was a very big source of our dogs in previous years and has just dribbled off. Last month we took one from them and she dropped dead the next day. Extremely sad but, until there is a public outcry over what's going on there I just don't see what will change. They are adopting dogs out for $14, including cute little seniors with no vet checks at all. We are scheduled to take one more from them next week and they didn't bother to vaccinate him on entry - with a hugely overcrowded shelter and the nasty respiratory bugs circulating.
Another interesting piece of data for this month is how many "FSBO" posts we did - 27 which is a lot in a month, Tina has been very very busy as has Lahni who handles inquiries for dogs listed by their owner. And zero posts for shelters, another very sad statistic. I think they are so busy they just don't have staff to send requests to us, but it's too bad since we have been really successful at finding adopters for dogs you'd not think would get out of there! We will see if that changes, Tina heard from Seattle Animal Shelter last week, first time in at least two years, maybe we can help them. But the rescues and owners are using our service (and Tina's terrific profiles and Lahni's patience at helping owners through it) very successfully which is good.
And the puppies are now all adopted, to people we know and like! The boys were adopted last month, little Holly yesterday. We are thrilled and I am so so grateful to foster Pamela Fowler who just jumped in to take the birth/raising on despite having never done it. Foster Sarina Duncan was a huge help to her but Pamela did just an amazing job. I really really hope it's another 11 years before this happens again (when I won't be here to agonize over it....).
The last full week of February was REALLY tough on my end, 9 deaths in 7 days and I grieve each time for the fosters. We'll hope that slows down some this month but, with this many dogs in our homes, we are bound to have frequent losses. I just wish they would spread them out a bit.
As always, I would love to answer questions - the chart is attached.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven
January 2024 Report
February 11th, 2024
Hello - Attached are the stats for January. Note that we'd had one dog never put on my census so not counted in the end December/end 2023 count; he died in January (thus I figured this out) so I adjusted the end 2023/start January count to 342.
We had an incredible number of deaths in January which made a net loss of 4 in census over the month. We continue taking in a lot of dogs directly from owners (vs. shelters/rescues) and some of the shelters are just in disarray so not organized to ask us. Too many of those coming into shelters now (mostly "stray" since so many shelters are too full to accept owner releases) are in very very bad shape, some too much to consider taking into ODH - which is saying a lot. So many from shelters and owners now are intact, often not OK with other animals, it's difficult for all.
As always, I am more than pleased to answer questions! Bob and Kait, I can send last year's summary stats in a separate email soyou have some history.
Judith Piper
Director of Veterinary Services/Dog Manager Old Dog Haven