SHELTERING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1999:

Michael Arms, 51, was in September

named executive director of the Helen
Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe,
California. The shelter adopted out just 600 animals
last year on a $3 million budget. Arms
pledged immediate improvement. As shelter
director for the North Shore Animal League,
1976-1997, Arms increased adoptions from 4,000
a year––which was already the highest total for
any shelter in the U.S.––to a peak of 44,000 in the
early 1990s. Arms previously spent 10 years with
the American SPCA in New York City.
Exposes by Corpus Christi CallerTimes
reporter Jennifer Stump, citing the ANIMAL
PEOPLE finding that Corpus Christi has
one of the highest rates of shelter killing of any
U.S. city, at 44.4 per 1,000 human residents,
brought an anonymous grant of $30,000 in late
September. Gulf Coast Humane Society president
Denny Bales told Stump the money might be
enough, added to the present budget, to save
3,000 additional animals.

The Second Chance Animal Sanctuary
in Norman, Oklahoma, in August accepted
$200 from the Oklahoma Animal Coalition– –
and then learned that OAC is a front for farmers,
hunters, and cockfighters. The gift was returned.
The Wisconsin Humane Society is to
open a long-awaited new shelter and offices in
Milwaukee in November, and as planned all
along will move a statue of American SPCA
founder Henry Bergh from in front of the former
shelter to a prominent place in front of the new
one. The statue stood in front of the old shelter
for 32 years. The move was delayed, however,
when Milwaukee alderman Wayne Frank learned
that the statue previously ornamented a horse
trough at City Hall for 76 years, and was apparently
originally city property. Frank fought
unsuccessfully to have the statue moved to his
own neighborhood instead.
Lester Roseen, 65, who buried his
seven-year-old poodle Johnny Boy at the
Connecticut Humane Society pet cemetery in
Newington 25 years ago, has reportedly sued
CHS in the small claims section of New Britain
Superior Court for allegedly disturbing the dog’s
remains during construction of a new building and
animal hospital. About 3,000 animals were buried
at the site before the cemetery was closed in 1985.
Lend-A-Paw Foundation and Puppy
N u r s e r y founder Patti Rood, of Toledo, Ohio,
reportedly told Toledo Blade staff writer R o b i n
E r b on September 2 that her no-kill strip-mail
shelter had “become overwhelmed” by declining
donations and adoptions during a difficult summer.
Rood, whose organization is not to be confused
with the wholly separate L e n d – A – P a w
Feline Shelter, also of Toledo, therefore surrendered
17 cats to the Toledo Humane Society on
August 31, and surrendered seven more two days
later. In between, THS seized 109 cats and two
puppies from Rood’s shelter, plus 26 cats who
were kept at a foster home. THS-hired veterinarian
Jeanne Schmidlin told Erb that many of the
cats suffered from upper respiratory infection,
dehydration, and ringworm. Seventeen cats were
euthanized and another died in treatment. Rood
pleaded not guilty to three cruelty counts––and
claimed at a press conference that she was raided
only because THS fears “competition.” Rood’s
claims were supported at the press conference,
after a fashion, by Opal Covey of Toledo a n d
Mary Barker, 43, of Wauseon. Covey was convicted
in 1998 of neglecting animals at the now
closed Opal’s Country Store and Thrift Shop.
Barker was reportedly convicted of neglecting as
many as 55 animals at a time in 1991, 1993, and
1997––and in the 1997 case was also convicted of
tax evasion and fraud, along with Jose Vasquez,
64, with whom she ran a kennel called Mary and
Joe’s Petland.