The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
WORKING HARD TO SAVE ANIMALS
Shelter makes large strides toward no-kill status
“With the new management and the hard work and dedication of the employees and board, we could call ourselves a nokill shelter.”
— Board President Lewis
Carinci
Over the last two years, the Wanderers’ Rest Humane Association has striven to reduce the number of animals euthanized as it moves toward becoming a no-kill shelter.
“At one point, Wanderers’ Rest used to euthanize for space,” Board President Lewis Carinci said. “We wanted to get away from that. We’re an open admission shelter, whichmakes it hard. We get a lot of animals here that are very sick or very aggressive. Under the old management, they would be put down. With the new management and the hard work and dedication of the employees and board, we could call ourselves a no-kill shelter.”
Carinci said Wanderers’ Rest signed a contract with Staffworks founder and owner Anita Vitullo, creator of the the Staffworks Charitable Fund and the Community Foundation, that asks Wanderers’ Rest to come as close as they can to a no-kill shelter.
“You have to have a 90 percent positive live release rate to be considered a no-kill shelter,” Carinci said. “Last year, Wanderers’ Rest was at 98 percent.”
Thirteen animals were put
down last year, Carinci said, but those were extreme cases such as court orders or sickness.
On top of that, the Community Foundation will take any dogs that would have been euthanized for being too aggressive. From there, the dogs are taken to be retrained so they can be adoptable.
“Not only will the dog be trained if we find a forever home for them, but we also advise the new parents of that dog to be trained too,” Carinci said. “The success rate has been unbelievable.”
One of the other big changes since 2016, Carinci said, is the board getting more involved with the shelter
“It used to be the management didn’t want more involvement,” Carinci said. “They thought it wasn’t a good fit. We’re all like one group now. The volunteers, the board and the workers seem to complete a circle.”
There are less workers at Wanderers’ Rest, going from 19 workers in 2016 to 11 today.
“Theworkerswe have are underpaid,” Carinci said. “It’s the love for animals that keep them here. Being a not-for-profit, it’s hard to come up with the money to pay salaries I think they need. They work extremely hard to make every animal adoptable and find a forever home.”
Adoption Coordinator Vicky Arnold has worked at Wanderers’ Rest for the last two years and said while it may seem crass, her priority isn’t people — it’s the animals. What she likes about the job, what keeps Arnold coming back, she said, is the thought of sending an animal to a home that will last their lifetime.
“We do not do it for the money,” Arnold said. “If you came in here and there was a dog you really wanted and I didn’t feel it was a good fit, or one of the other employees felt that, we would take the time to move you to another so the odds of that dog coming back to the shelter drops drastically.”
Wanderers’ Rest relies on funding through donations. Recently, the shelter participated in a 36 day program through the Staffworks of CNY called “Save a Life”, where the shelter had a chance to earn extra money through their fundraising efforts. Through the work of employees and board members, $57,000 was raised to benefit the shelter. From Staffworks, another $20,000 was donated for a grand total of $77,000.
It takes about $575,000 to run the shelter a year, Carinci said, with $100,000 of the budget coming from Madison County.
“I mean, we spend $65,000 a year on medicine,” Carinci said. “So we have to go out and raise $475,000 a year just to maintain the building and the salaries. We have $350,000 we raise a year for salaries. It’s a struggle. We’re pulling our own right now.”
Shelter Manager Sabrina Wilcox has a bachelor’s degree in wildlife science and a masters in anthrozoology. She’s worked with the shelter for the last two years and shortly after getting on board, Wilcox had to deal with an outbreak of ringworm amongst the animals.
“We researched what to do and found a lot of shelters with ringworm cases euthanize because it’s hard to control,” Wilcox said. “I reached out to Village Vet and they helped me with a protocol for treatment.”
Wilcox said the shelter was very strict on keeping clean, almost treating it like a hospital setting with gowns and foot coverings to prevent accidentally spreading the disease amongst quarantined animals.
“They taught us how to run controls on animals to determine if they were positive and how to treat them with a lime- dip. Within three months, we were ringworm free,” Wilcox said.
But the biggest challenge, Wilcox said, is using what resources they have to help so many animals.
“We rely heavily on donations and we need that money to continue helping the animals like we are,” Wilcox said. “Without those funds, we’d have a difficult time.”
To better help animals in need, Wanderers’ Rest started Archie’s Fund, a dedicated donation program that provides medical assistance to animals who need treatment beyond what Wanderers’ Rest can provide.
“It lets us help those heartworm positive ani- mals or who need specific testing to make sure they leave the shelter alive and healthy,” Wilcox said.
Among other services Wanderers’ Rest provides is the Spay and Neuter Voucher Program. Through theASPCA, Wanderers’ Rest received $40,000 to assist low-income Madison County families with the costs of spaying and neutering. Wanderers’ Rest covers the entire cost of the procedure and asks for a $1 copayment. Fifty-three cats and dogs were spayed or neutered through this program in 2018.
For more information aboutWanderers’ Rest, visit their website at http://wanderersrest.org or call at 315697-2796