Preparing the Furry Kids for Penny

I have determined that my pets have ESP. They are very intuitive after all. Okay, maybe they can't read minds, but they are aware that something is up by the way my stomach has grown over the last 8 months, and the shift in my energy level. Lately after work, I am in bed earlier or blobbing out on the couch watching "Dexter." Both cats and dogs seem to be extra needy these days and attack us the second we walk through the front door. They each race to tell us about their day.

As my husband and I are going to be new first time parents next month, the preparations have been never ending at home. Things like painting the nursery and organizing the house are obvious adjustments that need to be made, but how do you make other adjustments like preparing your pets for your new family member?? This is something I had thought would just work itself out, but am now realizing there is more to it than that. So I looked for some help. I am always disappointed by people who get rid of their pets because they are having a baby, so I am determined to make the ecosystem at home work no matter what. After all, our furry kids were there first and deserve the forever home I promised them when we took them in.

I know when we announced our new addition to other relatives, they were concerned about the cats we have in the house and toxoplasmosis because it can cause serious birth defects. I assured them I would not be handling the litter box at all, and that Rich would get to be the lucky candidate for that. Also after looking it up, it seems it can easily be avoided. It is rare in the U.S. and is mainly in the feces of cats that ingest raw meat, birds, mice, or contaminated soil. Since we never have raw meat in the house and our cats are only indoors, our family felt a little less worried.

I decided to look into other tips that would help us (and our relatives) feel more prepared for our new addition. The Humane Society's website gave me some good info on toxoplasmosis along with some other suggestions on how to adjust my furry kids to the new baby:

• Spay or neuter your pet. Not only do sterilized pets typically have fewer health problems associated with their reproductive systems, but they are also calmer and less likely to bite.
• Consult with a veterinarian and pediatrician if the thought of your newborn interacting with the family pet makes you uncomfortable. By working with these experts before your baby is born, you can resolve problems early and put your mind at ease.
• Address any pet training and behavior problems. If your pet exhibits fear and anxiety, now is the time to get help from an animal behavior specialist. If your pet's behavior includes gentle nibbling, pouncing, or swatting at you and others, redirect that behavior to appropriate objects.
• Train your pet to remain calmly on the floor beside you until you invite him or her on your lap, which will soon cradle a newborn.
  
• Encourage friends with infants to visit your home to accustom your pet to babies. Supervise all pet and infant interactions.
• Accustom your pet to baby-related noises months before the baby is expected. For example, play recordings of a baby crying, turn on the mechanical infant swing, and use the rocking chair. Make these positive experiences for your pet by offering a treat or playtime.
• If the baby's room will be off-limits to your pet, install a sturdy barrier such as a removable gate (available at pet or baby supply stores) or, for jumpers, even a screen door. Because these barriers still allow your pet to see and hear what's happening in the room, he'll feel less isolated from the family and more comfortable with the new baby noises.
• Talk to your pet about the baby, using the baby's name if you've selected one.
• Finally, plan ahead to make sure your pet gets proper care while you're at the birthing center.

After the baby is born:

• Have your partner or friend take home something with the baby's scent (such as a blanket) for your pet to investigate before you bring your baby home from the hospital.
• Greet your pet warmly and calmly when you return home after giving birth, and have someone else take the baby into another room. Keep some treats handy so you can distract your pet.
• Bring your pet with you to sit next to the baby after the initial greeting. Reward your pet with treats for appropriate behavior. Remember, you want your pet to view associating with the baby as a positive experience. To prevent anxiety or injury, never force your pet to get near the baby, and always supervise any interaction.
• Try to maintain regular routines as much as possible to help your pet adjust. And be sure to spend one-on-one quality time with your pet each day—it may help relax you, too. With proper training, supervision, and adjustments, you, your new baby, and your pet should be able to live together safely and happily as one (now larger) family.

So in a perfect world, these tips will instantly solve any pet versus baby issues with a few magical steps, right? Well, I am not so sure how they will work at our house as our menagerie of pets obviously run the joint. In fact, I fully anticipate there will be a mutiny and the kitties will be constantly attempting to take over the nursery. But even though they are little monsters, they will still get the rest of their nine lives to adjust to our little "Penny" starting in April! :-)

Maranda Hawkes
Volunteer Coordinator

Meet Lester and Kamille, Two Cats in Love!

Cats have such a reputation for being aloof and independent that some people might not believe that cats can fall in love. Our adoptable cats Lester and Kamille, though, so clearly love each other that even a cynic can’t disbelieve in their love!

Lester originally came to us after being trapped in a feral colony. A dog, it appeared, had recently attacked him. Though we usually return the feral cats we trap to their colonies, Lester was severely injured so we got him medical treatment. It was an intense recovery for Lester, but after much TLC he recovered fully. Ready to begin a new adventure in life, he showed his true nature as a very sweet, talkative boy who loves to sit on a person’s lap and be brushed.

Lester was adopted into a home with another cat but, sadly, was returned after one month because the two cats didn’t see eye to eye. He went back to his foster home until he was adopted again, this time being returned after two weeks when the adopter was told by his apartment complex that he was only allowed a total of two cats, which he had prior to adopting Lester. So once again, he went back to his foster home, who meanwhile had started fostering Kamille, a lovely 2 1/2 year old Manx.

Kamille came to us after spending about 2 ½ months at a local shelter, where she caught the attention of Jamie, our Cat Foster Coordinator. As Jamie walked by, Kamille loudly meowed and pawed at the cage door, and Jamie just couldn’t pass her up. Despite her attention-getting ways at the shelter, Kamille turns out to be a very gentle and affectionate gal who loves to give head butts and get lots of loving.

Once Lester and Kamille found each other at their foster home, they instantly bonded—as if they were soulmates. Given their love for each other, we were happy when they both found a home together. Sadly, though, the adoption did not work out, and three months later, they were dropped off at a local shelter—despite the fact that we will gladly take any adopted animal back when the adoption does not work out. Thanks to their microchips, the shelter knew that Lester and Kamille came from our program, so we took them to a foster home once more.

Today, Lester and Kamille spend their days sleeping curled up together and grooming each other, clearly as in love as ever. With the depth of their love for each other, we will only adopt them as a pair, and they’re looking for their TRUE forever home now, where they can be together, safe, for the rest of their lives.

Amber Randall
Adoption Coordinator

It's Our 10th Anniversary!

Happy new year! We hope that your new year has gotten off to a great start, and that you're finding time to relax with your favorite friends after the hectic holiday season. We're excited about the coming year, and hope that you are, too!

We're celebrating a milestone at No More Homeless Pets in Utah this year, our 10th anniversary. It's a year to reflect back on where we've come from and look forward to our goal of making Utah a no-kill state.

A major way we track our progress towards this goal is through the E-metric, or the number of cats and dogs destroyed in Utah shelters annually per 1000 humans. In 1999, the year before NMHPU began, the E-metric was 21.7. If it had remained at that point, 62,000 cats and dogs would have been killed in 2009. The reduction in the E-metric illustrates that we've been saving lives by the thousands each year. In fact, NMHPU has saved the lives of over 100,000 animals since we began in 2000. But, unfortunately, dogs and cats are still dying; approximately 33,000 cats and dogs were killed in Utah in 2009, so we still have a lot of work to do. But our current programs have gotten us well on our way to our goal of ending the killing of dogs and cats in Utah.

This year, we're hoping to bring the E-metric down even further, and we know we can do it with your help! Your support allows us to continue to provide low-cost spay/neuter surgeries throughout the state, help feral cats through Trap-Neuter-Return, and promote the adoption of homeless pets. Combined, these programs will lead us to the goal of no more homeless pets in Utah. Please donate today (bit.ly/5aVLa9) to help us take major strides towards this goal in 2010!

Meet Christy Hanamaikai - Vet Tech At Utah County Spay & Neuter Clinic

Hey there! My name is Christy Hanamaikai. I have been working for NMHPU as a vet tech for 1.5 years at the Utah County Spay and Neuter Clinic and I absolutely love my job!

I was first introduced to the Spay and Neuter clinic by my cousin who lives up the street from me. I had a dog I needed to get neutered and when I brought him in I had a great experience with the staff and the clinic. Then, a couple of months later I was looking for a new job. I applied to every kind of job I could find for several months, with no success. Then I found the posting for the Spay and Neuter clinic and remembering my great experience with them neutering my dog; I immediately applied for the position. And to my surprise I quickly got an e-mail back to set up an interview. A few days later I got a message from Kalinda saying that they thought I would be a great candidate for the job and would like to talk with me about starting. Then I couldn't get a hold of Kalinda for 3 or four days because the clinic was closed and she was out of town and my imagination went way out of control. Did that message mean that they were going to hire me? Did it mean that it was just a possibility and that if I didn't get a hold of someone they would choose someone else? Should I call Kalinda twelve times a day to make sure she knew I wanted the job? Should I e-mail Holly and figure out why Kalinda was avoiding my calls?

Well, you get the picture. Eventually Kalinda came back from her vacation (I guess she's entitled to those sometimes) and all my stress-filled worrying ended. She offered me a job and I started my love-affair with spaying and neutering.


I love being able to work with the animals and to know that I am helping make a difference in the world. It is great to get the stats and see the difference spaying and neutering can make on the neighborhood. Plus, there is never a dull moment at the clinic. Everyday we have a new story to tell, whether it is animal or client related - we get more than our fair share of characters in there! And the more I work with the Spay and Neuter clinic, the more important it becomes to me to fix as many animals as we can. We see and hear so many cases of neglect or abuse, where people come on hard times and dump their animals at someone else's house, or breeders who only see the money and don't worry about the health of their animals, or clients find an animal that was a victim of abuse and take it into their homes. The clinic offers people a low-cost method to take care of their animals.

It feels good to be a part of an organization that helps so many people. Hopefully it will be a long and fruitful relationship.

Meet Cassandra Mogusar, our new Promotions Director!

I’m Cassandra Mogusar, the new Promotions Director for No More Homeless Pets in Utah. It’s been a busy couple of weeks as I’ve been getting to know the organization and staff, and my role here. I’m very happy to be aboard!

Feral cats have been a love of mine for many years, and No More Homeless Pets in Utah’s feral cat programs are one of the many reasons I feel privileged to take on my new role of Promotions Director for this organization. In my neighborhood, I often end up caring for feral cats and cats that neighbors have left behind. Earlier this week, I was able to accompany our feral cat trapper Jonny Woodward on one of his trapping expeditions, which gave me insight into how our programs work and also made me reminisce about my first up-close encounter with a feral.

My first experience with helping a feral cat came when I lived in Chicago. Walking down an alley at the first of the month, when all the renters who were moving out left their unwanted belongings next to the dumpsters, I heard a cat meow. My partner and I got closer to the dumpster, and a large cat forced his way out of a brand-new cat crate, ran to the door of the apartment building and started crying to get back in. Another smaller cat—an adolescent kitten—was in the bushes, calling to the first cat. We put the situation together: The cat’s people had moved out, leaving their cat by the trash in the hopes that a new family would “adopt” their old pet, and, we assumed, the smaller cat might be the first one’s kitten.

We managed to catch the first cat—who turned out to be a terrified, declawed, neutered male and not a mother at all—but the second one was wily. He followed us, hiding underneath cars and darting from bush to bush as we walked home. When we got to the door to our apartment, he ran up to the door in a final decisive burst and sat at my feet. I picked him up, and it was clear he’d never been touched by a human. He didn’t even know how to hold his body as I lifted him off the ground.

I looked him over; he was covered in burns and scars, evidence of a rough life on the street. I took both him and the other cat to the vet the next day. Though the older cat received a clean bill of health, the kitten was FIV positive—and the vet suggested that we euthanize him since he was just a street cat. We had different ideas, though, and adopted him into our cat family, naming him Rudy.

Over the weeks, we watched him learn how to be an indoor cat and how to trust people. He was always appreciative of the things we gave him; even his first litter box was received with a sense of happy exploration. A cat ever appreciative of the little joys in life, he lived with us in good health for six years, until he passed away peacefully at home, succumbing to cancer. A few months after he passed away, my partner designed a memorial tattoo of him, which a feral-loving artist tattooed on my arm. My tattoo now serves to spark many discussions about Rudy and about feral cats.

I know that Rudy was a special type of feral cat — ferals rarely choose to adopt a family like Rudy adopted us. But he’s a reminder to me that all of the feral cats out there are individuals just as much as are the cats with human families who love them.

Accompanying Jonny on his rounds showed me that there are a number of people with a special place in their hearts for free-roaming cats in the Salt Lake area, and made me even more committed to No More Homeless Pets in Utah’s mission. I’m looking forward to working with our fantastic staff, volunteers and other animal lovers throughout Utah to help improve the lives of Utah’s feral cats, and to end the euthanasia of homeless cats and dogs across the state.

Cats vs. Dog? Why not both?

In the animal world you'll find people that label themselves as a "cat person" or a "dog person". I always thought I was a "dog person". When I moved into a house, I adopted two dogs: Zoey and Maggie. It never really crossed my mind to adopt a cat.

When I started working at No More Homeless Pets in Utah, I decided to foster two cats named Tomas and Monk. My husband Shane was a bit nervous about our two new visitors. We both were never around cats, so we didn't know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Tomas and Monk were very sweet and lovable. Tomas was adopted pretty quickly and we decided to adopt Monk. Since then, we have adopted three more cats: Lemon, Jemaine and Franny. They are the best; we couldn't imagine our family without them. I am now a cat person and a dog person.

I encourage you to foster or adopt a cat. Remember to leave your cat assumptions at the door. I think people can forget that cats, just like dogs, have all different types of personalities. Find the animal that fits your personality and family. Two of my cats are really social and my other two are a bit shy, but are just as lovable. I encourage you to be open-minded when thinking of our feline friends; you might surprise yourself.

Friends Come In All Shapes & Sizes

When I spend time with friends we usually have food and beverages complementing our spirited conversations. We will talk about the weather, work, movies, books, ex- partners, current partners, parents, siblings, restaurants, music, school, dogs and cats. Well those last two are mostly mentioned by me and perhaps two or three other pet caretakers. I have had many cats and a few dogs in my 28 years of age. They are all part of my life’s story, and for that reason they are a significant part of my contribution to chats with my friends. The animals I care for are family. They share my days with me, they witness me study, stress, relax, laugh and cook. They know my mannerisms better than some of my said friends; of course I’m going to bring them up in conversation.

The past few months my partner has been working evening shifts, so we see each other for two hours or so before hitting the sack and for an hour or so in the morning before I head to work. A lot of our correspondence is a phone call here and there throughout the day or an email sometimes. Milton our adorable cat is always part of these calls and emails. Whether it’s “Aw cute you should see where Milton decided to sleep right now!” or “How’s Milton been all day today, is he hyper? Crabby?” “Hey Milton puked again, any idea what it might be?” “I’m going grocery shopping, think we should try some different litter for Milton?” “I wish I could bring Milton to work with me, I miss him on my lap.” And so on. From time to time it gets bothersome to not see my partner as much as I’d like, but I find that having Milton be there while I’m at work is comforting. Or if I go out of town I think of how Milton is doing a wonderful job of being soothing company. He takes care of us as much as we take care of him.

My 82 year old grandmother lives with my parents. She is in relatively good health and can talk human and animal ears off alike. In 2005 our family lab of 9 years past away suddenly, at the time I was living 40 minutes from my parents home. My grandmother never calls me because I visit every Sunday, but when Lucky, our lab, died she started calling me once a week, not to talk about Lucky, just to talk. I realized that Lucky was her friend, her ear to chat to, and now that he was gone I got a phone call once a week. Of course not two weeks went by where I had made my way to the shelter and adopted an animal. My parents had a new cat and my grandmother stopped calling me.

I’m lucky to have a job where I interact with cats and dogs daily. I’m lucky to witness cats and dogs being companions to children, teens, adults and elders. I’m lucky to be in a position to help individuals better the health of their furry friends. I’m lucky to be surrounded with co-workers who are a best friend to a dog or cat. I’m lucky to know how much love and camaraderie an animal can bestow.

Thank you to all of you out there who give your time and money to animal welfare all over the globe. You are not only saving a life, you are saving a friend.

Andrea Torre
Free Fix Director