K9s For Warriors

Man’s Best Friend

In this story, the term “man’s best friend” takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s a story about two very special pals, determined to stay with each other even if it means overseas flights, and one of them, going from wild and free to a new home that’s much more tame.

This is Sunny and Cameron Marin last March in Iraq, and this is them in Pittsfield, New Hampshire present day.

Their journey to the Granite State is a long one. They first met while Cameron was stationed in Iraq with the New Hampshire Army National Guard.

“There was rough times, there’s times that weren’t great, but it’s all just part of it,” said Cameron. There’s little doubt Sunny brightened his days.

Cameron says stray dogs were frequently around their work, but most of them skittish, unlike Sunny.

“He just comes sprinting up to me and just immediately lets me start petting him, no questions asked, didn’t hesitate at all. Just super friendly,” said Cameron.

It wasn’t long before Cameron was giving Sunny treats.

They became close enough that Cameron reached out to SPCA International. They started the process of getting Sunny back to the Granite State.

But COVID-19 shutdowns made it tough. Sunny finally landed in the states in August.

“Seeing that plane touch down and come down the runway was amazing, and you finally feel like you can exhale at that moment,” said Meredith Ayan, SPCA International.

Sunny made it home before Cameron and when they reunited, it didn’t take Sunny long to recognize his old friend.

Lost Therapy Dog

Victoria Williamson, a Lexington resident, is asking community members to keep an eye out for her missing dog, Duke.

Duke is an English Shepherd mix with black fur and tan markings on his snout, chest and paws. Williamson describes him as about a foot and a half tall and between 30 and 35 pounds.

The 6-year-old dog went missing Friday evening after a friend let him out without her knowledge. Williamson, who lives off of State Route 546, was leaving her home when Duke began chasing down her vehicle. Williamson was past the square in Lexington when her friend called her to alert her that Duke had run off. She immediately turned around and began searching for Duke, but was unable to find him during the Christmas snowstorm.

“The snow was blowing all over so I couldn’t see anything,” she recalled.

Duke was not wearing a collar and was not chipped, so Williamson is concerned that someone may have picked him up, assuming he was a stray.

“He’s a good dog. He’s very friendly. He’s very responsive to his name,” she said.“He’s never run away before.”

Williamson said her dog is unlikely to run from a stranger if approached slowly with a calm tone of voice. Duke is a therapy dog, which means he is trained to provide emotional support to those in distress.

Williamson, a home health aide, takes Duke with her during her 14- to 48-hour shifts. Clients, often hospice patients and their families, love him.

Williamson said Monday morning she has yet to hear of anyone seeing Duke, despite numerous Facebook posts and calls to dozens of nearby shelters and first responders.

She has posted fliers in downtown Lexington and at local pet stores, pet rescues, gas stations and grocery stores. Volunteers have helped hang fliers, knock on doors and search the woods calling his name.

“It saddens me to think that someone maybe took him and he is a wonderful dog, perhaps they want to keep him,” Williamson said. “He is my life and I need to get him home as soon as possible.”

Labrador Retrievers Join Staff

The next time you’re called for jury duty you might be greeted by two black Labrador retrievers, the newest employees working in the Ventura courthouse.

Sibling service dogs Star and Trakr  have been hired as a special type of victim advocate in the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office. During certain trials, they’ll be  sitting underneath the witness box and providing comfort for crime victims and witnesses as they testify, said Supervising Senior Deputy District Attorney Rachelle Dean.  “They can be used in any case where you may have a victim that has gone through a traumatic event… You may also have a child or adult with a disability where they’d do better having the support of an animal,” Dean said.

Dean is Star’s caretaker and started the courthouse facility dog program. Her job as a prosecutor entails overseeing court services so her position and love of dogs made her the right person to start it.

Each dog was $10,000 and funding came from the victims services budget for the district attorney’s office. A federal grant has been used by the agency for more than 20 years and pays for 70% of the victim advocates in the office, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Jump.

Jump is the director of victim and community services, and said the grant is about $1.1 million.

“With annual increases in the grant over the last five years we decided that it was time to bring on the puppies,” Jump said. The $10,000 for each dog covered training for the handlers and equipment. From here on out the grant will cover food, toys and vet bills, Jump said.

In addition to testifying, the dogs can be present at sentencing hearings, preliminary hearings, witness preparation and courtroom tours, Dean said.

In November, Star and Trakr were at the Healing Garden in Thousand Oaks on the anniversary of the Borderline shooting. Star also recently went to support local victims of the Route 91 mass shooting in Vegas while they shared their stories as part of an event marking the third anniversary of the shooting, Dean said. Star was there snuggling with them as they shared, she said.

Victim advocates from the local district attorney’s office got to see dogs like Star and Trakr in action when they volunteered to go to the scene in Vegas to provide help to the numerous victims.

“There were people so in shock and unable to talk it gave them the ability to find their voice again. It’s very moving to see the work these dogs can do,” Dean said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly slowed down the number of trials happening in Ventura County Superior Court. There’s been about a half-dozen since the court reopened in June, Dean said.

Given the pandemic’s restrictions, most of the people benefiting from Star and Trakr’s comfort these days have been the attorneys and court staff coming into the courthouse each day.

“They go to work everyday. They may do meet and greets with court staff and they’ve provided a lot of secondary support in the courthouse with COVID and the shutdowns and everything else going on,” Dean said.

Star worked her first trial in November. It was over a violation of a domestic violence restraining order. A 9-year-old and 14-year-old were called to testify, Dean said. Star first came to the district attorney’s office in June, and Trakr signed on in October. Star was supposed to start at the courthouse in March but the pandemic delayed that, Dean said. The dogs came from New Mexico-based Assistance Dogs of the West, a nonprofit that trains dogs bred for service, Dean said. The nearly 3-year-old litter mates have each gone through two years of training to become certified service dogs, Dean said.

They are trained for 18 months learning different cues then go through another six months of formalized training. Those six months are partly to ascertain whether the dog is better suited for an individual or if they’re comfortable meeting lots of people, Dean said.

Once the dog gets to Ventura they spend another 90 days getting the lay of the land at the courthouse, Dean said. Star has already started working and Trakr will start in January, Dean said.

Prosecutor Jillian Ewan is Trakr’s caretaker. The dogs live with Ewan and Dean and the prosecutors bring them to work each day. From there, Star works with victim advocate Andrea Stewart and Trakr works with victim advocate Gloria Solorzano.

Dean said it took her about a dozen trips to New Mexico to find the right dog for her. The dog chooses their caretaker, and when the two met there was an instant bond, she said.

“I didn’t know what they meant by ‘the dog chooses you’ until it happened,” Dean said.

Animal Mistreatment

St. Bernard Joins Team

Many first responders in Louisiana’s capital city are often faced with high pressure circumstances that require quick thinking, an incredible level of skill, and the ability to compartmentalize.

But even the most competent emergency workers will, at times, find themselves shaken by an especially harrowing situation.

A recent article from The Advocate’s Jacqueline DeRobertis explained this is why East Baton Rouge Emergency Medical Services has taken on a new hire whose only task is to comfort EMS paramedics.

The new hire is a friendly St. Bernard named Indie.  

As a nationally registered ADA service dog and PTSD dog, Indie is trained to help calm and support individuals who find themselves in emotional crisis. 

Professionals who work in capacities that necessitate the carrying out of assignments under immense pressure, and even life-threatening circumstances, may get into a habit of suppressing their own distress so as to complete their work. 

But suppression of emotional distress is not the same of absence of emotional distress. 

Leah Constantino, an EMS shift supervisor, explained that this is where Indie steps in to help. The dog is trained to sense when a human is in need of emotional support, and help them.

“A lot of times we don’t want anybody to see our weaknesses because we’ve got to remain strong,” Constantino told The Advocate. “With her, you can just be sad, and she’s gonna try to make you feel better.”

The idea of having first responders work with a service dog first entered Constantino’s thoughts in 2016, when Baton Rouge was rocked by the shooting of Alton Sterling, widespread civil unrest in response, as well as a deadly police ambush and a massive flood that left many residents homeless.  

Paramedics were called to each disaster, and some were badly traumatized by the experiences, The Advocate notes. 

Constantino explained that paramedics are often so used to putting their own emotional needs aside to focus on their jobs that they fail to cope with their own distress. This becomes manifest in a number of ways, such as developing depression and anxiety.

“It’s time that we take care of ourselves so we can take better care of other people,” she said. 

So, Indie began on a trial basis in early summer for a little more than a month.

“The stars aligned, I don’t know,” Constantino said. “The difference was remarkable in a couple of days.”

The cuddly St. Bernard is now a uniformed officer with EMS, her call number is Indie 500. 

The Advocate notes that dogs are great companions for people struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. A recent study by Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine also showed that service dogs helped to “disrupt episodes of anxiety.” 

Constantino told The Advocate that Indie takes the emotions paramedics have attempted to compartmentalize and allows them to process. 

“We will compartmentalize our emotions on tragic events and do what we’re trained to do, do what’s necessary, and generally it hits us after the call,” she told The Advocate. 

Indie, who Constantino describes as smart and caring, will “almost immediately” approach the person who seems to be in the most distress after a bad call. She follows orders quickly, listening to her handlers with rapt attention and focus. 

While Indie doesn’t join paramedics on calls, she responds after calls and often goes on social visits to other stations to boost paramedic morale.

“She’s gonna love you,” Constantino said. “It’s unconditional love, non-judgmental love.” 

Raising A Puppy

A copy of the Otago Daily Times lands on the driveway of a home in Queenstown’s Lake Hayes Estate.

Moments later, a bark is heard, the front door is opened and out bounds Baxter, a 5-year-old poodle.

Baxter is in work mode and quickly scoops up the newspaper and heads back inside to pass it to his mistress, Judy Reid.

Mrs Reid has issues with her balance and mobility assistance dog Baxter helps anchor her when she walks, in lieu of using a walker or cane.

He also helps her around the house and when he is not in work mode, he is like every other dog — snoozing on the couch, looking to be fussed over or ready to bound after a tennis ball.

Now Mrs Reid’s husband, Grant Reid, the Mobility Assistance Dogs Trust’s Southern Lakes co-ordinator, is looking for volunteers to start the process of preparing other dogs for service.

Puppy raisers play a vital role in the early stages of a young Labrador or golden retriever’s life (Baxter is an exception as a poodle), socialising them and getting them used to going to a cinema or cafe or even simply walking calmly alongside a busy road.

Raiser Andrea Vernall is a senior lecturer at the University of Otago and she brings her trainee assistance dog Dalton to work.

For Dalton it is still about new smells and sights, but her previous pup, London, learned to sit or lie quietly during her chemistry lectures.

Assistance dogs are not like pets. There are very few boundaries for them, because the people they help need them to go wherever they go.

It is the job of a raiser to familiarise a dog with these duties and the dog needs to be supervised and taken here, there and everywhere.

Dr Vernall said part of job was instilling good habits from the start. “They have to sit on the floor of a restaurant nicely and not beg or scavenge off the floor, but if you are consistent from a young age they don’t know anything different.”

To get to that point is a bit of a learning process for an inquisitive and excitable puppy.

“When they are puppies you visit lots of places briefly … We pop in for a takeaway coffee and sit for two minutes — that’s good exposure for a young dog.”

The dogs must wear a distinctive green mobility assistance jacket and golden tags when working or training — and that is when members of the public need to play their role, too.

“Most people say ‘can I pat your dog?’ and I have say ‘no thank you’,” because the dogs needed to know going out wasn’t about getting lots of attention, she said.

“You have to be strict on that so they don’t pull someone in a wheelchair away when they are older.

“If somebody runs over in a supermarket, I block them and explain.”

Just like Baxter, London and Dalton are free to be happy-go-lucky dogs when their jackets are off, but the important part of training is teaching them to switch on and behave when wearing the jacket.

“You would take London’s jacket off and give the release command and his bum would waggle and he would know he could approach someone. Same with toileting — they know they can’t go with a jacket on.”

Dr Vernall stressed how much support there was from the trust, with co-ordinators and other raisers at the other end of the phone.

The trust can organise for a pup to be taken care of for short periods if its raiser has to go away, but largely it is a full-time commitment over the course of a year.

The raiser also has to attend two training sessions a month and aim to have the dog learn 40 commands.

In return, all food, some toys, a harness, leads and vet bills are taken care of and somebody who cannot commit to a dog for 15 years gets the company of a pup for a year that will go on to improve a disabled person’s life.

“It’s a great opportunity for the right kind of people,” Mr Reid said.

“After a year the dogs go on to advanced training in one of the Auckland correction facilities.”

Selected inmates at Wiri and Spring Hill Prisons receive a dog to train, which in turn helps improve their own discipline, sense of empathy, teamwork, leadership skills and social behaviour.

This eight to 10-month training programme is important for the dogs and helps the trust identify those dogs unable to work, be it due to anxiety, poor response to commands or their own disability issue.

After advanced training some of the dogs return to the South Island to be paired with a person living with a disability.

Both dog and potential owner go on a two-week camp to become familiar with each other and comfortable with fulfilling each other’s needs.

It was also a chance to ensure the right dog was with the right person, both in terms of skills and personality, Mr Reid said.

“At the end they are then able to work as a team, inside and outside the home.”

Most dogs go on to help people with mobility issues, but some are matched with dentists or courthouses.

“These are for therapy-related tasks — they help children, especially child witnesses in the court system and anxious kids in the dentist’s chair.”

For those with mobility issues, a dog can help well beyond just fetching items from a shop counter or retrieving a hat blown off in the wind.

“One of the big benefits, other just doing things for them, is the social side.

“If you picture somebody in a wheelchair, most Kiwis can be reluctant to chat with them, but if they have a dog it is an icebreaker.”

Anyone who took a dog on needed to remember they belonged to the trust and had to be given back, Mr Reid said.

That could be hard, but the dogs would go on to significantly improve somebody’s life.

Covid-19 had meant all training had stopped across New Zealand and he was looking for raisers to help restart the process, Mr Reid said.

Ideally, they would be living in the Queenstown-Lakes district, near him, so he could easily provide training and support.

Service Dogs

 Carol Lansford was in her final semester at Valdosta State University in 2012, “pretending to pay attention in class,” when a Facebook post jumped out at her. Her high school buddy Justin had been wounded in Afghanistan. The details would dribble out in excruciating increments.

She was a psychology major, with designs on exploring animal behavior. Her internships put her in close contact with rehabbing dolphins at Dolphin Encounters in The Bahamas, and at Zoo Atlanta. But what happened after that jarring news eight Aprils ago put her on a path she could never have planned.

Today, Lansford is the executive director of a small nonprofit called Valor Service Dogs. Located in an 1800-foot facility in Tampa, VSD embodies the surge of interest in the utility of canine behavioral science, in which dogs can be trained for missions as diverse as mobility assistance, seizure response, autism mitigation, and emotional support.

Thanks to some intimate personal stakes, Lansford’s dogs are schooled in two narrowly focused disciplines – mobility and post-traumatic stress response, tailored exclusively to military veterans and first-responders.

She and Justin grew up outside Atlanta and had known each other since their teens. They drifted apart after school – she went to college, he joined the Army – but they reconnected after Justin returned home following his tour of Iraq in 2011. The relationship had growth potential, but he would once again deploy overseas with the 82nd Airborne Division.

The Facebook news was a bolt from the blue. It was an announcement from Justin’s father. There was a game-changer in Gazni Province on April 21, 2012.

Responding to an ambush by Taliban insurgents, Justin’s armored vehicle – he was a gunner – struck a 120-pound roadside bomb that tossed him from his mount. When he came to, Justin was lying beneath the burning remains of the truck, the boot that contained his left foot lying next to his head.

Upon returning to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, young Staff Sergeant Lansford and Carol stayed in touch. But it wasn’t until October 2012, in a top-secret plot hatched by Justin and one of Carol’s best friends, that they saw each other again. Expected to be greeted at the airport by an old college roommate, Carol found Justin waiting for her outside security.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I cried, I don’t even remember,” Carol recalls. “Justin had so many injuries, but he was so positive, it was easy for me to be positive.”

Those wounds would include a broken back and a ruptured spleen. Justin would require multiple surgeries and three years of physical therapy at Walter Reed. Carol would move to the Washington, D.C., area. With a dog named Gabe serving as Best Man, they married in 2015 in a ceremony that rated coverage on “Good Morning America.”

Justin met Gabe, a golden retriever, during his long recovery, in 2013. And it became obvious pretty quickly why Justin needed a service dog.

“Washington is an old city,” he says, “with a lot of staircases without handrails and old buildings that aren’t up to speed, ADA-wise. Some haven’t been retrofitted, some are historical buildings and are exempt. So the ability to walk through a door and get through an entire day without Gabe is very difficult.”

Carol noticed Walter Reed was full of veterans and service dogs. She made a few inquiries and learned most of the animals were trained by a government partner affiliated with Assistance Dogs International (ADI), which sets rigorous gold standard goals for certified trainers and dogs. Carol completed the program and went on to become an instructor herself.

The Lansfords moved to Florida five years ago. Justin graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in International Studies. Lately, he’s studying medicine with designs on emergency medicine.

“I guess you could say I just had a change of heart,” he says. “I just like helping folks, that’s always been my M.O. Hopefully, I’ll get to  work in an emergency room. Maybe someday I’ll even be working on helicopters.”

Carol, meanwhile, decided to start her own service-dog training facility catering to Americans on the front lines of conflict, abroad and at home.

“I looked at a lot of service dog organizations but I didn’t feel like they were a good fit for me. They weren’t using the ADI standards I was used to,” she says. “I mean, some of them were graduating dogs that shouldn’t have graduated, and I think, as a nonprofit, it’s important how you spend your donor money.”

Founded in 1986, ADI is an international network of trainers and providers with standardized rules for developing a range of canine skill sets. It counts hundreds of members representing 23 countries in North America and Europe, including Australia and New Zealand.

Carol’s Valor Service Dogs is nine months away from applying for ADI certification. With up to two years invested in raising and training specialized dogs, her program didn’t start producing results until 2017. Since then, she says 21 dogs have been matched with qualified owners, with only two mismatches.

“Those are dogs that didn’t quite make the cut for service dogs, meaning they can’t have public access for behavioral reasons,” she says. “For example, one dog was so afraid of elevators and escalators we couldn’t get her approved for public access because those are things you run into every day. But she was fully trained in commands and behaviors, so we put her with a retired service member who needed the companionship but not necessarily a full service dog.”

To become ADI approved, service dog groups are required to have placed at least five dogs with recipients, each with a year’s worth of successful working relationships. VSD became eligible to apply for membership a little more than a year ago and is now in its “candidacy” phase.

Producing successful dogs – in this case, golden retrievers and labs – requires a deep bank account. Each one represents a time investment of 18 months to two years, plus an average of $15,000 to $18,000 in maintenance and training. How long each dog can work varies with their assignment.

“Service dogs are expensive, so you want to maximize the work you get out of them by checking their lineage for things like joint problems or cancer,” says Justin, whose prosthetic leg sometimes requires a steadying assist from Gabe. “If you’re using them as a handrail or you’re putting a lot of weight on them, if they’re pulling a wheelchair, obviously they’re not gonna last that long. And you’re going to need a bigger dog for that.

“Gabe will be 10 years old on April 28. But what he’s meant to me is not just the freedom to get around, but I’ve got a friend with me all day, morning and night. Having somebody without you throughout the day is about emotional independence, too.”

Justin estimates Gabe will provide another two years of service before retirement into house-dog status.

In the meantime, Carol keeps VSD afloat with the help of mostly donors, plus a handful of grants and a board of directors that resembles an all-star cast. It includes clinical social worker Debra Isenstein, who worked with transitioning veterans at Walter Reed, entrepreneur Philip Tulkoff, and Pennsylvania State Trooper Alex Douglass.

Tulkoff, President of Tulkoff Food Products, lost a cousin to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in 2012. Douglass was critically injured in 2014 when a sniper attacked the station and killed a fellow officer. Douglass lost his right leg below the knee as a result of his bullet wound, and was the first to receive a service dog from VSD.

Carol’s long-term goal is to move out of the current facility’s rental space and purchase a more expansive locale with the ability to train more dogs. VSD has a “satellite” operation in Georgia. But finding the right mix of resources will require finesse to obtain and maintain that crucial ADI rating.

“Yes, it costs a little money to be a member, but honestly, it’s just a huge undertaking to get there, with all the records you have to supply, and the visits they make to your facility to meet the dogs,” she says. “Right now, we have a high success rate with a low fail-out rate. We want to help more people than we are now, but we also want to stay small enough to where our success ratio stays high and the recipients know they’re getting great dogs.”

The Lansfords have high hopes for 2021. They’re expecting their first child in March.

County’s Animal Shelter

A year ago at this time, the halls of the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter were filled with the banter of volunteers and the voices of excited people in search of the perfect pet. But these days there’s an eerie silence in those halls, which now echo with the lonely sounds of scattered barks and whimpers.

The relative quiet, however, belies the shelter’s wild ride these past 10 months – a ride that temporarily redefined the shelter’s mission and took shelter employees and volunteers on an eye-opening journey through a once-in-a-century pandemic and a devastating wildfire.

“The year 2020 has just been completely crazy,” said Erika Anderson, the shelter’s program and development manager. “It  has turned what we think we do day to day upside down.”

The onset of the COVID-19 crisis last March was traumatic for the shelter. When the county government began bleeding red ink as businesses shut down and tax revenues plunged, officials cut the shelter’s budget 10% as a rush of adoptions by working-from-home employees left a strange emptiness at the shelter nobody could have predicted.

“We knew that we were not going to shut our doors,” Anderson said. “We were just going to have to figure out how to make all of our services as accessible to the community in a safe way.”  In the initial weeks of the pandemic, the shelter’s employees continued doing their old jobs but also began branching out. At an emergency homeless shelter set up at Santa Cruz’s Veterans Memorial Building, the animal shelter’s staff was deployed to clean and sanitize the place as well as take people’s temperatures as they went in and out. Animal control officers delivered food for humans at emergency shelter sites, set up around the county to reduce overcrowding and make it easier for homeless people to socially distance.

The employees took on additional responsibilities with a 7.5% pay cut. Its executives took a 10% hit. But many shelter employees seemed grateful that they still had full-time jobs.

The shelter depends on county and municipal funding for a large portion of its services such as animal control, licensing, rabies vaccinations and providing housing for stray and unwanted animals. But programs such as spay and neuter clinics, educational initiatives and pop-up pet clinics are privately funded through thousands of independent donors, many of whom were suddenly out of a job or incurring financial hardships themselves because of COVID-19.

The shelter heavily depends on its 400-strong army of volunteers for its day-to-day operations. But strict new rules at the beginning of the pandemic prevented volunteers from entering the shelter. Their absence meant they were unable to do jobs such as cleaning kennels and socializing the animals.

So instead, the volunteers stocked the free pet-food pantry on the shelter property as well as food pantries for hungry people around the county. With the shelter’s outreach van, dubbed the “animobile,” volunteers delivered donated pet food to help pet owners who had lost their jobs because of the pandemic and were in a financial freefall.

“I can’t say enough about our volunteers,” Anderson said. “They are lifesavers.”

After the initial lockdown, the shelter staff held socially distant meetings with county officials to define what was essential to the shelter’s mission and figure out how it could proceed safely. So eventually the volunteers were allowed to return to work at the shelter by following appropriate safety measures.

Various educational and promotional programs, however, had to be canceled, including the shelter’s popular summer camp, where wildlife experts educate kids about animals and promote respect and empathy for all creatures.

Then, in late August, came the inferno.

The CZU Lightning Complex fires displaced thousands of animals as tens of thousands of county residents were evacuated and flames destroyed 925 homes in the county, leaving many mountain residents and their pets without homes.

Approximately 500 of the evacuated pets were housed at the Santa Cruz and Watsonville shelters. The latter had been closed to the public when the pandemic hit, but it proved to be a valuable place to house animals when the Santa Cruz shelter ran out of space.

All told, the shelter during the August fire had to arrange accommodations for 4,500 animals, compared with about 5,000 in an entire year during normal times.

When the doors to the shelter opened every morning, “you just didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Ben Lomond resident Nancie Newby, a longtime shelter volunteer.

Many of those who dropped off their animals at the shelter had lost their homes in the blaze. As a result, some of those animals were at the shelter for months in the wildfire’s wake.

Newby was part of a team of volunteers nicknamed “Tami’s Team,” named after Tami McConnell, the staff member who organized the task force. The group of roughly a dozen handpicked volunteers was responsible for socializing the evacuated dogs by taking them for walks and playing with them.

“These dogs had never been in a kennel before,” Newby said. “We wanted them to feel as much love as we could give them.”

While shelter employees and volunteers were evacuating animals during the fire, they constantly kept an eye out for things that weren’t quite right. The equine evacuation team came across two horses and a mule suffering from extreme neglect. The team was able to rescue the three animals and place them in good homes.

Despite a drop in donations in the early months of the pandemic, the shelter saw an influx of donations of both cash and pet supplies during the wildfire.

Many volunteers and staff practically lived at the shelter, often working into the night.

“For two weeks, I was there volunteering almost every day,” said Garrett Smart, Anderson’s husband. “I was creating new spaces for families of chickens to live so that we can keep them together.”

Today, the shelter is once again back to its normal pre-fire ebb and flow. And many employees and volunteers are learning to embrace some of the positive changes the pandemic has wrought.

Just one example: The continued high demand for adoptable dogs and cats, coupled with having fewer shelter animals to care for, gives the shelter more time to vet potential adopters.

“It has really allowed us to focus a little bit more on matchmaking,” Anderson said.

The shelter has also been able to put together an online curriculum to train and educate potential volunteers and foster parents for pets, something the shelter plans to keep after  pandemic restrictions ease in the upcoming months.

What else did the shelter learn?

To be more flexible and accessible, Anderson said. While challenging, the year forced the shelter to reimagine the way it operates in “what has been an extraordinarily difficult year for all of us.”

“Despite all the negativity and the craziness,” she said, “I think we’re better for it.”

Pets And Pet Parents

As I write, my dog and cat sit curled up next to me—warm and comforting —as they have been through this pandemic. So many posts on social media echo my sentiment. Pet parent have written about their animals being a lifeline, about how they survived isolation because their pets fulfilled needs for talking, touch and companionship. This offers perspective on the human- animal bond in the context of covid-19 induced isolation.

There’s considerable research, as well as the commonly-held opinion, that having pets can result in potential physical and mental health benefits, and can improve the well-being of their humans. Pets can be a source of social and emotional support, love, stability, and routine. It’s possibly one of the reasons that worldwide trends of the search term “adopt a dog” were significantly higher as compared to previous years. In India too, we have seen a growth in both dog and cat ownership—be it buying or adoption —with people not facing the usual barriers of pet parenting such as time spent out of the home.

So, are pet parents faring better with the disruption of daily life patterns and routines? With drastic financial pressures, social and emotional loneliness, the loss of control, will pet parents emerge with greater resilience because of the role pets play in their lives? First, it’s important to point out that living with pets and having strong bonds with them can also lead to emotional distress and psychological vulnerability. For most pre-existing cat or dog owners here in India, other than the common stressors of covid-19, many were struggling with procuring pet food, accessing veterinary care, and being unable to walk their dogs in public. Groups of pet parents banded together to discuss strategies for pet care if they fell ill, or were taken in for institutional quarantine, and many families suffered the compounded distress of being covid-19 positive and being unable to care for their pets. There’s also the long term worry in the mind of many—what will happen to my pet when I resume going out and inhabiting a post-covid world?

These concerns must be seen in light of the fact that distress and mental health concerns of pet parents negatively affect the well-being of their companion animals. Multiple studies in the West have found that pets have experienced stress-related behavioral changes during covid-19. Some of the common behavioral issues seen during this time have been excessive barking or mewing, fear of sounds, destructiveness, need for attention, generally being easily excitable or easily frustrated or nervous.

While some of these behaviours are connected to the pet parent’s mental health, they’re also a consequence of changing human patterns that affect the animals daily routines, confinement to home, additional time and space shared with other humans in the home, combined with decreased interactions with external persons, animals and environments. While the above may imply that pet cats have it easier than dogs as cats tend to live only indoors—this is not true as most cats have had to deal with increased human contact, touch and attention—which they cannot escape from or limit especially as their human are leaning on their pets increasingly for support.

The more the human relies on the pet to cope, the more the bond between them may intensify, but also may put strain on the animal. The increased reliance will also worsen the cycle of distress for both the pet and parent as people start to go out more as vaccines become available, or more spaces accommodate distancing. Both the pet parent and pet will see a change in their routines and each could potentially develop separation anxiety.

Such stressors are already visible for the young puppies or kittens who became part of homes during the pandemic. These young animals and their families may be the most susceptible to such vulnerabilities as the animals spent their formative months in lockdown and isolation. Such pets have spent much time confined in homes with a small group of humans, being lavished with attention and barely seeing strangers, hearing traffic or being around other animals. Now as we venture out knowing more about how covid-19 is transmitting, young dogs are becoming overwhelmed by the world, causing bad leash walking, inability to adapt to going to the outside the home, nervousness, fear and aggression. Cats may hide, be fearful or have problems using their litter box as we have family or visitors over. The animals distress and inability to accompany or be alongside the human in such ‘normal’ situations, increases the humans frustration and stress levels. In the long term, an intense, imbalanced bond can increase stress and anxiety on a daily basis for both human and pet as well as fatigue and strain from trying to change a pets behaviours. Some humans may also face pressure from partner, family and neighbours regarding a pet’s problematic behaviour or may have to live with tensions within the family over the pet. That being said, don’t hit the panic button if you’re a new pet parent, or if your trusted companion of many years is showing signs of stress. Remember that you cannot lean on only one person, or only your pet. You need multiple coping strategies to deal with the pandemic and its long term effects. Look at what your cat’s or dog’s behaviour is telling you about their emotional needs. Even as the world opens up and we reset boundaries of spatiality, time and resilience, remember that this too will require mental and emotional labour from you and your pet.