Giving Tuesday is coming up and Seattle’s animals would appreciate having your support this year! For those who may not know, Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving or generosity, and in 2023, Giving Tuesday falls on November 28th. Giving Tuesday is an opportunity for us all to consider how we can help support the causes we care about—and here at the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation (SASF), we want to utilize this important day to promote animal welfare and care!
This year, our goal is to raise at least $5,000— and the first $2,500 donated will be matched by generous supporters!
Your donation helps pets like Pandora. Pandora was rescued by the Seattle Animal Shelter (SAS) with her three tiny kittens from under a highway. Sadly, her babies were incredibly sick. They tested positive for Feline Panleukopenia, a highly contagious virus that is so often deadly to young and immune compromised animals. With such severe symptoms and little to no chance of surviving, to alleviate their suffering, SAS veterinary staff made the difficult decision to humanely euthanize the kittens.
Pandora when she first came in to the shelter
Pandora needed an immediate foster home to keep her quarantined away from other cats and to improve her chances of staying healthy. An amazing volunteer, Heidi, graciously took her as a foster. With close counseling from SAS’s Foster Program Coordinator (a position made possible by donations to SASF), the SAS Behaviorist (another position funded thanks to SASF donations), and the dedicated cat foster lead volunteer, Heidi supported Pandora and helped her affectionate nature shine through.
Pandora, after some time in foster
Pandora was then listed on the SAS website and found an adopter! All the behavior notes and strategies were shared with the adopters to help her succeed in her new home. Soon, Pandora was choosing to be on the bed with her new kitty sibling. Quite a collaborative adoption success story!
Pandora settling into her new home
On this Giving Tuesday, please consider being one of our matching donors so we can meet our $5,000 goal and can continue to create animal success stories like Pandora’s. We appreciate any level of support!
The Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation financially supports programs at the Seattle Animal Shelter (SAS) through yearly grants. One highly impactful grant supports SAS’s “Shelter Diversion” program and its Owner Support Fund, which started in 2020 and continues today.
In 2020, the uncertainty and drastic adjustments were tempered by the positive outcome of implemented changes at SAS. These changes included a new way of managing SAS intake requests – which is when owners contact the shelter to surrender their pet. Shelter staff began talking to families considering relinquishing their pets and working with them to find alternatives or to rehome their pets themselves. The grant funds received from the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation, which continued in 2022, made many of these new and expanded services possible.
SAS’s initial goals included:
Reducing shelter intake
Keeping established pets in their homes
Collecting information to better inform future efforts to create programs and services that continue to address goals one and two. Specifically, to:
Identify the top reasons for owner surrender to SAS and the most common needs expressed by pet owners surrendering animals.
Track how often the family leaves the shelter with their pet and resources, versus how often intake was the solution.
Use information obtained to better assess SAS’s ability to provide solutions for every family that needs help.
SAS has learned a lot from administering this grant over the past few years. The initial strategy of working with owners who called the shelter about relinquishing their pets had limited success. SAS discovered that by the time people called about surrendering a pet, they had often already made up their mind and were not open to accepting support for alternatives. SAS’s initial tracking indicated that 63% of the recipients declined support and wanted to proceed with the surrender. SAS heard comments like “We’re at the end of our rope” and “I just can’t do it anymore.”
SAS had the greatest success when their Field Officers identified recipients while working with them in the field where pet owners are being offered support before pursuing punitive measures.
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In 2022, assistance was provided for pet medical needs, pet behavior support, and emergency short-term pet boarding. Not surprisingly veterinary care was the single greatest need requested. The cost of veterinary care is significant and represents one of the challenges of sustaining a program like this, especially as people become more aware of the opportunities for support. While parameters may need to be put in place, this often is not helpful to the pet owner in need who cannot neither afford any amount nor have any further capacity to incur debt via credit cards etc. Solutions to these challenges will exist through partnerships and collaborations that help to leverage funding and the possible expansion of SAS’s own veterinary team and the reevaluation of services they are able to provide to the public.
“Without the help of the Owner Support Fund, I could have never kept Bella! I was having a really tough financial year with health issues when I found Bella, an 8-month-old cat abandoned next to an apartment dumpster, left in a carrier with no note or water. The apt manager where I found her saw video of a tenant bringing her out and leaving her with the trash. SAS made it possible for her to receive essential medical care, so I could keep her. I hope the funding continues so that you can help more people keep their pets!”
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Behavioral support was the next most common need identified. Concerns included: Aggression to people and/or pets, separation anxiety, barking, and reactivity.
“I am beyond grateful for the assistance that the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation’s Owner Support Fund has offered me and my dog, Koda. He is an adult husky with severe separation anxiety and has trouble walking in unfamiliar neighborhoods. So, an overall very nervous pup. The assistance fund came to me during a critical time. He was getting more destructive, and his stress and anxiety was pouring into me to the point I thought I should rehome him after the 8 years of having him. The fund helped me afford an amazing trainer that I would otherwise not have been able to afford on my own. My dog means the world to me and seeing him less stressed on our walks and unfazed when I leave home truly gives me peace of mind. This program not only helped Koda become a more confident dog, but it helped me become happier and healthier mentally. I can only hope more people get to utilize this program and get a second chance like Koda and I did.”
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Without the support provided through the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation funding this program, many pets would have been relinquished or may even have suffered through medical conditions or other substandard conditions. One of the additional benefits of this program is that it enabled SAS staff, particularly field officers, to create positive relationships in the community.
An essential ingredient to reducing intake is shelter diversion. As the old saying goes—an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And to cure animal homelessness, we must continually invest in programs that address the root causes of that homelessness. This is how we move the needle of lifesaving forward—and keep it there.
Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation’s support of crucial shelter diversion programs assures our community can meet the growing needs that exist for pets and the people who love them. By providing as many resources and services as possible, we reduce the barriers to keeping pets and people together, healthy, and safe.
