Not everyone can help animals in their community the same way. As much as the head peep would like to foster, Ashton says, “No way!” So we support homeless and needy animal other ways.
But how do you know how you can help? One way is to reach out to your local shelter or rescue and ask. Maybe your local organization has their own outreach program so that you can learn more about them. That’s what the head peep did recently, signing up to go to an after-hours event at the Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando. The Pet Alliance is the largest shelter organization in Central Florida, and we were excited that they were offering a way to get to know the organization better and understand what they had to offer the community.
The amazing tour took the head peep and other attendees through their public veterinary clinic. A lot of people probably don’t know they even have affordable veterinary services available to the public, and the profits help support their rescue efforts. The tour visited the back areas of the veterinary clinic, too. Our own vet doesn’t usually let people tour through the back of his practice, so this was interesting and educational. The medical director, Dr. Rhoades, talked to the group about the services available through the clinic.
The tour visited the agility yard where dogs who are up for adoption are worked for exercise and to build their confidence.
And the tour also went through the lobby of the adoption center, where a couple cats are on prominent display as soon as you walk in. Here, Executive Director Kerri Burns greets one of the cats in the lobby.
One of the interesting parts of the tour was getting to see the inside of the Pet Alliance’s mobile clinic.
This looks like a motor home on the outside, but inside, it has a surgical table and cages for pets awaiting treatment or recovering from surgeries. The mobile clinic visits underserved areas of the city and does spays and neuters of community cats.
The tour also visited the shelter’s veterinary ward, where the shelter’s veterinarian talked about the different priorities in shelter medicine and how important it is to keep the whole shelter population as healthy as possible.
We learned that every adoptable cat gets at least $254 cost of medical treatment and care (exam, FeLV & FIV blood test, flea treatment, rabies and distemper vaccines, ear mite treatment, fecal and deworming, microchip and spay/neuter, as well as 30 days of pet insurance) and every dog gets $315 of medical care (exam, distemper combo/rabies vaccines, flea treatment, heartworm test, first heartworm preventative, spay/neuter, microchip, and 30 days of pet insurance). That’s a great value for adopters whose adoption fee is nowhere near that much to take home a new family member.
It was a wonderful tour, and a good way to get to know the largest rescue organization in the area. If your local shelter or rescue has an outreach program like this, we highly recommend attending. You may learn ways to support them that you never knew existed!
