Downtown Dog Rescue Compton Community Dog Clinic 2012
by Lori Weise
Last Saturday was our first free spay/neuter clinic in Compton in 2012. It was very successful, which we could have predicted since we had 75 people on our waiting list left over from last month and many more on hold for our next clinic this month, scheduled for January 28th. Back in 2006, when we hosted our first clinic in the parking lot of Tower of Faith church on Rosecrans, we were lucky to fill the clinic. Thousands of flyers had blanketed the schools and neighborhood to net about 30 appointments but we didn’t give up, despite what a lot of haters warned us about. Thousands of dogs living within the ten square miles of Compton later, we see a the social change that has occurred. People want to spay/neuter their dogs, well most people do. It would be too much of a fairy tale to report that every dog owner is going to spay/neuter.
The highlight of every clinic for me are the children that come almost every month to hang out, say hi, get some treats to take home to their dogs that have already visited our clinic but most of all, say hi to my big man, Clancy. From listening to me tell them about the Downey shelter and just seeing all the homeless dogs in their neighborhood, they know, there are not enough homes for all the dogs even the puppies that live in Compton. I have explained that there is no way our kennel could ever take in all the dogs living in Compton that have been “thrown away” The children get it. The relationships that we have built by being in the park the second Saturday of every month has resulted in our clinics being full every month and hopefully, a further decline in the euthanasia rate for stray pit bulls and Chihuahuas entering the Downey shelter (Compton’s shelter).
1500 of these two breeds entered the shelter and were euthanized in 2010. Our grant from Petsmart will help cover the cost of […]
FRIDAY BOW DOWNS FROM DOWNTOWN DOG RESCUE!
DDR would like to thank longtime Spay/Neuter Clinic volunteer extraordinaire, Ivania Revuelta for obtaining a TIME WARNER’s Employee Volunteer grant and designating Downtown Dog Rescue as a recipient!
GRANT DESCRIPTION
You Care, We Care
Each year, thousands of Time Warner employees around the world make a
difference in their communities by volunteering at charitable organizations.
As a testament to our employee’s dedication, Time Warner provides
Employee Volunteer Grants of up to $1,000 to qualifying organizations
where employees volunteer.
Ivania has faithfully staffed our low-income, Spay & Neuter clinic in Compton the 2nd Saturday of each month plus listen to hotline Spanish inquiry after inquiry then returning calls with information for our Spanish speaking clients!
And giving our special thanks for today’s Bowdown is PEPPER and SASHA
who have now been adopted into their lovely forever homes!!!!!!!!
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| Pepper at an adoption event…waiting! |
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| Sasha posing for her adoption plea photo! Waiting! |
From PEPPER & SASHA:
Thanks so much to Ivania!
You are Lori’s right hand woman at the clinics and we’re glad for it!
Here we are now!!!!!!
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| Sasha with her own blanky, couch, ball and home! |
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| Pepper with her very own pillow and dada (mama took the picture) and her own home! |
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!
-We’re saving Downtown Dogs,
one dog at a time
with your […]
LORI’S CORNER: February is national spay/neuter awareness month
One month ago, I loaded up Kirby into a crate in my car after she was spayed in the park in Compton. The man that brought her to the clinic, Daniel, was not her owner, nonetheless, she adored him and his dog and was upset when he filled out the paperwork and drove off. He would have loved to keep her, since she got along beautifully with his dog but he was living in his van, parking at a truck yard in Compton until he could find work as a cross country truck driver. The recession hit him hard, all he had in life was his cell phone, his van and his beloved dog. Then Kirby walked into his life. He could not bear to watch her have another litter of pups so he started to call around to see who could spay her for free. The Coalition for Pets and Public Safety sent him out to us and we gladly spayed and vaccinated her at no charge. Proving my belief that free is often the only way that high volume spay/neuter will work and reaching out to the most needy is often achieved only when using a mobile clinic.
February is national spay/neuter awareness month and there are lots of great programs out there providing low cost and even free spay/neuter services but it’s only for a month. Many people who need the services the most can’t find a clinic or can’t pay the “low cost” Most regular vets charge hundreds of dollars to spay a large breed dog and the most needy dog owners living in underserved areas of Los Angeles don’t have that kind of money so they wait and often this results in accidental litter of puppies. I listened to a call this week on our hotline. The caller sounded desperate, he can’t deal with more litters of puppies, there have been too many and he needs to “fix the situation” . If he can’t fix his situation, he finished his message by letting us know that he would have no choice but to take his dog to the pound.
I strongly believe that there is a small percentage of people who actually want to breed their dogs for money. Most people, if given the option to sterilize their dog and it’s free, very close to their home and extremely convenient, they […]
FRIDAY BOW DOWNS FROM DOWNTOWN DOG RESCUE!
In the New Year, we will phase out FRIDAY THANK YOU’S
and usher in
DDR’s FRIDAY BOW DOWNS!
This is our opportunity to thank our supporters, volunteers,
donors and friends for helping us
continue the work we do
assisting dogs and their owners…without all of you,
we would not be able to continue the work we do!
So to get 2011 off to a good start…
DDR would like to thank
for funding our Compton Community Dog Clinics
starting tomorrow January 8, 2011!
Our Compton Clinic is funded through their
Broad Based Spay/Neuter Initiative:
The Heigl Foundation is pledging $1 million towards no cost spay/neuter initiatives throughout Los Angeles City and County and neighboring areas. These initiatives will be available to residents living within designated zip codes serviced by the applicable City and County shelters. Spay/neuter, vaccination and microchipping services will be provided by partner mobile clinics, partner veterinary practices and existing clinics.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!
-We’re saving Downtown Dogs,
one dog at a time
with your help!-
LORI’S CORNER: My afternoon with Edgar and Queeny
On Saturday afternoon, Clancy and I paid a visit to Edgar’s home, where he met me with Queeny, who was eager to go on a walk and show me the neighborhood. Edgar had warned me about his neighborhood. He pointed out a couple guys that were Blood Piru and some tagging on the walls. We walked to the end of the block when he told me about his 17 year old friend who had been killed by gang members, shot several times in the chest, mistaken identity, since his friend was not a gang member. VERY sad.
We crossed the street to the community center where we are planning to host a free spay/neuter day for pit bulls living in the City of Hawthorne. He told me about the alley across from the parking lot where a young girl had been raped recently. All within a short walk from his apartment. As we walked back to his apartment, he showed me the area where Queeny had been attacked by two pit bulls less than a month ago. Thankfully, both Queeny and Edgar were not injured but the dogs were taken to the shelter and have probably been euthanized since this wasn’t their first time out of the street, threatening public safety. Edgar knows their owner. According to Edgar, they are not bad dogs but they got unlucky and had a really bad neglectful owner.
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| Edgar and Queenie supporting Downtown Dog Rescue “Team Clancy” in STRUT YOUR MUTT 2010 |
I truly believe that in most cases where a pit bull or really any loose dog attacks a person or another dog there is a bad owner. I’m not referring to accidents where someone lost control of their leash, Edgar had two loose dogs jump on top of his little Queeny and try to tear her apart. I wasn’t on the street long to notice, everyone that passed by us had a pit bull and I can’t say that everyone looked like they had the best intentions for their dogs.
Edgar has truly taken the lead on our Hawthorne dog clinic. He has already met with the animal control officer who is 100% for the idea of bringing more spay/neuter services to Hawthorne. […]
LOOKING FORWARD TO 2011: BEING OF SERVICE
Our goal in 2011, thanks to the Compassion Revolution Heigl Foundation grant, is to spay/neuter 1000 dogs living in the Compton Community. We are targeting pit bulls, although we will accept all breeds of dogs. Our belief is that if we continue to focus on this community, offering free spay/neuter through a mobile clinic in the park, we will see less unwanted litters of puppies and less pit bulls being euthanized at the Downey shelter (the shelter that services Compton) Free is often not “free enough”, because the
service is free, dog owners will not just show up! We are dedicated to putting the message out, in a way that speaks to the most difficult to reach dog owner, one who may not even have reliable telephone service, forget gmail, hotmail or any e-mail, most of our people are not online. It’s very common to hear this message on our hotline, “I want my dog spayed and neutered” thinking that spay/neuter is one procedure and most are not sure what the procedure is all about. Our next clinic is scheduled for Saturday January 8th. We had so many people left over from December and November, we did no outreach and we still had over 50 names, translating into over 100 dogs on our waiting list.
Can you imagine if we did not spay/neuter 788 dogs in 2010? Even if each dog would have had only one litter in 2011 and each litter was small, 4-5 puppies, that would have translated into 3940 unwanted new dogs in just a 4 mile radius! Considering all the pit bulls that we spayed/neutered, one can guesstimate that the litters would have been a lot larger, 10-12 is more common for a large breed female to produce.
In the humane community, we can all talk about getting more dog owners to spay/neuter but talk is just that, it’s not a plan until one puts the words and thoughts into action, so let’s do it. Let’s get out into some of the most underserved communities and offer more service like Angel Dogs Foundation, Amanda Foundation, Sam Simon Foundation and Found Animal Foundation, all three have mobile clinics operating somewhere every day of the week.
If you are part of a rescue organization or own a business, please consider raising the money to sponsor a free spay/neuter day in an underserved community like Scratch Lounge, a company that donates 10% of the annual profit to free spay/neuter for cats and dogs, targeting pit bulls and cats.
If you can’t pay for a whole day, why not consider sponsoring just one surgery […]
LORI’S CORNER: Compton Dog Owners Are Thankful For Our Free Clinic
While everyone else was getting ready for a big Thanksgiving shopping weekend, the volunteers at Downtown Dog rescue and our mobile clinic team Angel Dogs Foundation were getting ready to spay/neuter a lot of dogs at East Rancho Dominguez Park. When I scheduled the clinic date I had second thoughts, what if no one shows up because of the holiday! I was really wrong! What was I thinking? We had two back to back crazy busy days where once again, we could not service all the dog owners who wanted the free service. We also had a lot of pit bull owners that I’m happy to report, none were turned away due to lack of space or aggression, all were done! Including a couple dogs that needed to be tranquilized in their owners’ cars, what a great team of techs and a great vet!
We spayed/neutered a total of 67 dogs in a grand total of 24 hours, two back to back 12 hour days, in the freezing cold! At the end of each day, the dog owners were so thankful for the free service, including one woman who told me that she had survived cancer, was on disability and had just moved back to Compton to live with her mom who is a senior on a fixed income. Their little terrier means so much to them, they love her but they could not afford to vaccinate or spay her. They had seen our ad in the Pennysaver and like everyone else, out of work, on General Relief, Social Security, underemployed, they appreciate the fact that we were there for their pets.
We will be back in the park to finish up our year of monthly Compton Community Dog Clinics on December 11th, surpassing our original goal of 688 dogs! We estimate that we will perform over 700 spay/neuter surgeries for the dog owners in the Compton Community.
LORI’S CORNER: Behind every Spay/Neuter Clinic are our sponsors
Last Saturday, we had another very successful Compton Community Dog Clinic. Our day was fully booked, of course, we always have a percentage of “no-shows” so we tell people to just show up and wait. The wait list was longer than the available slots, the dogs that we were not able to accommodate will be spayed/neutered at our next double day clinics on November 27th and 28th. The clinic on the 27th is being sponsored by Beth Shaw of Yoga Fit. She generously donated to pay for one complete day of spay/neuter surgeries so that we could accommodate everyone on our list. Angel Dogs Foundation will be our clinic provider that weekend. BARK reading dogs will be coming out on the 27th and we will have lots of giveaways and prizes!
There is always at least one dog at every clinic that is the highlight of our day. On Saturday, it was “Hercules” a Boston Bull Terrier – Pit bull Terrier mix. His owner had no proof of income, spoke no English and brought her daughter with her to translate. They walked up later in the day, when we were already full for the day. Renee the vet tech saw Hercules, opened the door, spoke to the owner in Spanish, came back and said, “Dr. Mori said we can do one more dog!” A dog like Hercules would probably never be neutered if our mobile clinic was not in the park. This is what the Compton Community dog clinic is all about. We are there the second Saturday of every month at East Rancho Dominguez Park on the corner of Atlantic and Compton Blvd from 7:00 AM until 5:00 PM offering free spay/neuter surgeries to Compton dog owners. To date, we have done almost 600 surgeries and will end our year at over 700 surgeries! If you would like volunteer, donate children’s reading /picture books, have new collars, leashes, dog toys to donate, please get in touch with me. We are always in need of giveaways for our Compton Clinic.