On Saturday April 21st the County and City of Los Angeles Animal Service came together to host a free vaccination clinic for dog owners living in Watts. This was the first of four monthly clinics planned for this high intake area. Downtown Dog Rescue was one of the nonprofit organizations involved in the project. The original plan was for the dog owner to purchase a $20 dog license and get their dog vaccinated and microchipped free of charge. Sounds like a great deal right? I thoughts so and we expected hundreds of dogs. I envisioned a line stretching down the sidewalk of 103rd street, maybe as far as Ted Watkins Memorial Park. Instead, we had two families holding their tiny Chihuahuas, waiting to be the first customers. At first, there were no big dogs, the types of dogs that I see roaming the streets every time I’m in the neighborhood.
WAKE THEM UP FIRST!
If the dogs didn’t show up, we had to go and get them, wake them up is what Dog Man said. He did just that. Volunteer Mike Parker and Dog Man took one of the banners that read, Rabies Clinic today 9-2:00, strapped it to Mike’s car and drove through Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens. Dog Man got out of the car and started knocking on doors, basically waking people up to get dog owners to come out with their dogs to the clinic. Back at the clinic, volunteers Keith and Olivia stood in the street, with the second banner stretched out, shouting out DOG CLINIC! to the passing cars.
AND THEY CAME FROM NEAR AND FAR!
30 minutes later, we had the pit bull owners showing up, more Chihuahuas, including Mr Bolton and his “family” of Chihuahuas. When he fist showed up, he was angry because he wanted to continue to breed his dogs. Both Larry and Dog Man spoke to him, preparing him for me to wrap up our agreement, he would agree to get all of his dog fixed at the Amanda Foundation mobile clinic. The problem he faced was no money for the dog licenses. In fact, lots of people did not have the $20 to pay for the dog license. Early on, we knew that the original plan of charging the dog owners $25 for a microchip which is optional would fail, so Downtown Dog Rescue and the Shelter Animal Advocacy Fund teamed up together to raise enough money to microchip 350 dogs living in Watts.
BUT WAIT! THE $20 CHALLENGE
The challenge we faced yesterday was, do we turn the dog owners away who can’t pay the $20 or do I walk down to Chase at the corner of Compton and 103rd street and withdraw some cash? I went to the ATM and the dogs were licensed, since our goal was to get as many dogs as possible vaccinated, chipped and licensed. It’s not that the dog owners want everything free, they just don’t have the money to pay right now. One dog owner had $4, another told me that she could pay me back the $20 over the course of three months. $20 may not be a lot of money to me or you, but it’s a lot when one is living in Section 8, on SSI or GR or is homeless, living in the park, as one dog owner confided to a volunteer. For eight years she had lived with her Chihuahua in the park.
Another man, holding his pit bull extremely tight with a harness strapped around his dog upside down, announced that he was so glad that his dog now had all of her shots and a dog license because now he could set her free in her yard and he would not need to chain her up all the time. This dog was not a puppy, however someone, somewhere had told him not to let his dog out of the yard or meet other dogs until she had all of her shots or she could get parvo. I’m assuming that’s why he kept her chained up.
Another dog owner had more than three pit bulls and wanted to keep all of the puppies in left in the litter too. Teri Austin took the time to explain how this wouldn’t work when the dogs all became adults and because of Teri, the dog owner agreed to allow one of our volunteers to pick up some of the pups and bring them out to the Best Friends Super Adoption this weekend. The goal is to get her numbers down and keep the dogs out of the shelter system since they are now all spayed/neutered, vaccinated and micro chipped.
If the idea is to promote pet responsibility and get more dog owners into the system so we can get an accurate count of how many dogs live in Watts and return the dogs when they end up in the shelter, shouldn’t there be a way to make the first year of a dog license free in some of the poorest areas of the City? I guarantee you if the clinic was not set up at Yo Watts on Saturday most if not all of the people who got their dogs licensed would never have gotten this done. More importantly, they would have continued to lack the knowledge of why spay/neuter is so important and what resources are available.
EVERYONE CAN LOVE A DOG
Some of you reading this blog entry may say to yourself, why do these poor people own dogs if they can’t afford to take care of them. Too often we hear the stories of the neighbor that moved and left the dog tied up in a backyard for a week with no food or water, or the dog that just decided to live in the person’s yard because they were too tied to run the streets or too sick and the kind person who yes, has no money to properly care for the dog, takes the dog into their home, something that we call rescue in other parts of the City. Most of the people that I spoke to had rescued their dogs in their neighborhood or were the result of an unplanned and unwanted litter. In most cases, they were not aware of the free spay/neuter program. Almost everyone was willing to sterilize their dogs, some were thrilled about the idea of no more puppies. There was no need to entice the people with prizes or free food, what they needed was a free $20 dog license. What we also needed was more community outreach like Dog Man did in the projects, followed by more peer to peer counseling. If we expect to educate and inform the dog owners, especially the “big dog” owners who own Rottweilers, Pit bulls and other power breeds that mostly men own and often breed, it doesn’t make sense for me or any of the other dog rescue ladies to talk them into spaying/neutering their dogs. It also makes no sense that we can set up a clinic for a day and expect to force people to change their values and concepts about animals.
AND CARE FOR THEM THE RIGHT WAY ARMED WITH INFORMATION
I really admired the way that Larry Hill spoke to two young men who had spike collars around their pit bulls necks that looked like a porcupine they had such long pointy spikes. I had spoken to one of the guys the first time they passed by the gate on 103rd and he warned me about how aggressive his dog was and that I should be careful. I tried to talk to him but had the good sense to call Larry to come over then he took over. The next thing I know, they are walking into the lot towards our table and not only are they interested in training their dogs, they want to get them spayed. Dog Man also talked to them about their choice of equipment for their dogs. Another example of a great volunteer team coming together to give the correct information to the community who lacks the access to resources often due to a lack of transportation and a lack of where to find the resources. Getting more dogs, especially more big dogs sterilized, vaccinated and licensed is going to require more connecting with the community on a very personal level, visiting schools and churches and just walking the neighborhood. Officer Jordan from Harbor and Tomika our New Hope coordinator at SLA shelter did a fantastic job at getting the word out and I had dog owners approach me to ask to speak to them personally. Check out the photos taken by Lesley Brog a karma Rescue volunteer. They tell a story of great team work!
AND RESOURCES….
There will be three more clinics on Saturday May 19th, Saturday June 16th and Saturday July 21st. The Amanda Foundation mobile clinic will be doing lots of free spay/neuter surgeries, usually more than half their clinic is full of pit bulls and no one is turned away until the vet just can’t do anymore surgeries which translates to 40 or more! The rabies, DHHP will be free, we need to continue to raise money for more microchips and dog licenses. With more community outreach, we should see much bigger numbers at the May 19th clinic.
PLEASE HELP US….
If you would like to donate directly to pay for microchips /licenses, please donate at http://www.saafla.org/ Buy a Street Dog Wrist band and prevent a dog living in Watts from ever becoming a street dog.
I want to send out a special thank you to every volunteer who came out to the clinic and worked in the hot sun to make our day special.
