Buffy, a 3-month-old kitten, is being weighed by Mary Dow, director and volunteer at the Independent Animal Rescue clinic in Durham. (Photo by Danelis Olivera-Herrera.) Wednesday, May 1, 2024 By Danelis Olivera-Herrera Animals surrendered to animal control or abandoned often face fending for themselves on the streets or death. North Carolina is one of many states where the demand for animal rescue exceeds available fostering and adoption resources, particularly in the Triangle, Wilmington, Winston-Salem and Charlotte areas. Various shelters and sanctuaries in North Carolina offer temporary refuge for abandoned pets until they can be adopted, serving just about every type of animal from the usual household pets like cats and dogs, to pigs and goats. Independent Animal Rescue, Durham Independent Animal Rescue (IAR), one of the older nonprofit animal rescues in the Triangle area, is located in Durham and was founded in 1994. The organization is a foster-based rescue that was historically staffed by volunteers but recently was able to hire paid staff. Lex Tamvakis is among those paid staff members, serving as fundraising and communications manager. “We’ve already brought in, I think, more dogs in the past three months than we did for the first three months of the year last year,” Tamvakis said. “We’re seeing an increase in requests from owners who have to surrender their animals for different reasons that are requesting that we can intake them.” IAR currently has under its care 205 animals – 160 cats and 45 dogs – but some of them are not available for adoption until various health issues are addressed. IAR also holds cat clinics every other Sunday for feral cats or those found roaming a neighborhood. Like many nonprofits, IAR seeks the support of the community in many ways, not just those wanting to adopt a pet. “We take some things that maybe are not as common today in animal rescue. We are always in need of old hand towels or bath towels that we use for animals to recover after surgery.” Tamvakis said. Animal City Haven, Charlotte Animal City Haven (ACH) in Charlotte, a foster-based rescue that is also run by volunteers, is not your typical shelter. It cares for animals whose owners have died and don’t have family who can adopt their pets. People with pets and nobody to pass them along to, can make arrangements with ACH in advance. Also, if ACH board members learn about animals who have gone to other shelters for this reason, they will take in those animals, too. “We offer security to pet parents to ensure that their pet will not go to animal control if something should happen to them,” said Leah Henrichsen, founder and president of ACH. Henrichsen came up with the idea for the organization as she herself doesn’t have family in the area. “And if something happens to me, all of my pets would go to animal control because there is no other option,” Henrichsen said. “There was nobody like us that said, ‘Hey, it’s OK, we’ll protect them, we’ll find them a home’” People who contact ACH ahead of time are asked about their plans for the pet’s future, whether they have godparents for the pet or want it re-homed, and if they have multiple pets that should be kept together. “We create a forever care plan for each pet, sort of telling us, Animal City, what to do in the case of an emergency,” Henrichsen said. The nonprofit has a small board, and it’s the members of the board along with a few volunteers who care for most of the animals until they can be placed. This limits how many animals the group can help. “We are pretty limited with how many of those kinds of pets that we can help because we don’t have all the money in the world to do that,” Henrichsen said. “But how we do it is through our foster care program, and that is the only way we can do this work—through people saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll take that pet into my house and house that pet until they are adopted out.’” According to Henrichsen, donations are not a dependable source of income. While always welcomed, they are not sustainable, and the organization has faced challenges reaching a wider audience. Chihuahua Rescue and Transport This is also true for Chihuahua Rescue and Transport (CRT), whose mission is to rescue Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes throughout three regions in the United States — Midwest, Southeast and Southwest — since 1996. “We used to do really well on, like, T-shirt fundraisers. We did calendars with our past dogs and did really well within the last two to three years, but those fundraisers are just nothing like they used to be in our in-person events,” said Scott Frye, board member and president of CRT. “They’re [people] very, and with good reason, are really cautious with their money. Our donations are way down big time, so it’s taken a financial hit and we’ve had to really, the last couple of months, step back.” CRT currently has 80 dogs in foster homes, with 21 of them being considered for hospice care because of their age or general physical condition. Eva Cushman, a CRT volunteer, is the “queen” of hospice sanctuary, according to Frye. Although not part of her volunteer duties, Cushman stays in touch with the adoptees and even dog sits the beloved pets when their owners are out of town. “Every single one of them, of those dogs has a piece of my heart, and they have in some way changed me. As long as I’m breathing, I will keep helping them and taking them,” Cushman said. Cushman said she’s a “Chihuahua girl at heart” and has been throughout her life, but some days, the constant presence of death weighs on her. During Hurricane Florence, a CRT foster home was severely impacted, and the foster parent and her neighbor had to wait for the Cajun Navy Relief to rescue them from heavy flooding. “We… Continue reading Shelters in North Carolina provide temporary refuge for abandoned pets as demand rises
