43,000 Animals Placed Last Year : Rescue League Finds Home for Every Orphan

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.--Mehitabel, a calico cat, arrived by taxi from New York City with a $100 bill around her neck. The note asked the North Shore Animal League to find her a good home.

The anonymous owner knew that this nonprofit organization, totally supported by voluntary contributions, never destroys an animal.

Others do not arrive in such style. They are simply tied outside in the cold of night. No note, no donation, just a trusting dog waiting for an owner’s return, a return that will never happen. That final pat, if there was one, was goodby.

And if that’s not enough to handle, North Shore has five vans that daily go to dog pounds to rescue animals on “death row.” The league spends $60,000 a year in pound fees alone gathering the doomed. Some of them, anyway.

Sheer Volume

What sets the North Shore Animal League apart from other equally noble operations throughout the country is sheer volume. Its directors say it places more animals in homes than any other shelter in the world. Consider these statistics:

- It placed more than 43,000 animals in 1987, although it can only kennel 400 animals at a time, with another 100 in its foster home system.

- An animal’s average stay at the league is less than three days.

- The kennel operation runs a $3.5-million deficit each year, but its creative fund-raising and direct-mail campaigns pull in $5 million.

- The league spends half a million dollars a year placing ads and mails out more than 30 million pleadings to potential donors each year.

- It is open 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

- The average contribution by adopters is $17.

Despite the good work, the league’s animal-loving staff is quick to point out that its effort scarcely makes a dent in the slaughter of unwanted pets in this country.

The American Humane Society, based in Denver, estimates that about 20 million unwanted dogs and cats are put to death each year.

The league works hard to educate people to neuter their pets and its credo is that there is no such thing as an unadoptable animal. It’s the league’s job to match the right animal with the right person. It matched a deaf dog with a deaf woman who was not only able to teach it tricks by hand signals, she also taught it to bark, just as she had been taught to talk.

The great majority of its animals are perfectly healthy, but the league has managed to place three-legged dogs, a 12-year-old Newfoundland, a great Pyrenees that couldn’t walk and a cat with a bladder problem. One recent day, a cat lover named Donna Taffen of Queens came in and asked for the least adoptable cat. She took home a 7-month-old calico with a prolapsed eye.

“When an animal has been here for a while, the associates ask me to help. If I can get its picture in the paper or call it ‘Pet of the Week,’ that usually works,” said Betty Rosenzweig, the director of adoptions who has worked at the shelter for nearly 20 years.

She is also a born saleswoman as she roams the compound, with praise for this dog or that cat.

“We are all salesmen in a sense, except that our commission is the satisfaction that up to 300 dogs and cats are adopted on some days,” said Michael Arms, director of operations.

Some big hound and shepherd mixes, “all-Americans” as the league calls the non-breeds, have been waiting five or six months. But the league knows that eventually someone will fall for one of these big mongrels.

Purebreds Move Quickly

Some breeds, like Yorkshire terriers and poodles, move so fast that they often never see the inside of a cage. The same for purebred Persian and Siamese cats.

Alan Cooper, 24-year-old graduate student in psychology and currently kennel manager, said that when he walked into the league five years ago, it was the best thing he ever did.

He has seen cruelty and animal abuse, but also nobility he never expected.

“One man came in one day and asked for the ugliest dog we had. He wanted to adopt it and he did,” Cooper recalled. “Actually, he was a 5- or 6-year-old terrier mix and it was so ugly, it was almost cute.”

Another asked for the dog that had been there the longest. Another requested the fattest cat. A blind man specified he wanted the dog with the most beautiful eyes.

When Cooper began here, he drove one of the vans that rescue doomed dogs from the pounds. Workers on that duty usually burn out quickly, he said.

“They’re told they can only bring 10 dogs back and the pound might have 40 dogs that are going to be put to sleep. It’s awful to make that choice,” he said. “They usually bring back 14 instead of 10, but they know there is no room for all 40.”

The North Shore Animal League is truly a national organization. Contributions and animals come in from many parts of the country, and because of the league’s reputation, people often adopt their pets here while on vacation.

The not-so-secret ingredients behind its success are Alex and Babette Lewyt, a well-to-do couple who came to Port Washington to retire in the late ‘60s. Lewyt made his fortune as an inventor, with 200 patents to his credit, including the Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner. Babette Lewyt took one look at the old North Shore League, a down-at-the-heels operation that was about to go under, and set out to transform it.

“Both of them would work here from dawn to dusk, cleaning out cages and doing everything that needed to be done,” Rosenzweig said. “He took out the first ad in the New York Times under the adoption columns, advertising a free golden retriever and some other purebreds. The ad cleared out the shelter.”

Hodgepodge of Rooms

In business since 1944, the league’s physical plant is not much to look at--a gerrymandered hodgepodge of rooms with cages stacked atop each other. It’s on a side street in a Long Island bedroom community about 20 miles from Manhattan. The original building was donated by a San Francisco woman. One individual left the league $200,000 in a will.

The league has strict guidelines. One out of five potential adopters is turned down. It is no coincidence that the man working the parking lot is an off-duty policeman. Punches have been thrown when someone was rejected.

Besides precautions, there is a “dowry,” including a leash, collar, ID tag, starting food, a training book and a 30-day health insurance policy. But they also check references right there on the spot, making one area resemble a bookie operation. On occasion, they make on-site follow-up calls. This accounts for a return rate of only 6%.

Arms, partial to Newfoundlands, worried when his favorite was adopted by a Queens couple. He drove by the house and found the dog chained outside on cement with the new owners at work. An 8-foot cyclone fence enclosed the area.

Arms telephoned the pair, fibbing about a faulty blood test, and asked the couple to bring the dog in for further checking. Then he snatched the Newfoundland back and delivered a lecture to the highly displeased couple.

Stabbed by Three Men

Arms can be a tough guy when it comes to rescuing dogs. When he worked for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the Bronx, he was stabbed by three men who were betting on how long a wounded dog would live. They objected to Arms’ interference with the outcome.

The league also backs its orphans. For $15 adoptive owners can bring their dog back for obedience training for as long as necessary. Such training can cost as much as $50 an hour elsewhere.

The league will also neuter an animal for a token fee--$30 for a female, $20 for a male. “And if you can’t afford that, it gets even cheaper,” Arms said. “Free.”

Once in a while, workers let instinct replace checking.

Such was the case with Bruce and Monsita Abramski and their three children of Central Islip, N.Y.

A Puppy for Family

Both adults were experienced dog owners, the children all loved grandma’s dog, and they were about to move into a larger and more secluded home where Monsita Abramski would be all alone with the children. They wanted a puppy that would grow up with the children and mature into a big watchdog.

They settled on a chubby, big-boned, mostly black pup, about 6 weeks old, with telltale big paws, and to judge by looking, lots of shepherd genes.

Jessica, the oldest at 8, took over as family spokesperson and declared the puppy would be named Tramp.

“We will all vote on the name,” her father corrected as six little hands all reached in unison to pet the new addition, whose sad brown eyes looked a bit overwhelmed.

Monsita Abramski shook her head.

“Do you think the puppy is up to these kids?”