Making a Difference in Your Community : Newspaper Finds Owners for Ailing Pets
At first blush, this newspaper reads like any other whose ads aim to join the lonely with the hopeful.
“Loves to go for rides in the car and walks in the country,” reads the type under Levi’s photograph. Clifton “would love to be your jogging companion.” Midge is a “laugh-a-minute girl, always ready for a lark.”
But look a little closer. Look at Patch, whose ad boasts that not only is he housebroken, he’s neutered too.
Call it the Doggie Personals.
These animals are looking for love and companionship and they don’t particularly care if you like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain.
Every other month, Muttmatchers Messenger runs dozens of ads featuring abandoned, often abused pets that are up for adoption. Dogs, cats, thoroughbred horses, even an earless rabbit named Chipper, are packed into the tabloid pages.
The newspaper’s three editions reach 55,000 homes in Southern California, and 25,000 each in San Diego County and Washington state.
The photographs are adorable, the lines catchy, but the stories are often tragic, say volunteers with the nonprofit organization that publishes Muttmatchers, Humane Animal Rescue Team (HART), which takes animals referred from social service agencies.
A “no-kill” organization, HART does not euthanize animals and will only work with groups that subscribe to the same philosophy.
HART relies on foster homes to take animals until permanent homes can be found.
Deborah Sutton, who operates one of only two HART foster homes in the San Fernando Valley, took in a young shepherd mix named Bob less than a year ago. She kept Bob two months before a friend adopted him.
“I always feel good about getting them safe,” said the Van Nuys legal secretary who saved dogs on her own before joining HART three years ago. “The best part was finding a home that was a good one, where I knew he’d be happy and I knew the owners were happy. That’s very satisfying.”
Sally Deutz of Simi Valley has given a dozen dogs temporary homes in her five years with HART. She now cares for an arthritic dog named Spice and a 12-year-old Chihuahua mix with a heart condition.
She’s become so attached to Spice that she plans to keep her. The other dog will probably also live out her life with Deutz because she has little chance of adoption, Deutz said.
“I get a real satisfaction knowing Spice is here with me rather than in a cold concrete kennel. I think all these oldsters deserve that,” she said. “They deserve to know before they die that somebody loves them.”
Suzanne Kane, who founded HART 10 year ago, agrees.
Kane, now 52, got her first older dog at age 2, when she went to pick a puppy and learned that the family didn’t want the mother dog any longer.
“Guess what I came home with,” said the Fillmore resident.
Since then, she’s been trying to persuade people that large, old or disabled dogs aren’t disposable. She points to HART’s mascot, 9-year-old, 110-pound Mikey, as an example.
“He represents what is traditionally considered a throwaway,” Kane said. “We don’t consider him a throwaway. We consider him a jewel.”
But someone literally did throw Mikey away three years ago.
“Somebody just stopped the truck and dumped him out (by the road). And he just sat there. And he waited. He waited for them to come back,” she said. “And of course they didn’t.”
HART needs volunteers to take in animals, distribute newspapers and to interview potential owners. For more information, contact (805) 524-4542.
Other volunteering opportunities:
Burbank’s Retired Senior Volunteer Program needs a woodworker or craftsman 60 or older to work one afternoon a week at the Burbank Center for the Retarded. Contact Dee Call at (818) 953-9503.
