ARF Provides the Option of Foster Care for Pets : Animals: The network, which has pro-life policy, hopes to create its own shelter.

Her paws propped against the front-yard fence, Grayce the gangly golden retriever barks a friendly greeting to visitors at the Schurman home in Capistrano Beach.

Inside, Minnie, a deaf and blind 13-year-old cocker spaniel, careens off the furniture like a canine bumper car, and a tiny 4-month-old miniature pinscher, also named Minnie, yelps, her ears perked and her head cocked. Curly, a 9-year-old cockapoo, peers quietly in through the screen door. Lindsey, a black and white cocker, barks like a ruffian watchdog and suddenly barrels toward the front door.

“Don’t mind her, she’s got no teeth,” said Pat Schurman, who is also the proud owner of a parakeet, three cats, two horses and a baby African tortoise.

Ken and Pat Schurman are what is known around here as an ARF family, so designated because they are volunteers for the Animal Rescue Foundation of Dana Point. It is a calling that requires a love of animals and the willingness to do ARF’s work, which consists of taking in at a moment’s notice homeless or lost pets until their owners or a new home can be found.

Nonprofit ARF started two years ago as a kaffeeklatsch, a group of concerned citizens who, as co-founder Glenda Rosen describes it, “used to see the animals on the streets on a daily basis” and resolved to do something about it. Today, ARF has a network of 30 volunteer families like the Schurmans, more than 1,500 dues-paying members, a local cable television show and a proven ability to draw 600 people--with their pets--to a fund-raiser.

“It’s absolutely extraordinary,” said Mission Viejo City Councilwoman Sharon Cody, an animal lover who led the fight to build a shelter in her city. “I have followed the beginnings of a lot of animal organizations, and ARF has been able to achieve things I have never seen anybody achieve. They amaze me.”

All animals that become ARF pets are neutered and given complete physicals and medical treatment before they are placed in foster homes. Veterinary treatment makes up the bulk of ARF’s costs.

“Before we had ARF, the options for someone who had to give up a pet were to take it to the pound, put an ad in the paper or put it to sleep,” said Dr. James Bridge of the Dana-Capistrano Animal Clinic, a veterinarian who works closely with ARF. “Now these people can relinquish the pet to ARF and they will foster it. It’s an option we didn’t have before.”

As a result of its phenomenal growth, ARF is progressing toward its goal of creating its own permanent animal shelter to serve Dana Point. Earlier this month, the Dana Point City Council postponed renewing its annual contract for animal services with the county, and city officials are talking with other South County cities about the feasibility of a regional, pro-life shelter for the area that would be partly staffed by ARF volunteers.

After two years of unsuccessful pleading with Dana Point city officials for help and financial backing, ARF finds itself on the other side of the bargaining coin. Now it is courted by officials of Mission Viejo and San Clemente who seek potential partners to help finance and operate their shelters.

“I really want them here in Mission Viejo,” said Cody, whose city opened its shelter last October. “It makes perfect sense to me. From the beginning, we chose our site because it has expansion possibilities.”

San Clemente city officials have also offered to have ARF become involved with its shelter, and Fire Chief Gene Begnell, who runs the shelter, acknowledged that a regional approach to animal control makes sense.

“We’re trying to see if it’s not a better idea to provide animal services on a regional basis,” Begnell said. “There seems to be an economy of scale and we’re looking at that.”

Most South County animal activists agree that the county, despite the best intentions, does not have the staff to provide service promptly to the area. A county study showed only two animal control officers were covering 350 square miles from the Tustin Ranch to Rancho Santa Margarita to South County, according to Cody.

“Field service is a tremendously important component of animal control,” Cody said. “If an animal is in imminent danger, or is down because it has been hit, we need an officer there right now, not in 45 minutes. Two officers just cannot patrol 350 (square) miles and get where they need to be.”

ARF was started in the first place because of the slow response time and the fact that the county shelter was in Orange, about 40 miles from parts of South County.

That distance, plus the county policy of euthanizing animals, were more than Rosen and the ARF founders could tolerate.

“It was obvious we needed something closer to home, a local shelter or a regional shelter, and it was obvious it was not going to be acted on by the city,” said Rosen, a seven-year resident of Dana Point. “Without a local shelter, animals can be destroyed in three days. So 12 of us got together, believing we have such enormously talented people in this community, we have to find a way to provide these services.”

The root of ARF’s success is the pro-life, humane policy for caring for temporarily unwanted or abandoned pets and its unwavering commitment to help any animal it takes under its wing, Rosen said.

“There are few things that bring us greater joy in life than the unconditional love of a pet,” said Rosen, a licensed therapist who offers pet loss counseling as part of ARF’s services. “We come to this mission from a variety of backgrounds, but we are absolutely a family when it comes to our cause.”

It is the network of families like the Schurmans that provides the framework for ARF’s success, Rosen said. The Schurmans and others provide foster homes for pets that have been abandoned or given up by their owners.

“Volunteers like the Schurmans are our centerpiece, the blood and guts of our organization,” Rosen said. “These are people who work full time and then come home and transfer pets to veterinary clinics or other foster homes. They make ARF what it is.”

About 20 calls a day come in to ARF volunteers from people who have found or lost a pet or who must give up a pet, or from the 21 veterinarians who are affiliated with the program. Every Friday, ARF volunteers make up a list of the animals that are under their care and seeking homes and then distribute the list to area clinics and shelters.

Today, often elderly pets end up at a temporary home like the Schurmans’. Minnie, the deaf and blind cocker spaniel, was destined to be put to sleep, as was Curly the cockapoo, who has been with the Schurmans since Mother’s Day.

“Pets under 5 years old are very easy to place. We have a 100% success rate with them,” said Pat Schurman. “Older ones like Minnie and Lindsey aren’t so easy. But, really, they aren’t so demanding as puppies or kittens, they make wonderful companions and they have a lot of love to give. All they are really asking is to live out their years.”