Uptick in animals during summer

1. 11/15/15, 9:10 PMSummer uptick in animals leaves Lawrence Humane Society crowded - The University Daily Kansan: News
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Summer uptick in animals leaves Lawrence Humane
Society crowded
By: Madi Schulz | @Mad_Dawgg | Posted: Monday, June 15, 2015 7:52 am
Every summer, the Lawrence Humane Society sees an
increase in the number of animals in their shelters. This
summer is no exception and the organization is in the
swing of the busy season.
There are various factors that contribute to the larger
number of animals during the summer.
“Normally cats would go through one kitten season until a
few years ago — now we’re seeing them go through two
and even three,” said Jamie Straley, community outreach
manager for the Lawrence Humane Society.
Although kitten season may seem like a cute, fun time
filled with an overload of baby animals to play with, it can
cause problems because of the large amount of kittens being born at once.
The Fourth of July is also a notorious time for spooked and scared animals to run away because of all the
commotion from parties and fireworks.
“A lot of shelters will do microchip clinics in the days preceding Fourth of July,” Straley said. “There are
pets that may get out and there’s a much greater percentage of owners and pets being reunited if they’re
microchipped or have a collar and tag.”
One way the Humane Society copes with the variant amount of animals coming in is through a foster
program — a family or person temporarily adopts an animal until it is ready to go to a permanent home.
For different animals this could mean different things. A kitten, for example, has to be at least 8 weeks
old and weigh 2 pounds.
The greatest need for fosters is from April through October, generally with kittens, but finding the right
family is more difficult than simply reaching out to volunteers.
“We’ve had a lot of interest, but matching up the right people with the right kittens and having the
resources to do all the training we have to do has been the hardest part for this program,” said KT Sessler,
Humane Society - 3
Storm is one of the many adoptable cats at
the Lawrence Humane Society.

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who is in charge of placing animals and training the foster families.
With dogs or cats, there are also certain challenges that come with trying to find a proper home that
outweigh a volunteer’s desire to foster.
“The hardest to place are the neonatal kittens that have to be bottle-fed every three hours because people
have jobs that won’t let them leave that often,” Sessler said. “It has to be a quiet home if it’s for a
behavior animal. If it’s a dog that needs foster care it helps to have another dog that’s good with other
dogs that they can learn from.”
The foster program can be mutually beneficial. The animal gets to grow up in a quiet, safe place and gets
used to various stimuli to be ready for adoption, while the foster family or person gets to have the
experience of taking care of an animal without actually having the commitment of being an owner. The
Humane Society also pays for the animal’s food, supplies or vet bills.
“We’re pretty open to anyone [who wants to foster],” Sessler said. “[...] I think those dogs and cats being
raised with children and other pets make for a good pet that is able to adapt more easily when they’re
finally adopted.”
Recently, the number of returning foster families and new ones has been changing. Before, there were
more returning fosters but now the Humane Society has seen an uptick in new volunteers.
“I think that’s because I’ve been doing some new things with the volunteer program and communication
is a big part of it now,” Straley said. “I think that my requests for fosters are being answered. And they
were out there before, but there have just been some different avenues to get the word out that I’ve been
using.”
Another resource the Humane Society uses to alleviate the pressure is their relationship with off-site pet
stores, such as Petco and Petsmart.
“Our off-site partners allow us to have help with kitten season, and it allows us to have those adoption
events and have some more spaces so the shelter isn’t completed inundated at any given time,” Straley
said.
Along with its partnership with large chain pet stores, the Humane Society’s relationship with Pet World
proved beneficial until a fire on Memorial Day weekend closed the store. Before the fire, the organization
had opened a “kitten pit” in the pet store, and had asked for volunteers to help run it. They saw a positive
response to this program, with almost all of the kittens being adopted. The Humane Society directors plan
to restart that program when Pet World reopens for business.
There are also public events, but the resources to attend them are not always available.

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“We get a lot of requests to do more events than we have the staff to do or the volunteers to do,” Straley
said. “We have to make sure whenever we agree to do an event that‘s in the future that we let the planner
know that it’s all subject to what we have population and pet-wise. Two weeks from now we might not
have any dogs that are appropriate to take to a children’s event.”
All summer the Lawrence Humane Society will need volunteers. For more information or to volunteer,
visit its website. The office, located at 1805 East 19th St., is open from 11:30 a.m.–6 p.m. daily.