Home for Life

The Home for Life Sanctuary near Star Prairie, Wisconsin, is the final residence for an eclectic menagerie of dogs, cats, bunnies, birds - even an African desert tortoise - many of which would have faced almost certain death had they not found their way there.

"The animals that come here are out of options," said Lisa LaVerdiere, who founded one of the nation's first home-for-life animal sanctuaries, in Wisconsin's St. Croix Valley, in 1999, and hopes to replicate its success in communities around the country.

"We take them or they're put to sleep," she said.

LaVerdiere has staked an increasingly popular place in the often fractious debate over animal welfare, where advocates argue the ethics and realities of no-kill vs. traditional shelters, and adoption into a home is the overriding goal.

Her nonprofit organization offers what she calls "a third door" for animals that in the past had just two: adoption or euthanasia.

"Our goal is to give these animals a true home, a good quality of life," said LaVerdiere, a lawyer who developed the concept while volunteering with a Twin Cities no-kill shelter in the 1990s.

"When you think that 4 (million) to 6 million animals are euthanized a year, we need to think more expansively about what it means to have a home."

LaVerdiere's third door opens onto a gated compound of new but modest buildings, fenced runs and open wetlands and prairie about an hour and a half northwest of Eau Claire.

Every animal here has a story, many horrifyingly tragic, and yet they appear content, adjusted.

Ben, a shepherd pup, blinded and brain-damaged by a beating, jumps playfully in circles as a photographer shoots his picture. Ashley, a chow mix paralyzed by a stomp to the spine after she'd wandered into a homeowner's yard, tears across the grassy run in what can best be described as a wheeled prosthesis.

Inside one of the three catteries, Kobi hobbles along on the stumps of her legs. The brown tabby had been found in a park, his ears, all four paws and tail severed.

Not all of the animals have been abused. Some, including Chako, an incontinent and partially paralyzed aging husky, were surrendered by loving owners who could no longer care for them. Chako's owner pays a monthly fee, but about 10% of the animals arrive through the Angel Care program that offers care for life in return for a one-time fee.

Goliath, a 30-pound Sulcata African tortoise, was found abandoned.

There's no caging here. Animals that can live together do so, in groups of like temperament. Those that can't - take Hal, who loves people but will fight any dog after a lifetime spent as bait for other pit bulls - get their own "townhouses."

Twenty employees, many of whom have studied animal sciences, fix their meals and administer their meds. They make sure the animals are exercised daily - the appearance of a worker with a leash sets off a deafening cacophony of excited barking - and get plenty of affection.

Those with serious health problems receive even more intensive care. Chako and others that get around on wheeled carts are cleaned and wrapped twice a day to keep their sores from getting infected. There are regular vet visits and, for some, physical therapy.

Such intensive care would have been impossible for Anne Gale of New Jersey. She tried caring for Chako herself after he injured his spine in a freak accident, but found his needs too great.

She drove him cross-country to Home for Life crying much of the way - and again this month as she recounted the memory.

"But when I walked onto the grounds of that place, when I met Lisa, I had no doubt in my mind that I'd found the one place on Earth I was going to be comfortable leaving my dog."

Chako doesn't get around much these days. But for many of the animals, the Home for Life door swings outward, too, not for adoptions but for outreach programs LaVerdiere has developed to educate the public about the sanctuary and the larger societal problems that have landed many of the animals there.

As many as 300 volunteers take animals to visit local hospitals, senior centers, domestic abuse shelters and a home for teenage boys who've had felony-level scrapes with the law.

It's moving, LaVerdiere said, to see the impact the dogs have on the troubled boys whose job it is to train them to become therapy dogs.

"One of the things you notice with these kids is how hard their faces are. Within a couple of classes, their eyes soften, they're so much more receptive," she said.

"They'll think twice before they abuse an animal, I guarantee it."

All of this is financed through donations and grants. The Sanctuary's annual budget: about $1 million.

Not everyone supports the home for life philosophy. LaVerdiere's been criticized by adoption-only advocates who question a sanctuary's merits as a "home." But others say it plays an important role, especially as the no-kill movement gains momentum.

"This is where I think Home for Life is ahead of the curve," said Nathan Winograd, founder of the No Kill Advocacy Center and author of the book "Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No-Kill Revolution in America."

"As the no-kill movement becomes dominant, we're going to start to have ethical debates about those animals at the margins. But that doesn't mean we have to wait to save those animals," Winograd said. "If someone is willing to take care of these animals - even if it's not a traditional home - and it's funded with private dollars, what's wrong with that?"

Care for life also means preparing for death at the sanctuary, where the animals' ashes are interred in a memorial garden in the shape of a labyrinth, near the wooded entrance to the grounds. Euthanasia is used, but only when an animal's suffering can no longer be managed with medication, and the decision involves many, including veterinarians and staff.

Pet Exhibition

The Pets in America Exhibit is opening at the Museum of Florida History. The exhibit will open on June 20 and extend through August 10, 2008. Statistics show that two-thirds of all American households own a pet. Few Americans know anything or little about the history of life with animals at home. This exhibit explores pet ownership in America and tells the story of Americans’ changing relationship with their pets.

“We are pleased to bring this exhibit to Tallahassee from the McKissick Museum in South Carolina,” said Secretary Browning. “Pets play a part in many of our lives and the exhibit will help us understand the changing attitudes over the course of time since animals first were accepted as household pets.”

The exhibit includes more than 200 objects and photographs related to pet keeping. These items were gathered from public and private collections across the country. Although this exhibit has a national appeal, there is a Florida component created by the Museum of Florida History staff that contains a large selection of photographs of Floridians with their pets, including some of governors and other well-known people.

Citrus labels with animal themes, artifacts with pet images, animal figurines and carvings, and various toys make up some of the Florida collection. Relevant topics in the exhibit include famous Florida animals like Flipper and the cats at the Ernest Hemingway Home in Key West, vacationing with pets, and tourist attractions where animals are the stars such as Monkey Jungle and Gatorland.

How Long Before the Dog Breaks it?

Just because pet lovers travel a lot, doesn’t mean they have to inconvience neighbors or put their pets in a kennel so they don’t die of starvation. With iSeePet360, travelers who have pets can now feed and water their canine or feline loved ones with the power of the internet through remote desktop or some other remote internet application.

The USB powered Remote Pet feeder comes with a built in webcam so you can keep an eye on Fido while the feeder can be programmed to dispense food up to eight times a day, seven days a week. Setup is fairly straight forward as it plugs directly into a computer’s USB port. The Pet Feeder can be accessed via the Internet through the USB connection. The feed hopper is fairly large as well, being ideal for dogs over 15 pounds. And the feeder doesn’t just dump the food either, it parcels it out, slowly, over the course of several minutes with a slow-moving auger.

And the software will also email users periodical photos from the feeder at scheduled times so that users can check up on their pets eating habits.

Cost is a hefty $298 ($300 in disguise) and is available through Smart Home.

Getting Ones Goat

Lisa TwoRivers still believes Yolanda and Betty Boop are pets rather than livestock, despite a $ 1 fine this month from a circuit judge who found her in violation of a Little Rock ordinance prohibiting people from keeping goats within 300 feet of another residence.

“They’re like a cat in [that ] they want to lay in your lap, but they’re like a dog because they want to play,” she said Monday during a court break.

But a Little Rock ordinance mentioning horses, cows, and goats doesn’t differentiate between the 25-pound pygmy goat bred for companionship and a 140-pound Nubian goat used for milking. The city’s animal services advisory board voted last year against changing the ordinance after hearing about the TwoRivers case.

TwoRivers was cited April 25, eight days after an animal control officer issued her a warning for keeping livestock in violation of the ordinance. The officer saw the goats when he responded to a complaint about a chained dog and feces in her Wolfe Street yard. The family owned three pygmy goats at the time — one died shortly after — and has kept the breed as pets since 1980.

“We’ve always had animals there,” TwoRivers said, discounting arguments that her goats would harm neighbors ’ property values or cause them any physical harm.

A neighbor who initially complained about the animals has since moved away, she said.

“No one is going to care about a 25-pound goat when they can’t get through the neighborhood without hearing gunshots,” she said.

A Little Rock district judge fined TwoRivers $ 100 in penalties and court costs at an August hearing. She appealed.

This month, Circuit Judge Willard Proctor Jr. listened to TwoRivers’ testimony that she believed her beloved pygmy goats were pets that didn’t qualify as livestock since she wasn’t making money off them. They make very little noise — less than a dog, she said — and reside on a vacant lot between her family’s two houses.

TwoRivers also recounted how one of her goats gave her solace as she recovered from cancer and that a Little Rock animal control officer once brought her a sick pygmy goat to rehabilitate.

“The city has known about it for 25 years,” said Edward Adcock, TwoRivers’ attorney.

He argued that the goats should have been grandfathered in when the city changed the distance requirement from 75 feet to 300 feet, which is a typical city block. Little Rock changed its livestock buffer in 1992.

Adcock also said the ordinance was overly broad.

“These goats hurt nobody. In addition to being unconstitutional, it’s just plain stupid and ill-spirited of the city to do this,” he said.

His arguments didn’t sway Proctor, who read the ordinance out loud and said someone might consider a horse or a cow as a pet.

“You can just imagine what could happen in the city,” he said, adding that the ordinance clearly states what city officials think of as livestock and that the city has legal reasons for regulating animals.

Proctor, however, fined TwoRivers $ 1 instead of the recommended $ 200 after saying the city had known about the goats for years and never took any action against the family.

Hearing that TwoRivers’ fine was only $ 1, Animal Services Manager Tracy Roark said all he cared about was the guilty verdict. Roark said he couldn’t comment on what action the city would take next because he hadn’t talked to the city attorney but noted that his officers work on a complaint basis.

Neither Kobe TwoRivers, a city code enforcement officer, nor his wife could say after the court hearing what they would do next about Yolanda and Betty Boop.

Lisa TwoRivers said she hoped the city might still change its stance on pygmy goats as pets. She has also applied for a spot on the city’s animal services advisory board, saying she wants to provide a perspective on animals other than cats and dogs.

However, the change TwoRivers seeks is unlikely, said atlarge City Director Joan Adcock, who also serves on the animal services advisory board.

“There should be no exception for pygmy goats or potbelly pigs,” Joan Adcock said Monday. She is not related to TwoRivers’ attorney.

Potbellied pigs — popular pets in some places — are considered livestock since they have hooves and also are required to be kept at least 300 feet away from neighbors, Roark said. However, they are listed as an exemption in the city’s ordinance prohibiting swine from being kept inside city limits.