Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook
Welcome to 'Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook', a heartening podcast where embracing vulnerability is the key to success. Join your host, Kevin, as he dives into the stories of remarkable individuals who have transformed their lives by opening up, facing challenges, and finding strength in their most vulnerable moments. Each episode features inspiring conversations with guests from various walks of life. Kevin's journey of embracing vulnerability has led him to meet amazing people, and now he brings their wisdom, laughter, and insights to you. Tune in and discover how embracing your vulnerabilities can lead to your greatest victories in life, both personally & professionally.
Search 'Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook' on YouTube to watch this episode and more!
Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook
When Compassion Meets Crisis: 'Inside the Frontlines at the Animal Care Alliance' on Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook
The charismatic feline duo of Momo and Chungus take center stage in this inspiring conversation about animal rescue. Momo, the social butterfly who loves the camera, and Chungus, a quiet survivor whose street wounds were healed with Manuka honey, represent just two of the 50-60 cats currently awaiting forever homes at Animal Care Alliance (https://www.animalcarealliance.com).
Beyond their adorable charm, this discussion highlights the dedication and innovation behind rescue operations. From creative naming themes (think berry-inspired names, pasta collections, and even Nicolas Cage movie titles) to advanced medical treatments like using honey for wound healing and sugar for infection control, the Animal Care Alliance team showcases how compassion meets ingenuity in animal welfare.
Special guests Joyce Luckett and Dr. Stacy Kostiuk join host Kevin Shook to explore critical insights into misunderstood wildlife situations. They debunk myths about "abandoned" baby animals, explaining why mother rabbits visit their young only twice a day, how scentless fawns evade predators, and why well-meaning human intervention can sometimes do more harm than good. The conversation also dives into the effectiveness of Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) programs, explaining why mass removal fails due to the "vacuum effect," where new cats inevitably fill vacated territories.
While Animal Care Alliance operates as a low-cost veterinary clinic rather than a traditional shelter, their life-saving work relies on community support. One exciting way to get involved? Their upcoming Whiskers, Whisky & Wine Fundraiser on April 4th, featuring specialty cocktails, wildlife ambassadors, and unique auction items—including original artwork created by the animals themselves!
✨ Join the mission & support animal welfare! Get your tickets today:
👉 Sign up here: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/whiskerswildlifebrunchfundraiser/event/whiskerswhiskywine/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJHh5pleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHT1Cm2ajPNMJrxxcVSw-bU_-DNjafWjE9CJYsQoWqJGypKywd76ykJgRQw_aem_fmBVYOooILL-SIIivi1o7A
Whether you're interested in adoption, fostering, or supporting their mission financially, this episode is the perfect introduction to how you can make a difference in the lives of animals in need.
This is a podcast, so you can bleep us out if we say anything stupid, right?
Speaker 2:That's what makes a podcast.
Speaker 3:Life Inscripted with Kevin Shupp.
Speaker 2:The kitty cam. We'll go to the kitty cam.
Speaker 3:I like it.
Speaker 2:So welcome back.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Life Inscripted.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's been a minute. It's been minutes since I did one of these things. Actually I just get so wrapped up in other stuff, but it's been minutes since I did one of these things. Actually I just get so wrapped up in other stuff. But it's cool.
Speaker 3:I appreciate you guys coming and bringing some little critters that people can adopt yes, we have plenty of kitties and doggies at Animal Carolines right now that are up for adoption. We've got Mr Momo here sprawling out on the ground feeling pretty comfortable, and Chungus is in the corner, a little bit more timid.
Speaker 2:But Chungus, We've got Mr Momo here sprawling out on the ground feeling pretty comfortable.
Speaker 3:And Chungus is in the corner, a little bit more timid. Chungus, how do you get the name Chungus?
Speaker 2:You've got to get creative when you have so many cats that come in. Do you use Chajiviti at all for anything in life period?
Speaker 3:I mean we'll do themed names If we have a litter of kittens come in. Had a berry themed, a fruit themed, a pasta theme. We had Nicolas Cage movies for a while funny that we gave the Olive Garden kittens.
Speaker 1:We had 8 Olive Garden kittens and we named them berry names instead of pasta names the pasta litter was not the Olive Garden litter.
Speaker 2:So like based on where you found them, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they were found by an Olive Garden dumpster.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:They were born under the dumpster a little tiny hole. When they got big enough, their mom started bringing them out when they were big enough to wander out on their own.
Speaker 2:Really that was pretty neat. So were these part of the ogs the olive garden.
Speaker 3:No, chungus came from a cat colony, um, and momo? Where did momo come from? He was a bottle. I mean I. When he came in, he like weighed less than a pound. So he was an itty bitty, he was a bottle baby oh my so so what's the story on each one of them?
Speaker 2:You told me that one of them had some animal bites.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Chungus was a while back. He was part of our trap neuter release program and we neutered him, vaccinated him, put him back in the colony and then one of the caretakers found him and he must have gotten bit or beat up by some animal another cat, who knows but he had wounds on his chest, on his arms and they were just open and leaking. So he got sedated, he got those wounds kind of cleaned up and then we put Manuka honey on him that has kind of antibacterial properties. It can help speed up healing and after two or three days of having the Manuka honey on his wounds and antibiotics it was healing up real nice.
Speaker 3:So Manuka honey man Manuka.
Speaker 2:is that good on humans as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, really they do, it does have.
Speaker 2:Manuka honey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for those non-healing wounds so did you?
Speaker 2:did you learn about this and through studies in school, when you went to school?
Speaker 3:yeah, that school taught us about that. Um, in a pinch you can. Also, if you have a really infected wound, you can just pour sugar on it until it's, like you know, dry sugar is on top. You have to do frequent bandage changes, but it's that it is so concentrated, like the osmolarity osmolality um, that bacteria can't grow in it.
Speaker 3:You can pull out fluid um huh, that's interesting every now and then, if I, if again in a pinch, I prefer honey over sugar. Um, but if I'm doing sugar, then in my mind I'm singing the Pour Some Sugar On Me song as I am treating the air Pour some.
Speaker 2:Better not get too far with that.
Speaker 3:Copyright Wow.
Speaker 2:That's fascinating. So we've had a little rough life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Chunkus has had a rough start, but he is a really sweet, affectionate guy. That's what we all say when he had his big old vest on because of his wounds. Um, our animal care staff had like the little cloth baby carriers and they just carried him around and he was just snuggled up to their chest because you put him down and he would just kind of freeze and fall over. So he got carried around like a baby for about two days so he's pretty chill.
Speaker 2:Um, how can they adopt if they're interested?
Speaker 3:um, well, we have adoption forms online or you can give us a call. Diana is our kind of adoption specialist, so um, reach out to us if you're interested. You can always walk through aca and see kind of who we have in clinic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you have, like what, two cat rooms, two big rooms. Yeah, we kind of got a variety of rooms.
Speaker 3:We got the big cat room and that's kind of a combination of three rooms. It's all open, but we have our free-roaming cats in there. Then we have our cats in the back that either have some medical conditions or perhaps they don't get along with other kitties, so they do best by themselves.
Speaker 2:I know we let these out. I was like, do they get along? And I think they do, because they're quite opposite One's just chilling and the other is all over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Momo is a bit younger, so I think he's a little bit more adventurous.
Speaker 2:I think he's about to jump on the other cat, and then that might change dynamics. So, oh, it's all fine, they're fine, they're fine, don't you think?
Speaker 1:bottle raising a kitten makes it friendlier, sometimes Friendlier or eviler, I think. Eviler.
Speaker 3:I find sometimes that the bottle raised kittens. They didn't get that kind of you know, how do you, how do you cat, you don't have your siblings telling you hey, that hurt, that was too rough or um. And so sometimes they lack that little inhibition that maybe they would have gotten if their siblings said knock it off and smacked them back that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting. Take so, um, what type of? You got quite a few cats. If you were to guess, like, how many cats you have out there.
Speaker 3:You know better, I don't know. I would say probably 50 or 60. And that is actually a small number.
Speaker 2:And you're not a shelter.
Speaker 3:We are not a shelter.
Speaker 2:That's the big thing. That's that's where the you know it's. All the other shelters are always full. It feels like you're, all the shelters are full, but, um, when you're not a shelter and you still have all of these, um, what are some things with cats that I think a lot of people kind of. They love them, but, like I did a combo back there behind the cameras, he loves them, but he's allergic. Is there? You know, cause we're so far along in medicine? I feel like there would have to be. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Parkour parkour.
Speaker 2:I feel like there would have to be something by now that helps people. Well, I will not say the brand because I'm not a hundred percent sure parkour, I feel like there would have to be something by now that helps people.
Speaker 3:Um. Well, I will not say the brand because I'm not 100 sure, but there is a cat food out there that is supposed to. If you feed your cats, it, um will reduce your on the cat side.
Speaker 2:Really, I was thinking more on the human, like an injection.
Speaker 3:I mean on the human side, you? Fun fact, I am allergic to cats, so I take Singulair and Claritin daily. If I get scratched or bit, I'm still really, really itchy. I tried immunotherapy like the drops under my tongue for a year or so and it didn't really do much, Really. Yeah, it's manageable.
Speaker 2:Because I have a cat, but it don't have any hair. It does have a little fuzz, so I keep telling it.
Speaker 3:Well, I think you're dysfunctional, although we think it's the saliva and, like the really fastidious clean cats that lick themselves, are sometimes the ones that you react the most to, because it's their saliva that you have the allergy to, I believe.
Speaker 2:Do we have a big cat out there? Do we have any larger cats that are up for adoption but not like Tiger King cats?
Speaker 1:What reason? Why are you?
Speaker 2:asking oh, I'm just curious.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Like. Is there any like bingles or anything?
Speaker 1:We're taking care of a bobcat right now that was hit by a car.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow.
Speaker 1:We've had a couple of opportunities to do that. It's really interesting and I find it fascinating that people think they're so much bigger, but they weigh 18, 20 pounds tops Really. Yeah, I've got house cats bigger than that.
Speaker 3:But they look, look, I guess it's just the way lean or like, because they're more lean or I don't know.
Speaker 2:Their legs are longer. Yeah, they have a longer body, a little bit longer legs, and I just I'm always fascinated with cats. Um, I've had a couple that do have hair. Let's see if it's the saliva.
Speaker 1:Does it matter then?
Speaker 2:I guess not.
Speaker 3:But you know it's nice if a cat is affectionate with you, I mean they chose you. A dog has kind of indiscriminate love A cat. You gotta feel special if a cat chooses you.
Speaker 2:That's true, mine acts like a dog. It's true, mine acts like a dog. It's very, he acts like a dog.
Speaker 3:There are some breeds that are a bit more dog-like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the sphinxes, the bingles, savannas I've heard all play like dogs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my friend has a Siberian cat that is very dog-like.
Speaker 2:Whoa.
Speaker 3:It's a longer hair.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:A little bigger.
Speaker 2:So what other animals are out there that people could adopt?
Speaker 3:We still have our two bunnies.
Speaker 2:Bunny rabbits.
Speaker 3:However, just because it's Easter time does not mean you have to get a bunny. You have to be prepared to take care of them for its lifespan Do not just.
Speaker 1:We have a poster in the window that says you wouldn't buy your child a reindeer at christmas time, why would you buy your child a rabbit at easter time, which I love?
Speaker 2:people just kind of forget. Well, especially with the size. They're small so they probably think kind of like um for like real low key. For like three years I kept researching, uh, sugar gliders. They're small, they have personalities, bond, all this other stuff. But the farther you go down that trail it's like there are a ton more responsibilities with those things than what people think, and I feel like all you see on the internet is pictures of the good times. So what are some hard things about raising bunnies? What kind of bunnies are these Run-of-the-mill rabbits Like?
Speaker 3:random size.
Speaker 1:Like five, six pounds, something like that. They're very, very sweet. We took one of them to IU East for. Mental Health Day a week or two ago and it was a huge hit and we just passed it from person to person and they just held it and cuddled with it. It was. It was very nice. These are sweet rabbits.
Speaker 2:Are they like? The got kicked out of 4-H, so now they're at the.
Speaker 3:I don't know how we acquired them, really.
Speaker 1:I think we got the mom too. The mom and two siblings, but the mom was old and didn't last very long, but the two siblings we still have and we just want them to get a really good home. We don't really push them hard, but, um, I feel like so many rabbits don't end up in great places. You know, people get them, they think they're cool for a week or two and then they get stuck in a hutch and never get out again.
Speaker 2:So so if you were to tell them like this is the top 400 reasons why you should not own one of these, before you actually do own one of these, what are some things that people need to really know about raising bunny rabbits? They're not like a dog or cat.
Speaker 3:They still need medical care. So you need to look into spaying and neutering and sometimes you have to be really careful about putting two rabbits together. They can get quite nasty to each other if you're not careful. You know, even just holding them properly they have really powerful back legs and so if they kick out when you're not holding them right, you know they can break their back.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:So, but that's about as far as my bunny knowledge goes.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:You need well, I mean a little bit more. You need to trim teeth um oh wow, that's fun you need to have you know proper diet. Um dogs and cats you can kind of just you know if you feed them your your proper food, it's easier to kind of do their husbandry right.
Speaker 1:But bunnies take a little bit more I think of that we used to have. We used to say 80%. There you go, caught one, 80%, timothy.
Speaker 2:Hayes would be there. Momo, this is Momo. Come here, momo, hang on, momo.
Speaker 3:You can lay down on the table.
Speaker 2:Let's see, let's see.
Speaker 3:What's up, but kind of going off of the Easter piggyback. Another thing to be cognizant of is that a lot of people like to get lilies around Easter time, and lilies are extremely toxic to cats. Even the pollen can kill them, or the water that the lilies have been in can cause kidney failure and kill them.
Speaker 3:So if you have a cat in your house and someone gets you flowers or you bring flowers home, you need to make sure that they are not true lilies in there. There are plants out there that look like lilies that are not true lilies that are non-toxic, but if it's a true lily, that is pretty bad for them I'm digging your curiosity.
Speaker 2:It's a new studio cat.
Speaker 3:Perfect, perfect, perfect I think joyce you should talk about. I mean, we've gotten our first set of wild orphaned wildlife in oh yeah, how's that going?
Speaker 1:which were those the?
Speaker 1:bunnies, I believe yeah yeah, and they're all gone. You know, bunnies are the hardest things to raise. I think if you ask any rehabilitator, they will tell you the same thing. Number one the mama bunny only comes at dusk and dawn to feed the babies when they're still in the nest. And people see them in the middle of the day and they think, oh, they're orphaned, you know, or something must have happened to the mom and they scoop them up and and I don't care how careful you are, how good a rehabilitator you are, so often, very often they die and I've had situations where I think, oh, they're this big, maybe one or two more days and that will be time to let them go, and two more days that you just find them dead and they're just very, very difficult to raise.
Speaker 1:So advice is unless you know for sure that that mom is gone and one way to tell that is the mom plucks fur from their tummy and covers up the nest or the babies so if you think that they've been orphaned and you cover it up and you put a couple of cross sticks on top of it, you should be able to know by morning if the sticks are moved. Then maybe there's a real good chance that that mom is still around. That's a fun fact.
Speaker 1:I think about that because you see that a lot, and you see that a lot when you're mowing, yeah, yeah, I don't know if this is true or not. It seems kind of ridiculous, but another rehabber told me that rabbits are getting so smart that they are nesting closer and closer to homes, even though it's a domestic situation. They'd rather take that chance than leave them out in the field where coyotes foxes other wildlife can get them. Like I said, I don't know if that's true or not, but yeah, I've seen that before mowing.
Speaker 2:Uh, luckily I've never. They never jumped up, so but it does kind of scare you and you're like I kind of need to mow the yard. Just got to be careful and I've seen them on Peacock Road in my house in town, so they'll do it anywhere. Yeah, they will. They'll put them anywhere. What other wildlife have you got recently?
Speaker 1:It's just about the time of year when we'll start getting them in droves. We get an awful lot of baby raccoons, and that's another thing that can very often be avoided. People we get an awful lot of baby raccoons, and that's another thing that can very often be avoided. People hear something in their attic and they think, oh, it's a raccoon, so I'm going to set a trap for it. And so they trap the mom and they take it out 20 yards or 20 miles or something like that, and then the next day they hear baby raccoons crawling. So then they call us, and baby raccoons are a lengthy, lengthy rehabilitation. They would stay with their mom till they're five or six months old, and so we have to keep them sometimes four or five, six months old till they're that old before we let them go.
Speaker 1:So it's. It's a lengthy process. The easiest thing to do save your money from pest companies and stuff like that is, if you hear something in your attic, take a loud radio play it up there turn all the lights on. I've even heard soak towels in ammonia and put them upstairs in a bucket because they don't like the smell. They will take their babies and go, so that's the easiest, most humane way to do it.
Speaker 2:Wow, is it hard to do you ever get to that? Six months, five, six months where they're like no, it's warmer in here, or something like that? Is it hard to get them to adapt?
Speaker 1:By no, it's warmer in here, or something like that. Is it hard to get them to adapt? By the time they're adolescents, we put them outside in an enclosure and we don't pay any attention to them after we are done bottle feeding them. After that, we just let them grow feed them water and clean up after them. And they are so wild, usually by the time it's release time. We have to net them or trap them, and that's the way we want it. We want them to take them or trap them.
Speaker 2:And that's the way we want it. We want to, you know, want them to take them out in the woods and and be so wild that that they don't want to be around people or they're afraid of people. It's not easy on us, but it's the best thing for the raccoons. So backing up, if people are watching this that watched our fundraiser, what was the story? What was the raccoon's name? Spike, so what was his story?
Speaker 1:Spike came to us with a litter as a tiny, tiny raccoon and he was just a little bit deformed. He was short-statured, his legs were too short and he couldn't climb well. So we had him, since he was small. So he's just a big mush ball. He's like having a puppy or something like that.
Speaker 2:He can't survive at all. So was yeah, so was yeah, wow, and I think he's eight or nine now.
Speaker 3:Because, he's just as chill as this. That's not a reason to have a pet vaccine. That's true. It's illegal.
Speaker 2:It's not good.
Speaker 1:We have two right now.
Speaker 2:Everything that you do is legal. Everything's permitted, everything's.
Speaker 3:I did have in Michigan where I lived. I was seeing a lady for her dog and then all of a sudden she said are you a narc? I'm sorry what she goes? Are you a narc? I go? No, she goes.
Speaker 2:I have a pet raccoon well, I have ties to something that's a chimpanzee yes, yeah, but there are right ways and wrong ways to do it.
Speaker 1:You can get a domestic bred raccoon. It'll cost you a few hundred dollars, but it's legal to do that and you have to do the right medical thing. You have to take him and have him examined once a year and buy all the permits and all that, but just to get one from the wild and try to keep it. That's with a skunk or a possum or anything.
Speaker 2:Or a squirrel, possum or anything, or squirrel, no matter what it is, it's not legal, no matter how cute the youtube videos are right, and that's the problem. Too many of these videos on social media have animals being cute, even big tigers in um dubai, like they'll have pet tigers and they're like loki attacking them on. I'm like no, see this. See, that's why he sees himself, he sees himself now the cat can when you at buddy, yeah, so this pet's adoptable. He likes being on camera.
Speaker 1:Keep him away from your TV.
Speaker 2:Keep him away from your TV. He's funny and his name and everything again is momo momo momo curly mo.
Speaker 3:That was great um choice. You can maybe talk about fledgling birds and how they're often brought to us and they're not truly orphaned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of most of them, I would say, aren't orphaned. I mean, unless you see that's got a broken leg fluttering a wing or something like that bleeding or a fledgling. Fledgling on the ground. They've left the nest.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, most of the time the parents are around, okay, and people pick them up way too fast and bring them to us. And we've had a lot of situations. I've called them and I said you know why did you bring us this bird? There's nothing wrong with it, or doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it, and taking it sometimes many miles back to where they found it, walk out of the car and mom comes fluttering down once the baby chirps. So you just got to give it some time.
Speaker 2:Right, but nature takes its course. It's easy because you know all these animals are cute, adorable. So people just go oh, the mom's gone, I'm going to rescue it.
Speaker 3:Here you go Big deer. No, you just messed it up actually. Oh, deer Fonz, you get a lot of deer.
Speaker 1:We get a lot of Fonz and they're very difficult to raise too. Memorial Day is very close to when a lot of Fonz are born and mom takes the Fonz and finds a nice, quiet place for it and she beds it down and then she goes off. She might go off for 12, 14 hours doing her own thing and then come back for the fawn and cemeteries are very, very busy at memorial day and you know that was a quiet, nice place to put the fawn until memorial day weekend came along. So, um, we've taken a lot of fawns back and returned them to where they came from. But the best thing is just to. I mean, if you don't see bleeding or broken legs or something like that.
Speaker 3:Just leave it alone. Yeah, I think you know the fawn's ears. If they're curled back that means they've maybe been left a little bit longer and they're dehydrated. But I think you know, the first few days of life the fawn has no scent imparted on it, so they're by themselves, but they're not attracting any predators because they don't have a scent to them.
Speaker 2:That's interesting.
Speaker 1:I've even heard that moms, if they have twins or sometimes even triplets, will park them different places so that if a predator comes along it only gets one. It's kind of morbid. It's kind of like which one's my favorite kid? You're airing the spare which?
Speaker 2:one's my favorite kid, which one's the runt of my kids. We're going to put you closer to right you're gonna take one of these, take the sister, I'll take one. Um, that's fascinating, I didn't know you got ponds. Um how's ozzy is. Uh, what's what's.
Speaker 1:What's her situation ozzy is a mess right now. Ozzy's built a nest. We're giving her sticks every day that she puts in her great big nest. It's like this big around. So I think she's probably she may lay an egg, but she's flying at us when we go into her enclosure because she's hormonal and yeah. Wow, so we were going to bring her to the event, but we're thinking having second thoughts.
Speaker 2:Right, this is Momo. Momo needs a home.
Speaker 3:Momo says adopt me, I'm going to sit pretty we're thinking, having second thoughts about it.
Speaker 2:This is Momo. Momo needs a home.
Speaker 3:Momo says adopt me, I'm going to sit pretty, for the camera Are there. Adoption fees $75 for most of our cats, and then dogs are about $100.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:But we usually give you a discount if you get more than one.
Speaker 2:Okay, I see, and the fees are because you provide such great medical care and everything else.
Speaker 3:They're completely vetted, vaccinated, spayed, neutered um feline leukemia fiv tested microchipped and we actually lose money on every single cat.
Speaker 1:We have way more in the cat then.
Speaker 2:Yes, then we get back really just want to help the cat. So, speaking of losing money, do you have any special events coming?
Speaker 3:up. We do um april 4th, friday, april 4th, from 7 to 10 pm is our first ticketed fundraising event whiskers, whiskey and wine be held at forest hills.
Speaker 3:we have blue buffalo as our title sponsor for the event. Um, we also have primax early wine, pest control and bed bath and biscuits as our sponsors, and it will feature live and silent auction items. We'll have heavy hors d'oeuvres the rso are providing and have donated some musicians for the evening as well, and we'll have specialty animal-themed cocktails. The first hour of the event we'll have our wildlife ambassadors out minus Ozzy, and two of our ambassadors, nigel and Opal, are going to showcase their artistic ability and they have made some original artwork.
Speaker 3:It's only going to be one per animal. It'll be nicely framed. Suzanne Cox is framing for us and those will be auctioned off and so if you go to our Facebook page, we are kind of showcasing some of our auction items and some of our sponsors. We have some pretty cool live auction items. You can get a private chef to come to your house. You can get. Are you going to jump?
Speaker 2:Right into the screen, because as soon as he came back up on the screen he was like whoop.
Speaker 3:What Is that mean? Um we've got, um we have a trip to. Scotland to the St Andrews golf course for four people for five nights that we're auctioning off. Um, so we've got. We've got some really awesome items. Um, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Um, go to our Facebook page. We'll have a link where you can purchase tickets If you can't attend but would still like to donate. That link also works just fine for that too. So, yeah, I'm really excited.
Speaker 2:Very cool.
Speaker 3:It will hopefully become a yearly event.
Speaker 2:Right, because there was nothing like that for these little fellas, because this one needs a camera. This one needs a camera.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're a star bud.
Speaker 2:He could have his own live stream. The Momo cam We'll twist the Earth cam around and the Momo cam. This is Momo. He would like to be adopted. Actually, I think he's just really intrigued. That's cute. So they can buy tickets online, they can make donations online and it all goes to the Animal Care Alliance Yep, which needs donations for Momo and his friends.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, these guys and our wildlife are non-paying customers. So while we do operate a full clinic and we try to cater to lower-income families, our operating budget and what we bring in through the clinic there's roughly about a $75,000 difference, and so we are doing these fundraisers so that we can kind of bridge that gap.
Speaker 1:And most of our cats come to us in need with no owners. They not only need to be spayed, neutered, vaccinated and all that stuff, but they um very often like chungus wounds everywhere and they require an intense, sometimes, amount of medical care which just comes out of our pockets we had one brought to us today.
Speaker 3:Luckily the woman was able to pay for the care. Um, but that one has a broken leg so that one will be getting its leg amputated. Um richmond police department brought in one for us and um had its leg amputated. They were kind enough to pay for the normal vetting care, like the vaccines and the, the spay, and then we fundraised for the amputation so, all of this being said, we have a basically a pandemic problem of overpopulation of cats and whatnot.
Speaker 2:Um, whether that's people not getting the animal spayed and neutered, letting their cats go. I've heard little things, bits and pieces about a more progressive approach where we're attempting to catch, fix and release type situation. Do you want to talk about that at all?
Speaker 3:Sure, we've done several of those events where we target a colony and we go out and trap them, bring them in sedate, uh, spay, neuter, vaccinate, flea treat, um. So we've done, I would say, four large scale ones. And then we, you know, normal surgery days. We'll do a few here, a few there, but we had one weekend I think we did 70, another we did 55. And then there's a couple of days where I'm flying solo. So we'll do, you know, 30, 35.
Speaker 3:But it's, it's a lot of work for a lot of people. The trapping part I'm fortunate or lucky enough that you know I work on the surgery aspect. I'm not going out when it's cold and rainy and trying to set these traps and pick up the cats, and so there's a lot of man hours that go into doing a successful TNR. We got to know how many cats are in that colony. You know, if it's a 20 colony, uh, 20 cat colony, and we only fix five. We really haven't done anything to stabilize that population. So we need someone that's willing to kind of catalog those cats so that we know when we go out there how many we need to catch for this to be successful.
Speaker 2:And then we also need the funds for that right so it was this casual conversation with a friend of mine, ed, and he mentioned that though they, that though they're working on that through, maybe, the city to find those colonies, are their programs maybe about to start?
Speaker 3:In 2024, the city and county had leftover ARPA funds that were earmarked for animal welfare, so we were able to use those funds for a couple of TNR events. Those types of funds are not available for 2025. So I think there has to be more creative ways in order to get those funds. While it is not as front and center as it was in 2024, there are people out there within the government and private citizens that are trying to find a solution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because eventually it has to come back to the government coming in, because it's really hard. I know you can have fundraiser after fundraiser and everything else, but um the if it's a pandemic situation, then there needs to be funds coming from above us um to help address some of that stuff. That way we're not a hundred percent reliant on donations, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really multifaceted, so is it a good program. The TNR is really the only successful way to deal with them. You know a while back they would try just mass euthanasia.
Speaker 2:Golly, and that didn't work, jim Jones.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that didn't work.
Speaker 2:That would be sad.
Speaker 3:Relocating Say, okay, I don't want a colony by my house, so we're going to move it. Well, you know, another cat will just come in and take up that territory. It's called the vacuum effect. So you know, trying to remove them, whether it's relocation or euthanasia, doesn't work. So you just need to get a population of cats that cannot reproduce. Then they will hold that territory and prevent other cats from coming in and then eventually, eventually, those cats will kind of naturally age out. So it is. It is not a program that you're going to see success in a year or two. It's something that needs to have a long-term plan and a long-term goal in place, and part of it is we also need to get better data collection so that we can see what we're doing and compare to five years ago and five years from now what we're doing and compare to, you know, five years ago and five years from now.
Speaker 1:But when you think about the good that can be done from just one TNR event, I mean it took a lot of people, three, four, five days to get that 70, you know, 70 trapped 70 cats. Excuse me, but if you think about each of those cats producing just one litter of five, that's 350 cats you've saved, right then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're going to make more than that. It's not going to be just one litter, it's going to be that litter and their kittens and their kittens' kittens and it goes on and on and on. But so really, if you get a colony under control, you can get it great success pretty fast, you hear that burn.
Speaker 2:I do the same thing when someone scratches me you're gonna mess around and I'm gonna have to adopt you for a single colony.
Speaker 3:You know, coming in there and trap neutering obviously does wonders for that single colony. But as a widespread project, you know it, it's going to be a lot of work to get Wayne County under control.
Speaker 2:And it's, and it's still costly because of all the all right he's working, he's working, he's working hard. It's still costly because you still have all the In supplies. What does it take to do?
Speaker 3:I mean, we estimate roughly about $70 per cat and it can go anywhere between $ know 40 and 70 dollars. It depends on how many, how many volunteers we have that day versus how many are paid staff. So I would love to see, uh, that we have a network of vets that would and a network of volunteers that would donate their time and come and do this. But right now it's kind of falling on animal care alliance and so it's. We're paying our staff to be there on a saturday and a sunday to do this. So obviously that's a lot of cost. And then, um, lately, with pain meds, a lot of it's been on back order, and so that is a costly part of the procedure too. But we're not going to do surgery on an animal and not provide it the pain meds it needs.
Speaker 2:I'd be right there with the mass euthanasia. I feel like my Omo might get adopted out of this whole debut today.
Speaker 3:Now we need to put Chungus on the table.
Speaker 2:He's asleep, oh, he's awake.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's just chilling in the corner.
Speaker 2:He's starting to move a little bit. Chunkus come here.
Speaker 3:Come on, bubba, should I try and pick you up?
Speaker 2:See if they switch spotlights. You want my beauty. How is my doctor going to see this and yell at me? Is that your husband, chungus? Hi, so this is Chungus. This is the one with the.
Speaker 3:This is the one that had the honey on his chest To fix his wounds so you can see how he has a tipped left ear. So he was originally a colony cat and we tipped the left ear so that from a distance we know that he's been fixed and so if he's in a trap we can release him and not have to sedate and check to see if he has a tattoo or if he's been neutered.
Speaker 2:Got you. They're still checking each other out. What's up, buddy? Did we wake you up? Woke him up from his nap? Look, this one's going to be like I'm the host, you're just the guest, and this is my show. This is the Momo show, chungus. They're so fun Because they're such intelligent creatures.
Speaker 1:That's a personality. There we go.
Speaker 2:Uh-oh, it's on. He's lifting the paw. Put up the scoreboard to your corners what's wrong? What's wrong? Momo trying to go? This is a little bigger than you, so, pound for pound, they're just coexisting right now.
Speaker 1:Yes, I acknowledge your presence, but a lot of times excess cats can be a neighborhood problem too, where neighbors are kind of against each other.
Speaker 3:You're feeding the cats and I don't like it, you know, and they're coming in my yard and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So if you can show that some of these cats have ear tips, a lot of times that calms things down. You know neighbors will say well, they're making an effort. You know, I can see that this cat isn't going to be leaving babies in my bushes and that right, so that's the mark it's the mark that's the not getting her pregnant, not getting pregnant not
Speaker 3:spraying, not spraying and they'll roam a little less too. So, um, you know, we're trying to equip our animal control officers with deterrent kits so that if someone calls and says I have a cat problem, um, they can go over and say okay, why don't we make sure your garbage can lids are more secure and why don't we set up this like motion sensor thing for a little bit? And then let's go figure out where this cat is coming from, the colony and see if we can work on getting this colony fixed so they're less likely to roam in your yard. So, um, there's a lot of ideas out there to improve the animal welfare situation here in wayne county and we just have to work on implementing them, is it?
Speaker 2:really a problem, like I. So there's uh, two of them that walk across my front, uh, front of my house, and looks in like the big window and stuff, and I'll, uh, I'll take it a little bit of food from my cat and put it out there and we'll hang out, it'll, I'll turn my, I'll have the bubbler on and they'll go up and play in the water and stuff. Then they just go on about their day. But I don't know if they're fixed or not. That's the problem. If they're not fixed. You know, momo, this is great.
Speaker 3:I like his cool confidence.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, he's better on camera than all of like everybody I've met well and for well.
Speaker 3:Another amazing cat we had, but um, he left last on friday. Uh, billberry and blueberry were part of our berry little, so we had boysenberry, blackberry, blueberry and bilberry and their mom was raspberry and gooseberryoseberry outside. Oh, and Gooseberry Was he part? No, but that was, yeah, we have Gooseberry outside, but he's not related to that litter. But we took, we thought it was Blueberry. It was actually Billberry. We took them to the mental health day at IU and he was just a little rock star there just laying on the tables and strutting around.
Speaker 3:So it's nice having the confident cats that'll go out and see your love. You know there are a lot of cats Like Chungus has decided he wants to be a little bit quieter, but he'd probably warm up real quick in a home where he's not so overwhelmed.
Speaker 2:This one's type A personality, momo.
Speaker 1:His tongue's sticking out.
Speaker 2:Was it it was.
Speaker 3:And now that it's getting warmer although I would advocate we need to do it year-round but now that it's getting warmer we definitely need to get our pets back on flea and heartworm prevention. You know flea and ticks. If it's warmer than 32 degrees out ticks are active. So even in during the winter, if you get a warm day, you can still get ticks, and I would say in the clinic we still see fleas nonstop year round. And so if your pet has fleas you need to make sure that that pet plus all of the animals in and out of your house.
Speaker 3:So if you have an outdoor dog or an indoor outdoor cat, they're included they should be on their flea prevention for a minimum of three months to get through that kind of outbreak of fleas in the house and then heartworm. While heartworm can affect cats, it's a bigger problem in dogs but that's a worm that lives in the blood that surrounds kind of the heart and lung, lives in the vessels and if they get sick with that they can get a lot of scarring. And to treat heartworm once you've become infected you're looking at injections that are arsenic based. You have to restrict their activity for for six months and so it's much easier to just give them a monthly pill, and that monthly pill kills any babies, little heartworm babies that are floating around in the blood and heartworms transmitted by mosquitoes.
Speaker 3:So wow, okay it's much cheaper and much easier on your pet to do heartworm prevention than heartworm treatment well, that's like a human health.
Speaker 2:It's much cheaper to be healthy. Versus medications. Who is that? Who is that? What's up?
Speaker 3:I think someone found a new cat. That's what.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking. What was that all about? I don't know.
Speaker 3:My other one would probably go kind of crazy. If only there was an option to try them before you buy them you can always foster to adopt no, no, no, because that's how you adopt never fails.
Speaker 2:Yeah, foster fails no, don't do that.
Speaker 3:We are looking for fosters though. So if anyone ever wants to be a foster, it's very rewarding. You know Animal Care Alliance still kind of takes care of the medical bill aspect. But then you have a kitty that's not in a sheltered environment and, as enriching and clean as we want to be, cats are stressed out there, so they're going to be more prone to getting upper respiratory infections. So if we can have dogs or cats in a home while they're waiting for their forever home, that would be ideal. So if you ever have any interest in fostering, give Animal Care Alliance a call and we can set you up.
Speaker 2:Whoa, I felt like I didn't have claws decline.
Speaker 3:Since I've become a vet we've really decreased doing that yeah, I'm really happy about that. That's like ripping your fingernails off it's not even your fingernails, it's that whole first joint.
Speaker 2:So you are, it is it is a 10 digit amputation. That's insane. I'd never do that. There's no reason, no rhyme, no reason, mine, so he lets me clip them. It started when they were a baby. If you can start them when they're a baby, they'll just let you clip them.
Speaker 3:Or you find a good enough treat.
Speaker 2:I feel like Momo wouldn't. Momo's up for anything. Yeah, he's down for a good time treat.
Speaker 3:I feel like Momo wouldn't Momo's up for anything, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's down for a good time. I'm going to go out later bro.
Speaker 3:Little catnip. Yeah, it was really long.
Speaker 2:He just said no Chinese food, they're fun. The next time I'll have you bring the big. You got any big pit bulls or anything like that out there, big dogs.
Speaker 3:They're small. We have Gage Pitch like a boxer pit type thing. We've got Charm. That's lab pit, maybe Mulberry same.
Speaker 1:Mulberry's like 20 pounds.
Speaker 2:She's still a really little dog you can bring some dogs next time.
Speaker 1:She's been with little kids yeah and cats. She's good with everybody. She's a sweetheart and she's about a year old, a little over a year old and let's see, oh, we still have Coral, that's right.
Speaker 2:I forget about Coral cause she's in.
Speaker 3:Foster.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker 1:We had some great adoptions. Recently, though, we adopted a big German shepherd named Handsome that was found in the bitter cold.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I remember, handsome he was at the live stream event.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, handsome got a home with a staff member. It's working out really well.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 3:Handsome does not like me, so they didn't know he is not. So they didn't know he is not. I'm not his biggest fan.
Speaker 2:Huh. But he only saw me in like a vet setting. Oh yeah, you're stabbing him with needles. He's not going to like you.
Speaker 3:No, he is doing great in his new home and then, we adopted out our husky blue ivy. She was found by some good Samaritans, hit by cars, so she had to have surgery on her hip. She got spayed and vaccinated and she went to a wonderful home that has another husky and a corgi and they did a meet and greet and got along famously.
Speaker 2:Wow, well, is there anything else? You want to kind of wrap this up and run through the event again?
Speaker 3:Yes, to wrap this up and uh um run through the event again. Yes, so whiskers, whiskey and wine. April 4th, from 7 to 10 pm at forest hills country club, we'll have some heavy hors d'oeuvres and uh drinks. Your admission includes a ticket for a specialty cocktail. I think we have the regal beagle and the fal Falcon are our two specialty cocktails. Blue Buffalo is our title sponsor, so they are definitely helping us make this event happen. Some wonderful live auction, silent auction pieces. We will have our wildlife ambassadors there so you can come meet Nigel and Opal and Thornton and Zoya, you know Zoya.
Speaker 2:I know Zoya.
Speaker 3:Zoya's going to be there and then check out. You'll be able to see their artwork that they've produced, Nigel and Opal. It'll be a really good time, and doing it for a good cause.
Speaker 2:And hopefully every year it can keep growing and growing.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Very cool.
Speaker 1:Anything else from you. I think it's all been said yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:well, um momo and chungus chungus is available for adoption at the animal Care Alliance. You can download their application online or you can stop by during business hours and see these cats no-transcript.
