Ever wonder how your undying love for animals could turn into a meaningful pursuit? Join us as we sit down with Joyce Luckett, the co-founder of Animal Care Alliance, an organization kickstarted with a humble $7,000 grant but fueled by an immense love for animals. The chronicles of Joyce, from a simple girl growing up in Connersville to someone who changed the landscape of animal care in Wayne County, Indiana, will inspire you.
Imagine a city where every animal has a safe shelter, ample food, and necessary care. A place where injured animals are nurtured back to health and then lovingly placed in forever homes. That's the dream Joyce and her team are working towards with Animal Care Alliance. They also partner with other shelters and receive support from corporations like Purina and the Wayne County Foundation. The discussion also paves the way to the dream of a future shelter, a noble cause in honor of Sierra Burton, a local animal lover.
The conversation takes a somber turn as we navigate the tough subject of pet euthanasia. It's a heart-wrenching decision for every pet parent, and we aim to provide insightful guidance on how to handle such situations. We also emphasize the implications of owning a pet and the need for thorough research before making that commitment. Wrapping up, we discuss the different ways you can contribute to the Animal Care Alliance. Whether you're an animal lover or someone eager to make a difference in your community, this episode is a must-listen!
Ever wonder how your undying love for animals could turn into a meaningful pursuit? Join us as we sit down with Joyce Luckett, the co-founder of Animal Care Alliance, an organization kickstarted with a humble $7,000 grant but fueled by an immense love for animals. The chronicles of Joyce, from a simple girl growing up in Connersville to someone who changed the landscape of animal care in Wayne County, Indiana, will inspire you.
Imagine a city where every animal has a safe shelter, ample food, and necessary care. A place where injured animals are nurtured back to health and then lovingly placed in forever homes. That's the dream Joyce and her team are working towards with Animal Care Alliance. They also partner with other shelters and receive support from corporations like Purina and the Wayne County Foundation. The discussion also paves the way to the dream of a future shelter, a noble cause in honor of Sierra Burton, a local animal lover.
The conversation takes a somber turn as we navigate the tough subject of pet euthanasia. It's a heart-wrenching decision for every pet parent, and we aim to provide insightful guidance on how to handle such situations. We also emphasize the implications of owning a pet and the need for thorough research before making that commitment. Wrapping up, we discuss the different ways you can contribute to the Animal Care Alliance. Whether you're an animal lover or someone eager to make a difference in your community, this episode is a must-listen!
Hello and welcome to the hub powered by manpower of Richmond. I am your host, michael Allen, and here on the hub we interview local business leaders, community partners and various special guests and we share unique, untold stories of companies, organizations and people who are making a difference in our community. Manpower Richmond is sponsored of. The hub is a national brand, yep. We're a locally owned franchise. We're familiar with the challenges businesses face. It's a tough recruiting and retaining talent out there, and it's our entire focus will help you manage your hiring and training, provide ongoing customized support. So today's guest on the hub is Joyce Luckett, and she is the clinic manager and co founder of the animal care alliance located at 1353 Abington Pike, and their mission is providing quality, affordable veterinary and spay neuter services. Now, that's what the website says, but, however, I think that after hearing from Joyce, there's a lot more going on in her vision indicates. So, joyce, welcome to the hub.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having us here today.
Speaker 1:Good to see you, and today we're here to discuss Animal Care, alliance, household pets and even some wildlife, and. But before we go into that, please tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up. Just stuff about you.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a local girl. I grew up in Connorsville and then lived quite a few places around the country and then came back here about 30 years ago after experiencing shelter life actually in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania. That's what got me started into the animal world, although I loved animals all my life. So you know, it's just snowballed from here, from there.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, one thing that we ask on the hub, to start off, is we like to ask people what was their very first job.
Speaker 2:I've been working since I was 14 years old and actually my first job was sitting in an empty house that was available for sale and showing any interested people in the property carpet samples and things like that and showing them that the layouts for possible future homes to be built, and has absolutely nothing to do with what I do now.
Speaker 1:Right, so. So how did that come about?
Speaker 2:I don't know. So a friend that was the construction person there just knew about me and they needed cheap labor.
Speaker 1:So this was in Connorsville? Yeah, it was in Connorsville. So it was like a housing development, or was it a person to build her, or both Okay, it was fun. Interesting, so did they pay you, okay, or?
Speaker 2:no, but it was okay. It was more than I was making sitting at home, so yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1:So you're the clinic manager and co-founder of Animal Care Alliance. So tell us what sparked your passion for animals. Kind of go back to your previous comment about you know about yourself and then kind of how ACA began.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I grew up loving animals. My family were, you know. We always had animals dogs, cats, whatever happened to come through the yard, and I was even the person that other kids in the neighborhood would come to when they found an injured kitten or the dog the neighborhood dog got hurt or something like that. So it was just a natural thing.
Speaker 2:Animal Care Alliance actually got started with a $7,000 grant from the Wayne County Foundation In 2006,. We wrote a grant asking for $7,000 to start a community spain-neuter program. It was definitely needed and it's still needed in this community. So I remember it was the fall grant cycle and I remember exactly where I was when staff called me and said, hey, we got a letter here from the Wayne County Foundation. I said, well, open it. And they said that our grant was funded and $7,000 happened to be enough to purchase some refurbished anesthesia equipment and hire a couple of part-time vets, and we were located at Help the Animals shelter at the time. So we did between 2007 and 2011, 4,500 surgeries, spain-neuter surgeries, in a room about this size.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So by 2011, we had outgrown our space and we were kind of taking away from what Help the Animals mission was, because we were an interference. We still work very, very well with them, help them with whatever they need and vice versa, and it's just kind of snowballed from there.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's great. So on the website I mentioned earlier that your mission is providing quality, affordable veterinary and spain-neuter services. So I visited you recently at ACA and early on in our conversation you did make a point that you're not a shelter. That's not part of your mission. But I can say that firsthand. I felt like there was a lot going on there at ACA and just tell us a little bit about the scope of the organization and what happens there on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 2:Well, our veterinarians primarily deal with domestic animals, which is providing low-cost care, affordable care for dogs and cats, the occasional rabbit. But a lot of people come to us with a cat that they found on a country road, hit by a car, or a litter of kittens. Like I said, we're not a shelter, but sometimes you know, if they're so sick that they're not going to survive anywhere else, we will cave and take care of those animals. So that ends up costing our organization an awful lot of money, because not only do we pay the vets to provide the medical care and then we have to pay for spay-neuter, vaccinations, housing. You saw our staff that day. We have pretty good-sized animal care staff and that's what they do, and we don't recoup any money from these animals. We find them homes, charge a minimal adoption fee and that doesn't even cover the spay or neuter that we put into them. But somehow somebody's taking care of us somewhere a big part of the time and we feel like I don't know. We just keep going doing what we think is right.
Speaker 1:Well, you and I had sat down in a little coffee room or break room and people coming in and out. I mean it seemed like there was tons of people in there working that day. I mean I was impressed at how many people were there and all of just the activity going on. Everyone just seemed super busy.
Speaker 2:We love our new facility. We built a new veterinary clinic. We'd never had a physical building that was designed to be what we wanted it to be. So we built a clinic five years ago and it's multi-rooms, lots and lots of different spaces, and those rooms, just like you just said, they become what we need them to become. That day. We don't really have a conference room, so that day it was the break room, the office that was supposed to be mine. I was never in for a single day. It became the wildlife room and now it's the kitten room. So things just change as needed.
Speaker 1:I mean, it looks like you could have way more space than you have now.
Speaker 2:And we'd fill it up, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was really impressive. So I know you charge. You speak about charging for spay and neuter devices. How do you find organization to overall mean so you take in fees for that? That I assume helps some, but I don't. I don't think that covers everything it really doesn't.
Speaker 2:We also sell fleet control products, heart room prevention. Our veterinarians See appointments. That helps bring in money. So if you got a sick kitten, we charge an office, call for that and then whatever the meds cost. So we raise money doing that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But I'd like to say that there's a national shortage of veterinarians Across the country. It seems like probably 50% of the the clinics are looking for veterinary help just because there are too Few of them. So it depends on how many veterinary hours. As far as how, you can only make money if you have a veterinarian there. So we're a little shy right now. But actually we have a new veterinarian starting this coming Wednesday and she specializes in exotic pets. So you have your hedgehog or a sick iguana or a Snake with a ulcer on its scales or something like that, so she'll be able to do that. So I think that's really gonna broaden our scope and we can reach out to, you know, even other communities. You pretty much have to go to Indianapolis or Cincinnati to receive Exotic care right now, so we're really excited about that.
Speaker 1:Well, why do you think there's such a shortage of veterinarians?
Speaker 2:I might get myself into trouble here, but 50 years ago, when you know the, the male veterinarians that helped us, you know, start this business, graduated from vet school. The graduates were all men and now they're all women, all women. So, which is wonderful, you know, they're compassionate, they're fabulous veterinarians. But you get out of school, you get married in a couple years, you want to have kids, you want to work part-time, go to the soccer games and stuff like that. I think that is drastically cut into and I don't think it's just the veterinary world, I think it's it's dentistry and medical doctors and that kind of thing. So it's, it's not just us, but it is a problem right with veterinary care that is.
Speaker 1:I mean I know there are Insurance policies or plans that you can get for your animals. I would say that is probably a very low percentage of what pet owners have. So mostly the cost associated with caring for your pets is really out of pocket for people I can see in the healthcare industry. You know there's lots of.
Speaker 1:I think, in the medical field there's lots of frustrations because of insurance and whatever. But in veterinary care it's a little different, because everyone's making a conscious choice to own a pet and they know they're going to pay for that. So I I Don't see that health care is a deterrent, so I Just don't know. I mean, it seems like there's so many animal lovers, but it's probably pretty tough to get through veterinary school. I don't know what it. What involves? What do you? What would it involve? Do you know all the ins and outs of that?
Speaker 2:I just know what I hear they say it's harder to get become a veterinarian than it is a physician. The part of that is that there are fewer veterinary schools out there.
Speaker 1:Can't really say you know there's in the medical field. There's Like nurse practitioners. Is there such a thing in veterinary care there?
Speaker 2:isn't and there should be. I don't know, I mean it might not be in my lifetime, but I think at some point it's gonna have to happen. Because Us, for example, mostly what we want is to have somebody doing space and neuters, just assembly line space and neuters all day long. That's the only thing that's gonna make a sizeable difference and ethical difference in the overpopulation problem. But there there isn't that Determination at this point in time seems like that would really help a lot from what you're saying yes.
Speaker 1:How does being a not-for-profit help the organization versus if it's a for-profit?
Speaker 2:Organization. People can make donations to us and take them off of their taxes. We don't have to pay taxes on most of what we buy. It helps.
Speaker 1:It's not huge, but it helps so it does help a little bit with your cause Outside of Funding. What are some of the other struggles that you experience at ACA?
Speaker 2:I would say mostly just the frustration that there is such an overpopulation problem of dogs and cats in this community. We do a lot of things wrong. There are parts of the country that do everything right. For example, there's a A big part of Toledo that's a fairly affluent area and that doesn't mean that they're gonna get good homes. But they do the right things. They don't let their cats out unspade, unneuter to repopulate and they don't have the backyard breeders thinking I'm gonna make get rich from breeding my pit bulls and that kind of thing. They do it right. So some of those organizations are just fabulous and they will contact us, sometimes a couple times a year and say, hey, we don't have any kittens right now. We're gonna do a transport and we are gonna come down and, if you can, supplies with kittens that have had health checks and that kind of thing. We'll take them off your hands and we know that they're gonna find good homes up there.
Speaker 1:You know they do screening and that kind of thing and so do you work with this, with them, on a regular basis?
Speaker 2:As often as possible. Right, because if we send 20 kittens to Toledo that we're comfortable, are going to a really good place, we can take in 20 more.
Speaker 1:Okay. What can our followers and others in the community do to help?
Speaker 2:Donations are always, always welcome and much needed, even like the local Kroger store. If you can go to Kroger's online, there is a way that and it doesn't cost you anymore when you purchase your groceries, but you can Dedicate a certain amount of of money that will go through Kroger's to us directly. There are some things like that. So, most important things spaying through your pets. Get them spayed and neutered.
Speaker 1:Well on your site, if you go to animalcarealliancecom, there you have a donation button right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So that that's a pretty simple way to go and make a contribution to ACA Animalcarealliancecom. When someone Googles animal shelters in our community, several show up. I can help the animals and will fell welfare league, second chance whiskers, liberty Acres United, and you come up as well. You're not a shelter, but ACA comes up. Do you partner with any of these shelters? You did mention help the animals, but is there any partnership going on?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We work very well with everybody and I can tell you, when I came back here, as I said, from Pittsburgh 30 years ago, it was not like that. Everybody was their own entity and it was just Nobody worked together and nobody would take any advice from anybody else. And that has changed so much and it's it's a good, good thing. We should all be working for the, for the same goal.
Speaker 2:So, okay, for example, we have a really nice relationship with Purina distribution center in Vandalia, ohio. Yeah, and they used to be located in Richmond and this was probably 15 years ago, and we would go every week and collect broken bags and tape of pet food, tape them up, share them with other shelters, and To the tune of over a hundred thousand pounds a year. So today we're sending the biggest you haul that they have to Vandalia. They called us a couple days ago and said they had excess dog food, so we're gonna get probably 20,000 pounds of dog food and we have Animal oh what's it called? Months. There's an action for animals in Muncie is coming this afternoon early, and then animal welfare league is meeting us there at about 230. Help is meeting us at three, so we're gonna be able to share food with them, not just for their own pets, but they have food pantries that they help people with. It Fallen on hard times and can't afford to feed their dogs right, right, the.
Speaker 1:So what kind of a dent does that amount of food make? And you go through that pretty quick. I mean, where do you store all? It sounds like a lot of food, but maybe it's not. Maybe it is a lot of food.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have actually a 40-foot shipping container that we Rented about a year and a half ago when Purina called and said, hey, we've got 40,000 pounds of food. We got 40,000 pounds of food in one day, so we rented a skidloader and a whole bunch of people with muscle came and it was really cool. But then we also got another grant this spring from the Wayne County Foundation that helped us pay off that shipping container. It's a good thing because, you know, not everybody has has the, the, a facility or ability to store that. That's like rodent free and Not gonna get rained on and things like that. So we love having that opportunity and then whenever possible we've got we can share with other organizations.
Speaker 1:So I mentioned these different organizations. Do you feel like we have it? Is there enough shelters in the Wayne County area? I mean, is there? What's what do you think the current need is, given what our situation is with it?
Speaker 2:We definitely need a city, another shelter, a city and county shelter, the the county contract. Right now are animals found in the county. You're supposed to go to the animal welfare league. They have that contract.
Speaker 2:The truth is it's not a real big facility. They often don't have room and so a lot of times those animals will stay on the street. Same thing with Richmond. Richmond contracts with Henry County, newcastle, so any stray found in Richmond is supposed to be picked up by the animal control officer and taken to Newcastle. Well, that's a long drive for one thing, and also then sometimes people don't know where to look for their pets.
Speaker 2:You know, my dog is missing. It's not here in any of the shelters and they don't think to go to Newcastle. It's. It's kind of crazy, and very often Newcastle is full. So what they're told is to just leave them on the street. I mean, richmond Police Department is through no fault of their own, and the animal control officers will say, hey, I've got nowhere to take them, just just put them back where you found them. So we're seeing an increase in like emaciated dogs found in the country and things like that, and I think People when forced with trying to find a place for their pet. If there's nowhere to go, sometimes they'll just leave them in an alley, and it's very sad.
Speaker 1:So what do you think the answer is to try to make that happen. Who would help drive that to happen?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of. There's a lot of discussion, there's some government money out there I'm not Good at discussing and that kind of thing, just because I don't quite understand it all but the city and the county are both involved in trying hopefully trying to make something like that happen. One Problem I heard was that, you know, some of the decision-makers said that it's not sustainable. The animal shelter isn't sustainable and I don't understand how anybody can say that without talking to the people who are Going to be responsible for, for making it happen. You know, because, for example, fallen officers Sierra Burton, her family is lending total support to either. Calling the shelter after see naming it after Sierra, since she was an intense dog lover, our animal lover in general, and I Mean just simply lending her name to some of those projects, I think would be a huge moneymaker. People would love to contribute to that.
Speaker 1:Right, it just needs to be, you know, somebody take that cause and be in charge of it and help drive it along the way. Talked about in in our area seems like we have a lot Our issue with. With stray animals is probably beyond the norm. Is that kind of what you said? I think so.
Speaker 2:I actually stopped and at the clinic this morning on my way here to ask our staff members who watch like Richmond Pet Community things and ask them how many stray animals they're seeing on their posted every day. And they said three to five every single day and most of them are strays that don't have a home to go back to. So what's supposed to happen to these animals?
Speaker 1:Right. I don't know if there's, if there's certain laws on the books about animal care that just maybe aren't being enforced, or and maybe that creates more of the problem. I don't know. I've not personally researched that enough to really know. Maybe you don't know either. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, I was part of a group that I think it was 2010. We went before city council and asked them to change some or adds to some ordinances to make things a little tighter, and one of those was that if your dog is running or your dog is producing puppies that kind of thing and you're caught, you have two choices you either get your animal fixed within 30 days or you buy a breeder's permit for $100 and that's a drop in the bucket. You know $100, but they even discussed city tags were supposed to have a breeder's notation on them. Now that that could help. I mean, is it going to change the world? No, it's not going to, but it might. It sends a message. You know I'm going to get in trouble or animal control is going to knock on my door if I, if I breed my pit bull one more time. You know, and I think it's, it's a step in the right direction, but it's not enforced.
Speaker 1:Right, that's the problem. You have all the rules in the world, but if if it not being enforced that they're meaningless. Right Beyond what might be the obvious, is there anything else about why it's important for people to spay a neutered pet?
Speaker 2:The health of the pet itself. Yeah, we see testicular cancer in unspayed, unneutered dogs, prostate cancers and problems. Females get breast cancer if they haven't been spayed. They get a condition called pyometra, which is deadly. It's an infection of the uterus and if you don't remove that uterus right away, or sometimes even if you do, the animal will pass away. It's just to protect the health of your pet.
Speaker 1:Right, and I don't think people really I didn't know that, I mean I mean most people, I think get their pets spayed in neuter so they don't have unwanted puppies or kittens. They don't think about the health side of it. So I think that's really important to learn today, just in our conversation.
Speaker 2:Can help with aggression too. So if you have a male, that's a little pushy. Sometimes neutering it's huge with cats. I mean, we see, if you neuter a male cat that's aggressive, you got a whole different cat within 30 days. I mean, all that testosterone is out of the system and it's really interesting to watch. Plus, then you, you don't have all those unwanted kittens.
Speaker 1:Right. So my wife and I, over the past 30 years, have had to have three of our pets euthanized and each time it was just totally agonizing. The decision I mean just the experience is terrible, but in each case, you know, we felt like we made the right decision. However, it's just an awful decision to have to navigate through. What advice can you give our followers how to walk through that decision when it's the time to do it? I mean, it's just tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very hard, but sometimes it's the kindest, the last, kindest thing you can do for that animal too. If it's down to no quality of life, it's not eating or it can't stand up. You know, we see it a lot people just wanting to hang on till the, you know, till there's absolutely nothing left. And it's hard for any of us, you know. But I think that animal, if you watch closely, will let you know. You know I'm not having fun anymore. You know I don't want to eat anymore, I'm in pain, that kind of thing. And it is hard, but again, it's very often the kindest thing you can do.
Speaker 1:Our recent cat was a cat and we lost her and she I mean she was over 17 years old, which I think is a pretty good life. A very good lifespan, yeah for a cat, but she had some major medical issues and she had lost over half of her weight and she was just, she was just became totally inactive and wouldn't eat and, agonizing as it was, it just felt it was time.
Speaker 2:Yeah you told me about her and, yeah, it jerks at your heartstrings, but it sounds like you did the right thing.
Speaker 1:So if somebody is thinking of getting a pet, what's your advice to them? Because sometimes I think people get take on pets for the wrong reasons or they it's. It might be an emotional decision at times, and then you have this animal that now they really shouldn't have. I mean, when you're considering adoption or getting a pet, what can you offer? Some advice or some things you people should really consider.
Speaker 2:You're right, it's. Sometimes it's just an a knee-jerk reaction. You know, oh, this is cute puppy, we're just gonna get it. Or this I love this cat and but we don't have any litter, we don't have any food. We haven't thought this through. Or you know, we had a couple come in not long ago with two ducks and we took the ducks and they said, well, it's not working out in our apartment and I thought, well, duh, you know why don't you get two ducks for your apartment? But it's the same with dogs and cats. You know our veterinarian, dr Kostik. We love her so much and she and her family have Irish wolf hounds.
Speaker 2:Well, these things are huge. I mean, they're like 150 pounds, something like that but she's got space for them, she's got yards and a yard and they walk them all the time, you know. So people just need to do their homework and think it, think it through, if I can carry it into reptiles, we have an 80-pound sulcata tortoise. I would never, ever go out and purchase something like that. It was dumped in Glenmiller Park six years ago when she weighed 11 pounds and we take her to schools. She's getting so big it's gonna be hard to do it much longer but to teach kids.
Speaker 2:Hey, you got to do your homework before you get one of these things. It's gonna outlive you, it's gonna outweigh you. It can't be out in the winter time. Not everybody wants a sulcata tortoise laying in their living room in the winter time. So, and it's the same thing with dogs and cats how much time do you have? Do you have time to spend with a dog if you don't get like I don't know something easy going, like I don't know a young lab or an old lab or something like that? But don't go get a cattle dog or don't go get a border collie if you have no time to spend with it and there's a big difference between obviously I'm saying something obvious, but cats and dogs, you know they, you know they.
Speaker 1:They're so much different in their care, aren't they? And, as far as you know, getting a cat might be better than getting a dog for some people or vice versa. I don't know. Seems like there was another thing I want to add. Oh, if we, if we see you mentioned a little bit earlier if we see an animal loose, just running loose, or an animal injured, what's your best advice about what to do if you, if somebody sees that?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I really don't know. I mean, we'll tell people, call the police department and they'll call back and say they said they can't do anything. Or, and again, it's not their fault, it's just out of control. Shelters in general have have changed over the years, and I think they're. I was watching Fox News the other morning and they were talking about an Indianapolis shelter that was reaching out to neighborhoods like if the neighborhood had a stray dog or something like that. They would even provide them with food and resources to try and keep that dog in the neighborhood. Maybe they'll find its home fast, you know or something like that, rather than put it into a shelter.
Speaker 2:Shelters so often have become just warehousing facilities and you know, I think it's like 22% of the animals are reclaimed something like that A huge person are never reclaimed. I don't really have any advice.
Speaker 1:It was. I believe it was the summer before last we had I live out in the country and we had this. This dog was a really sweet dog. It was real skittish, it wouldn't let you get near it, it wasn't aggressive, it just was scared and it ended up. Another family member lived near us and this dog ended up kind of gravitating to that property and just kind of hung out on the porch and it was cared for and fed for a while and luckily we were able to find kind of a local rural family that wanted this is a little bit larger dog that ended up wanting a dog and I, from what I know, that dog end up going there and living there. But you know, you know we had made calls to try to get help and and it said, yeah, we'll be out but they never came. They never came in. I suspect they're overwhelmed with people calling about animals in our community. From from what I'm hearing from you, we have a little bit of a of an issue, more so than maybe maybe what other communities might we.
Speaker 2:We probably get 15 to 20 calls a day, more about cats than anything else and it's really hard to say no, there's nothing we can do. But there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 1:One thing I wanted to remember to ask you about or share, is when I came to your clinic, you took me over to your wildlife section. Tell, tell, tell us a little bit about the wildlife that we have.
Speaker 2:We're the only organization within a multi county area that is licensed by Indiana Department Department of Natural Resources and you and us Fish and Wildlife Service to rehabilitate or care for orphaned and injured native mammals and raptors and songbirds. So, again, the only one. So we get them from miles and miles and miles around. In the spring, march through July, is the peak time we're getting baby raccoons, baby foxes, possums, almost all year long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this time of year we see a lot of raptors that are just not faring well because you know they say something like 90% of them never make it through their first year of life. So, mom and dad, you know, teach them as well as they can to hunt and then set them free and very often they just they're not street smart, they're like 14 year old, go and say and make your way in life. So we get a lot of those. Right now we have, I think, four red tails, two barred owls, five Eastern screech owls. We got a great turkey vulture that I love more than life. I love to see so much fun to take to school. So we also have education permits and we use those animals, the ones that aren't releasable, to take to schools and co-environmental center and Hayes Arboretum and public events just to teach people about conservation and their species in general.
Speaker 1:Because some of the animals that you care for in your wildlife section they can't be released into the wild because of some type of an injury that just makes it impossible for them to be let out in the environment. That correct, yes, and that's where you have an opportunity to use, you know, them to participate in education, right, I've seen some pictures of you doing that. Seems like that's something that you really love to do.
Speaker 2:It is fun. It's kind of different. We have there's a species of owl in Indiana called a short-eared owl. At one point they were endangered and I thought they still were, but evidently they've passed through that stage. But I had only seen one in my life and that was about five years ago and that one came to us very injured and it didn't survive. And then within the last month we've gotten two, and one of those was so badly injured that it didn't survive. But we've got this other one. It's just the coolest little creature. It looks so different I mean it doesn't look like the normal owls that you see and it's about three times the size of a screech owl, a bit smaller than a barred owl. So it's a cool bird.
Speaker 1:You don't get to see owls out in the wild that much because they're nocturnal I guess, but they're such amazing and beautiful animals to see. I mean it was kind of cool to get to see these barn owls that you have, because you don't typically see them I mean it's rare that you do they are just absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 2:They are, and sometimes at night I'll hear them calling. We've released some barn owls out on that property too, and so I'll hear them calling out and others in the woods answering back. And I always wonder is it one that we took care of or yeah, but it's fun.
Speaker 1:So is there anything else that, today, you'd like to share with our followers? Some words of wisdom.
Speaker 2:Span you to your pets for their health and for the community in general. No, we can always use donations, always, always.
Speaker 1:Yes, and, like I had mentioned earlier, if you go to animalcarolinescom, there's a really simple way to donate to your organization. So I hope people listening they will do that. I can speak for myself. They do a wonderful job there and they've got a lot of people working to help the cause. How, outside of making contributions, do you have many volunteers? How does that work?
Speaker 2:We have a few volunteers. We have an awful lot of Earlham students that volunteer and a big part of that is we like to mentor students who are interested in making some kind of wildlife or veterinary medicine their life's work. So we do a lot of mentoring. Actually, we've had three students or interns be accepted into veterinary schools in the last few years, so we're kind of proud of them Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Patting ourselves on the back for having a little something to do with that. But yeah, we like to have volunteers. Animal care is a huge part of what we do. Again, we don't make any money for that, so we try to be careful. So if anybody wants to come and help us scoop litter boxes, feed cats, socialize cats that are scared when they come in, that's always very, very valuable.
Speaker 1:So you can use more money? Of course, absolutely so. Do you need more volunteers? Would you take? Yeah?
Speaker 2:we could take volunteers.
Speaker 1:So if I'm interested in coming and even just spending time with some of the animals that help, you know, just care for them or do tasks. What's the best way to make that contact with Animal Care Alliance?
Speaker 2:Just call the clinic 488-2444-ERC-765. And there's always be a staff member that would be happy to talk to you about volunteer opportunities.
Speaker 1:Great, awesome. Well, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's been fun.
Speaker 1:I've really enjoyed the conversation and hopefully those listening and watching they'll have a greater appreciation for what Animal Care Alliance does and the different shelters and there's definitely a need out there and hopefully, if you're inspired to want to help, you've got a couple of ways to do that Thanks to Manpower Sponsor. They've been in the community since 1966 and invest a community partner, helping companies win. So for more information about Manpower you can go to mprichmancom. Thanks, joyce, thank you, love it.