Great job! You, our wonderful friends and supporters, helped to donate 12,500 bowls of pet food to the Central Oklahoma Humane Society!

During the month of October 2011, the Central Oklahoma Humane Society was the animal shelter chosen to benefit from the Purina One – Bowl by Bowl program on Facebook. Our fans joined thousands of animal lovers from across the nation to use the Bowl by Bowl Facebook application to answer questions and share their thoughts about animal welfare. For every four questions you answered, one bowl of pet food was added to our total. We had to meet a goal of 12,500 bowls donated in order to receive any pet food.

You clicked your way to the finish line throughout October, and our goal was met! We just received word that our adoption animals will soon be chowing down on 6,250 bowls of cat food and 6,250 bowls of dog food.

That’s more than 1,024 pounds of cat food and 3,570 pounds of dog food–  enough to feed 100 dogs and 100 cats for more than 2 months!

You made this possible! It’s because of your continued support that we are able to provide care for the animals in our adoption program and fulfill our mission of eliminating the needless euthanasia of animals in Oklahoma City.

We’d also like to thank Purina One for letting us participate in their Bowl by Bowl program, and for donating so many life-saving meals to the animals in our community.

If you are interested  in helping us save the lives of even more animals, donate today or sign up to be an OK Humane volunteer or foster parent.

Give your Valentine a bundle of unconditional love while potentially saving the life of an innocent cat or dog.

From 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Feb. 11 and noon to 5 p.m. Feb. 12, the Central Oklahoma Humane Society will have a special event at its adoption center, 7500 N Western Ave., during which all dogs and cats will be free to adopt.

“So many people may not spend Valentine’s Day with a human companion but could get as much satisfaction with a furry companion,” said Christy Counts, executive director of the Central Oklahoma Humane Society.

The Humane Society is a “no-kill” shelter. All the animals there are transferred from the Oklahoma City Animal Shelter, and many are animals that otherwise would be euthanized.

“We’re dedicated to ending euthanasia,” Counts said. Each dog or cat under the care of the Humane Society is fostered by a volunteer family. The animals are brought to the Humane Society’s adoption center daily by the foster families.

The usual fee for adoption, $150 for dogs and $75 for cats, will be waived for this special event. Each of the 100-plus animals up for adoption will be spayed or neutered, vaccinated, dewormed, microchipped and treated for fleas and ticks.

Additionally, the Humane Society is always seeking volunteers to foster animals in need.

“We call our foster families our front-line life savers,” Counts said.

To learn more

For more information about fostering an animal or about the adoption event, call 607-8991.

Animals up for adoption can be viewed at www.okhumane.org.
Read more: http://newsok.com/adopt-a-furry-valentine-for-free-at-central-oklahoma-humane-society-event/article/3643064#ixzz1kTz2De6h

President Christy Counts and her dog Roma

We are fast approaching the five year anniversary of OK Humane. It is unbelievable to me that five years have passed us by already. I was just informed yesterday that in this short time period our team has adopted out over 8,000 dogs and cats and provided spay/neuter surgeries for over 34,000 dogs and cats. Each year our team continues to grow and press forward with bigger goals that result in even more lives saved. With big numbers like this it is important to step back and look at the stories of our individual animals. It is the individual stories that keep us animal welfare advocates going on a daily basis.

Just yesterday I was sitting and talking with an adopter about a little dog he adopted named Sadie. Sadie was pulled from the OKC Shelter dirty and hiding in the back of her cage. Little did we know that Sadie had a very important job to do in this world when we admitted her into our program. Her job was to help our adopter handle the grief he was experiencing with the loss of his wife. While talking with him he explained to me that Sadie had turned things around for him as once again he had a happy face greeting him at the door. No longer was he alone at night as Sadie cuddles next to him to sleep. He said Sadie had “lit up his soul” again and I thought to myself, this is why we do what we do. Animals are truly capable of bringing out the best in people.

-Christy Counts

Here are ALL the details for the Black Free-Day event!

ALL animals at the Central Oklahoma Humane Society adoption center will be available for $0 adoption fees (that means free). All animals are spayed/neutered, vaccinated (as appropriate for their age), microchipped, dewormed and healthy at the time of adoption. Every animal will also go home with an ID tag!

This special is ONLY valid for animals at the OK Humane adoption center at 7500 N. Western Avenue in Oklahoma City on Friday, November 25, 2011. It is not valid for OK Humane cats at PetSmart locations.

The adoption center will be open for adoptions from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm on Friday. Adopters are welcome to arrive early and line up; it is first come, first served. The Munch Box food truck will be on hand from 10:00 to 1:30 serving up delicious lunch!

Adopters will fill out a short adoption questionnaire and speak with an adoption counselor. They will fill out adoption paperwork and take the animal home the same day.

We will have all available OK Humane dogs and cats at the event on Friday. You can see our available adoption animals here on our website. If you want to know if a certain animal will be available at the event on Friday, you can check our website. During the event, we won’t be able to update the website, as animals will (hopefully) be being adopted very quickly! So if there is a particular animal you are interested in, you should get there early.

If you want to keep up with the action, we’ll be posting (and even live streaming!) on social media all day long!

Please post comments here or on our Facebook page if you have any questions. We will answer as quickly as we can, and other people with the same questions will get answers as well!

We hope to see everyone at Black Free-Day on Friday–and we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! (remember, our adoption center will be closed on Thursday to allow our staff to celebrate Thanksgiving)

[googleMap name="OK Humane Adoption Center" width="400" height="300"]7500 N. Western Avenue, Oklahoma City, OK 73116[/googleMap]

Grants aimed at curbing city’s pet overpopulation

Three local organizations benefit from PetSmart Charities.

Carmen Forman

November 9th, 2011

Through its People Saving Pets program, PetSmart Charities granted more than $338,000 to three Oklahoma City animal-welfare organizations — the Central Oklahoma Humane Society, the City of Oklahoma City’s Animal Welfare Division and The Bella Foundation — to improve programs aimed at curbing pet overpopulation.

The Bella Foundation, an OKC-based nonprofit, received $11,500 to buy a van to ferry more pets to and from adoption events and veterinary appointments.

Eric McCune, Bella president and co-founder, said the van has increased the number of pet adoptions on an average Saturday of about eight on to 22.

“It acts like a mobile billboard,” McCune said. “We’ve seen an increase in website traffic, Facebook usage, emails asking us about dogs we have for adoption, and it’s all because someone has seen the van.”

The new van has got people asking about The Bella Foundation, and is increasing the number of volunteers and foster families, McCune said.

“Anytime you can go someplace and do 18 adoptions in one day is amazing, because that means there are 18 more spaces for animals at the shelter that can come into our programs to find homes,” McCune said.

WIDENED OPPORTUNITIES
The People Saving Pets program was started in February in an effort to stop more than 4 million pets being euthanized each year, said Susana Della Maddalena, PetSmart Charities vice president and executive director.

Oklahoma City was chosen as one of the two launch cities for the program, because PetSmart Charities was impressed with the collaboration between the city’s animal-welfare organizations.

“First, we need to find homes for as many as we can, and then we really need to promote spay and neuter to reduce the number of unwanted pets coming into shelters,” Maddalena said.

People Saving Pets awarded a grant of $104,000 to pay for a volunteer coordinator and an adoption coordinator at Oklahoma City’s Animal Welfare Division. These two new positions will allow to recruit more volunteers and foster-care families.

The Central Oklahoma Humane Society was awarded $222,550 for a number of new programs, including hiring a foster-care coordinator for two years. The money also will allow the division to hire a feral-cat coordinator and subsidize spay-and-neuter surgeries.

“If we could just get the majority of our population to do that, we wouldn’t be having the overpopulation crisis we’re having,” said Christy Counts, Humane Society president. “So it’s of critical importance to get people to spay and neuter their pets.”

Because the launch of the People Saving Pets program seems to be successful in Oklahoma City and Phoenix, the organization plans to take the program to Cleveland and Charleston, S.C., next year, Maddalena said.

“It’s not about your pets or my pets; it’s about the community’s pets,” she said.

Effort seeks to reduce pet homelessness

BY CATHERINE ENGLISH, CHRISTY COUNTS AND ERIC MCCUNE

Published: June 8, 2011

Take a trip to an animal shelter in Oklahoma City, and you’ll see a variety of dogs and cats. The only way these pets differ from those lounging on our couches or frolicking in our backyards is that these pets don’t have a place to call home.

Animal shelters are seeing occupancy rates creep steadily higher each day, and the statistics relating to homeless pets are startling — more than 8 million pets in the United States live in shelters and about 4 million are euthanized every year simply because they don’t have a home. Even more striking, however, is the public perception that this problem isn’t nearly as bad as it seems. A survey last year revealed that 40 percent of Oklahoma City residents believed only 1 million pets are euthanized annually — a far cry from the actual number. And nationwide, only 29 percent of Americans are familiar with the issue of pet homelessness.

Can the homeless pet problem be solved? Of course — and any pet lover can be part of the solution.

A social movement called “People Saving Pets” was created by PetSmart Charities this year to educate the public on the plight of homeless pets and to unite people in a push for change. Oklahoma City was selected as one of two launch cities largely due to the great strides Oklahoma City government, local animal-welfare organizations and the ASPCA have made to find homes for more pets.

Creating public awareness about the homeless pet problem and getting more people to adopt pets and spay/neuter their pets is imperative to curtail the number of pets euthanized in our community.

Nearly 200 local and national animal welfare organizations are supporting People Saving Pets. Central Oklahoma Humane Society, Oklahoma City Animal Welfare Division, The Bella Foundation and 20 other Oklahoma animal welfare groups are pushing People Saving Pets’ twofold mission to find homes for adoptable shelter pets and to give people who love pets a forum to support the cause.

Have a passion for animals and want to volunteer at a local agency? Ever wonder where the closest pet adoption center is? Want to know why spaying and neutering animals is essential to ending pet homelessness?

Answers to these questions and many more are available at www.PeopleSavingPets.org — where you can learn, read personal adoption stories and share your own. Spend time on the website and you’ll discover that pets aren’t the only ones whose lives are changed for the better when we bring them into our lives.

Every day is a time to celebrate the bond between pets and their owners and find loving homes for animals who need them. But pet homelessness isn’t a problem that will be solved in one event or one shelter. It will take a coordinated effort from those passionate about the cause to make change a reality. And when the notion of pets without homes is a thing of the past — what a story we’ll have to tell!

English is manager of the Oklahoma City Animal Welfare Division. Counts is president and executive director of the Central Oklahoma Humane Society. McCune is president and co-founder of The Bella Foundation.

-Christy Counts

If YOUR pet has a great trick, get out that video camera and record it, because OK Humane is looking for a new mascot!

Just shoot a video under 2 minutes long (nothing fancy; cell phone cameras are fine!) of your pet performing its trick. Submit it to the Big Top Tricks & Tails contest page before Sunday, May 1 at Midnight. Then starting next week, get your friends to vote for your video. The video with the most votes wins!

There’s no cost to enter, and the goal of the contest is to spread awareness about our Midnight Woofness: Under the Big Top event coming up in May. Our new Mascot will be officially “crowned” before a huge audience during the Midnight Woofness event; it will be great fun for the entire family!

So get out those cameras and show us your pet’s best stuff!

Enter Now!

Entry Deadline: May 1, 2011, 11:59 p.m.

Did you know that OK Humane is not a “local branch” of any national organization? We don’t have a “parent company” or any sponsoring organization. We don’t receive any state, local or federal funding.

Every cent of our operating funds comes from grants, as well as donations from friends like you.

We want to share with you some of what we’ve accomplished with YOUR HELP in 2010:

• More than 2,550 animals adopted into new homes
• 12,567 spay/neuter surgeries on cats and dogs at our clinics
• 11,000 loads of laundry (pet bedding, toys, blankies, linens, etc.)
• More than 31,000 volunteer hours
• More than 4,500 citizen calls and emails answered each month to solve common problems, helping people keep their pets in their homes
• More than 500 K-12 students participated in humane education programs
• National adoption records set and broken in two 48-hour adoption events (388 and 490!)
• More than 1,300 feral cats spayed and neutered through our Trap/Neuter/Return Program

We were ONLY able to accomplish all this because of support from people in our community who believe that the humane treatment of animals elevates our city, our state and our nation.

People just like you.

With your help, just think what we will accomplish in 2011 and beyond!

And we need your help now.

There’s still time to make a donation that you can deduct on your 2010 taxes.

If every fan on Facebook and Twitter committed to donating just $5 each month, we would raise $180,000 in 2011!

We need donations we can rely on from month to month, so if you can, please consider making a recurring monthly donation of any amount. You can also make a one-time donation, if you prefer.

OK Humane exists to make life better for the animals in our community. The money you donate is used to help animals right here in Oklahoma.

There is nothing we can’t do, if we all work together. Can we count on you to help us one last time in 2010? Donate before midnight tonight!

Thank you for making our lifesaving work possible.

Adult Cats – FREE!
Kittens (under 6 months) – $12
Adult Dogs (over 6 months) – $25

In an effort to adopt out 200 animals during the 12-day period, OK Humane is offering FREE cat adoptions for adult cats six months and older. Kitten adoption fees will be only $12.00. Normal cat and kitten adoption fees are $75.00. All OK Humane adult dogs will be available for adoption for $25 during this special event. The adoption fee includes the following procedures: spay/neuter, de-worming, vaccinations, flea/tick treatment, microchip and snap test.

“We have 200 cats and dogs in our adoption program currently and we are determined to get them all into a home before the holidays! What could be a better holiday gift than a new companion?” said OK Humane Director Christy Counts.

See Available Cats for Adoption!

See Available Dogs for Adoption!

The Catmas event is in collaboration with the Oklahoma City Animal Welfare Division and is one of many future efforts to offer deeply discounted adoption fees in an effort to save more lives. OK Humane and the Oklahoma City Animal Welfare Division have teamed up to form a collective goal of 3,000 more adoptions in 2011.

Potential adopters can take advantage of these discounted rates at the OK Humane Adoption Center located at 7500 North Western Avenue. The Adoption Center will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.