Of Beer Festivals and Dirty Diapers: A Not-At-All Brief and Fairly True History of Pints for Pups

July 18th, 2025 | Posted by KMdirector2* in Feel Good Story - (0 Comments)

Written by Karel Minor, Humane Pennsylvania President & CEO

I thank heaven there is not a U.N. Convention prohibiting the torture of metaphor, for I would surely be hauled in front of a Hague Tribunal for my crimes.  Allow me to illustrate my metaphorical depravity.  When people used to ask if my wife and I were planning on having another kid, I’d respond, “Good lord, no!  Do you know how little sleep we get and how awful those dirty diapers are?”  Two years later, as we welcomed daughter two, then two years after that for daughter three, someone would inevitably bring my earlier response up and ask what changed.  I’d reply, “Enough time went by that I forgot, and kids are a lot of fun.”

Such is Pints for Pups.  After the last big Pints for Pups held eight years ago, I swore I’d never do another.  I was too old to haul kegs, it was too expensive and didn’t make enough net profit to justify the efforts, and the freak tornadic supercell thunderstorm that dumped six inches of rain on us and threatened to blow the tent away certainly didn’t help.  Do another?  Good lord, no!

But a lot of time has passed, and boy, are these big Pints for Pups Beer Festivals fun.  There, file the criminal charges at the Hague, I’ve strung up that metaphor by its toes.

I’m not going to tell you how great this July 19th’s Mega-Pints for Pups is going to be, at least not outright.  You can mosey on over to Humane PA and read that for yourself before you buy tickets or, better yet, sponsor the event.  Instead, I’m going to wander down faulty memory lane and share the history of Pints for Pups with you, and how it was rooted in a comedy of errors in 1994 at a whole different organization.  That comedy of errors resulted in, as far as I’ve ever been able to figure and I’m sticking with it until someone proves otherwise, the creation of the first ongoing charity beer event in Pennsylvania.  Grab a beer, put on the readers, and turn the brightness up on your phone; this will take a minute.

I’m not one to humble brag.  Not because I don’t brag, I do.  It’s the humility part I struggle with.  But as much as I’d like to claim that charity beer events were all my idea, I can’t.  But I was able to turn lemons into lemonade and hops into wort- darn it, there I go with the metaphors again-when I found myself as a………………………………………..wait………………..what’s happening here?……………………….what, is this some kind of freak out? This isn’t funny, Wonka!

It was bound to happen.  Two weeks ago, I had this brainchild of reimagining Pints for Pups as the Glastonbury of Beer Festivals.  Like any new festival, of course, something would go wrong or run late.  I didn’t want it to be forgetting the portapotties or the beer, so the sacrificial item is this, what was to be a total engrossing history of Pints for Pups.  Oh, well, if something has to give, better this than something else.  We don’t want a Fyre Festival on our hands, do we?  Now you can say you were at the first Glastonbury of Beer Fests and “….It was such a mess, I mean, they didn’t even finish typing the last blog post, can you believe it, Muffy?  I mean, what amateurs.”

I have an idea!  If you haven’t already, you should totally buy your tickets using this link RIGHT NOW!  Then I can finish the story for you in person over a drink! Maybe sitting beside a little bonfire in the moonlit meadow of Strummerville West after the show?

Or, you can wait for me to finish writing this some other time.  But can you stand the antici………..

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The Glastonbury of Beer Fests, or Who is This Joe Strummer They Keep Talking About?

July 12th, 2025 | Posted by KMdirector2* in Animal Welfare | Feel Good Story | Humane Pennsylvania | Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Written by Karel Minor, Humane Pennsylvania President & CEO (and aging Punk!)

A funny thing happened on the way to bringing back Humane PA’s Pints for Pups (PfP) after an 8-year break.  It kind of became something else.  PfP had always been a big, fun party with lots of drinks, food, and live music.  But the pause meant that we didn’t have to be just a repeat of last year’s event, only in a different spot with a different band.  It can be what it always wanted to be when it grew up.  A tiny Glastonbury of Beer Festivals!

In case you don’t know about the Glastonbury Festival, it’s a big music festival in the English countryside.  Music, art, pleasant weirdos, and very cool tents.  Think Burning Man but with less pretension and rolling, green fields.

This year’s PfP is being hosted at HPA’s very own Ruiz-Murphy Dog Park in Birdsboro.  It has green, rolling fields aplenty.  We decided to book two bands from the early days of PfP, the fabulous Americana of The Youngers, who first played in 2008, and the OG Brit rockabilly of Dibbs and the Detonators, who first played in 2009.  Wow, did we have not just a band but a mini-festival? HPA events always bring out nice folks who bring their dogs and are generally more humane than the average punter (to steal a Brit term).  These days, nice people seem to be the weird exception and not the rule, and we welcome them.  Pleasant weirdos? Check!

But it all clicked when we were planning to prepare for rain and sun, and I remembered we had a big bunch of giant multicolored sun umbrellas to go with the big sail cloth and tarps we usually hang to give shade and cover from the sun or rain.  I thought, “This is starting to look like Glastonbury more than Pints for Pups.”  Eureka!  This was exactly the vibe at the very best years of PfP – parklike settings, space to spread out, and being not just a nice way to support Humane PA’s mission but a big fun party with a few hundred of our pleasant friends and a band (or two!) we love.

Photos from past Glastonbury Festivals

In other words, Pints for Pups is the Glastonbury of Beer Festivals!  And if it’s Glastonbury, it wouldn’t be complete without Strummerville, Joe Strummer’s village of tents where people hung out around a bonfire after the show.  So, we are inviting you to participate in the inaugural Strummerville West.  Bring your pop-up tent, some extra chairs, and a blanket to set up around the small bonfire.  Hang out during the event and then head to your tent when we light up the fire at 9:00 PM, when PfP wraps up.  Everyone loves a fire, and you can enjoy some relaxation and conversation with friends.  At least until we kick you out at 11:00.  Look, we may all be pleasant weirdos, but we aren’t jobless freaks – we all have stuff to do in the morning, right?

 

Photos from past Pints for Pups Festivals

If you haven’t yet, buy your tickets now.  Everyone gets a complimentary PfP glass, over 75 varieties of beer, wine, and booze to sample, a full cash bar for full pours and mixed drinks, food trucks and vendors to shop, and live music.  Buy or upgrade to VIP tickets and get extra stuff like VIP only tented table seating, food truck vouchers, and full beer pours.  Did we mention you can bring your friendly, leashed, well-behaved dog?

Better yet, go nuts and become a business or individual sponsor of the event to get recognition benefits, extra VIP tickets, and know you’ve done just a little bit more to help animals than the other pleasant weirdos around you.  Hey, we’re not above playing on ego if it saves a life.  But if you’re OK with not saving more puppies and kitties and just want to do the bare minimum, that’s between you and the pet you have to look in the eye.

C’mon, all this and you can bring your dog?  What else do you need – a limo, and we pay you to come?

Is a week out a little late to decide we’re the Glastonbury of Beer Fests?  Sure.  But Glastonbury started out in 1970 when 1,500 people saw T. Rex headlining.  In 1971, 12,000 tickets saw David Bowie headlining.  Last year, 200,000 people saw The 1975 and Olivia Rodrigo.  Which people had the better story to tell?  Get in on the ground floor this year and get the t-shirt to prove you were there and heard of it first.  Next year, you might not be able to get as close to the stage!  Does anyone have Olivia’s number by any chance?  I’d kinda like to have her play.

The slightly less tiny Clash homage shirt designed by Adrienne Trafford for HPA!

My tiny 13 year Clash tee (still worn by my daughter!)

Postscript:  OK. What’s the deal with all the Joe Strummer?  Well, we really like him.  OK, again.  Well, I really like him, I have since I was 12. “What would Joe Strummer do?” might be as much a guiding principle as any at HPA.  He saw and called out injustice, especially against the most powerless, but was realistic that it took work, not just songs and slogans.  Sounds a little like HPA, right?  At his core, “He was very humane,” as Steve Diggle of The Buzzcocks said of him after he passed away in 2002 from an undiagnosed heart defect.  The last thing he did before he died suddenly on his couch at home?  He had walked his dogs.  Am I not going to make homage HPA t-shirts, dedicate our live music events to his memory, or name one of a kind project like the soon to be under construction Joe Strummer Memorial Garden & Turtle Nirvana after him?  As if.

I happened to start working at Humane PA in 2002, the year Joe died.  It’s not going too far to say that his legacy is not only his music, but what it inspired and resulted in through the work of HPA.  They say not many saw The Clash live in England, but they all started a band.  I was lucky enough to see The Clash play.  I say the same is true in America, except we all started a charity and tried to improve the world.

That’s why I’m always yammering on about Joe.  I’m sure you’ll bear with me, as one pleasant weirdo to another.

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Fare Thee Well, Aida May

June 18th, 2025 | Posted by Maggie McDevitt in Animal Rescue | Animal Welfare | Humane Pennsylvania - (Comments Off on Fare Thee Well, Aida May)

Written by Karel Minor, Humane Pennsylvania President & CEO

Twelve years ago, when (what was then known as) the Humane Society of Berks County was asked by the Humane League of Lancaster County to take over management of their organization, I first met Aida May. At the time, she was a non-management kennel technician, and she had already been working there for a few years. I remember the reaction of the Berks management team was basically, “Who is that and why doesn’t hasn’t she been promoted?”

Aida presented herself with a calm, even-tempered demeanor and a quiet competence. Quiet tends to be overlooked, if not ignored, but I took note. When the two organizations underwent the extremely rough birthing process of formally merging to create the new Humane Pennsylvania, Aida stuck around. She kept stepping up to more and more and was promoted to a Coordinator position and ultimately as Manager of Adoption Programs at Humane PA.

This may seem like light praise but it is not: throughout she was an unflappable presence. Animal welfare is a business that tends toward maximum “flappability.” It’s high-stress, high-emotion, life-and-death stakes, and often tends to gather to itself people who may…how can I say this gently?…get along better with animals than people. Aida is a rare person who is kind and compassionate with animals and with people.

So, when she announced it was time for her to move on to a better work opportunity, the news brought mixed emotions for all of us. We all want her to do what’s best for her and her family, but it is also hard to figure out exactly how the place will function and will “feel” without her presence. Aida has been part of Humane PA for more than half the time I’ve worked here, which is twenty-one years this July. While we all know that 125-year-old organizations like ours have a longer life span than any one employee, we also know that without people, we’re nothing.

Aida is one of the people who has made the lifesaving work HPA does possible, and has gotten us through good times and bad. She was there when we merged. She was there when we implemented the radical new approach to community animal health called the Healthy Pets Initiative. She was there when our vet hospitals were certified by the American Animal Hospital Association, the first in PA and among the first in the nation. She was there during COVID, when we kept our doors open and did not lay off a single staff member. She made good times better and made bad times less bad.

We will miss her and we send her our appreciation and love. We hope you will do the same.

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Dog Adoptions Return to Lancaster!

April 17th, 2025 | Posted by Maggie McDevitt in Adopt A Shelter Pet | Animal Rescue | Animal Welfare | Humane Pennsylvania - (Comments Off on Dog Adoptions Return to Lancaster!)

Written by Karel Minor, Humane Pennsylvania President & CEO

Despite news stories and animal shelter full-tilt freakout press releases to the contrary, the war on pet overpopulation and needless shelter euthanasia has been a wild success. In 1970, up to 26 million cats and dogs entered animal shelters, and up to 20 million of those were euthanized. To put that in context, in 1970 there were only 65 million cats and dogs in the U.S. So, in 1970, as much as 40% of the cats and dogs alive in the U.S. passed through shelters, and as many as 1 in 3.25 pets alive at the time were killed in animal shelters every year.

Fast forward to 2025. The U.S. is estimated to have 199 million cats and dogs. Estimates for the number of cats and dogs entering America’s shelters range between six million and four million (depending on who you ask and how you count). The number of cats and dogs euthanized in shelters is between a high estimate of 3 million and a low of under 800,000. That’s a numeric intake reduction of between 77% and 84%. The reduction in euthanasia since 1970 is between 85% to 96%.

As a percentage of the U.S. cat and dog population, the number of animals killed in shelters compared to the total number of animals has dropped from up to 40% in 1970 to a high of 1.5%, or a low estimate of one-half of one percent of animals alive in 2024. If that’s not good news—if that’s not an outright victory—I don’t know what is.

Now, I know some of you reading may be yelling, “You lie! Those numbers are false!” That’s fine—you can Google the scientific papers and multiple national shelter population surveys that back this information up. If you need something to support the narrative that shelters are still drowning in pets, just jump in your car and drive until you go over the edge of the flat Earth. You might find the facts you want to find there.

While this is great news in the aggregate, one animal that dies needlessly is a tragedy—and animals still die needlessly sometimes. Also, some parts of the U.S. have greater challenges than others. But by and large, a shelter focus on adoption over death, access to sterilization, vet care, proper nutrition, changes in the perception of acceptable pet care responsibilities, social media, microchip ID, and radically changed animal control models have improved the world for pets and their families for the better.

What the heck does this have to do with dog adoptions in Lancaster? Everything. The animal shelter infrastructure in Lancaster and Berks County, where Humane PA has adoption centers, was created in the 1970s to handle 1970s realities. As recently as 20 years ago, the combined shelter intake for the Humane League of Lancaster County and the Humane Society of Berks County was 21,000 cats and dogs a year. Over 14,000 of those animals were euthanized.

Ten years ago, these two forward-thinking and innovative organizations merged to become Humane Pennsylvania. Thanks to our industry-leading and groundbreaking work—combined with an already-happening sea change in the status of pet animals in the U.S.—in the past year, our shelters only took in 1,970 animals, and only 135 were euthanized. That’s just about 6% of total intake, and solely for true medical necessity and to relieve genuine suffering—just like many of us have had to do for our own elderly, sick, or severely injured pets. That’s also less than one-tenth of one percent of the number euthanized in our shelters twenty years ago.

That’s one of the reasons Humane PA decided to move the increasingly small number of dogs we have for adoption in Lancaster to just one of our adoption centers: the newly renovated adoption center in Reading. We also renovated the Lancaster kennels to open Spike & Tilly’s Pet Resort, which offers increasingly hard-to-find affordable pet boarding services. This new service is in line with our pioneering creation of affordable vet care programs over the past 18 years.

It left a lot of kennels empty—kennels that were built to deal with the 1970 tsunami of pets, but were no longer being filled by homeless pets for adoption in our community. But we hate resources going to waste.

Sometimes, opportunity connects resources and need and opens the door for something wonderful and unexpected. That’s what happened in Lancaster! While we’ve been breaking new ground creating affordable, accessible services for pets in the home, our great friends at Brandywine Valley SPCA have been doing incredible, pioneering work that has been transforming animal control services to help animals out on the streets. Most recently, they were asked to take over animal control services for all of Washington, D.C., and while they renovate animal care facilities down there, they needed a place for animals to be safely housed and adopted.

Guess who had the space available? We did! We couldn’t be more excited to be sharing our available resources with our friends at BVSPCA while they bring improved services to a major city in need. We’re also thrilled to be able to help them bring a welcome supply of dogs in need of homes to our community!

BVSPCA’s dog adoption center is located in HPA’s kennel facility at our Lancaster Campus. The adoption center is run entirely by their staff and has its own entrance and hours (visit BVSPCA.org for details). If you are in Lancaster County and looking for a dog to adopt, check it out!

Of course, while you’re at it, check out Humane PA’s Lancaster Cat & Critter Adoption Center, The Thrifty Kitty Thrift Boutique, and Spike and Tilly’s Pet Resort for affordable pet boarding!  If it’s for animals, HPA’s Lancaster campus has it all!

While we’ve got your eyeballs, consider helping as a volunteer! HPA has opportunities from working in the new thrift shop to animal care, events, admin support, gardening, and so much more! Volunteers make our work possible—and we make it easy, fun, and meaningful.

To recap: The well-being of animals is incontrovertibly better compared to 50 years ago—and getting better all the time. But it’s not perfect. Through hard work, creative programs that focus on the needs of today and tomorrow (instead of yesterday’s), highly effective partnerships like the one with BVSPCA, and the volunteer and financial support of people like you, we are creating the best communities anywhere to be an animal or an animal caretaker. Thank you!

 

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Pet Poison Awareness Month

March 11th, 2025 | Posted by Maggie McDevitt in Animal Health | Animal Welfare | Healthy Pets | Humane Pennsylvania | Humane Veterinary Hospitals - (Comments Off on Pet Poison Awareness Month)
By: Humane Veterinary Hospitals – Reading Staff

Each year, more than 100,000 pets are accidentally exposed to toxins, resulting in emergency trips to the veterinarian or phone calls to Pet Poison Control hotlines.

What are the most common poisons and toxins ingested by pets, and where are they found?

Not surprisingly, the greatest risks to pets are found around the home. Plants, foods, human medications, cleaning supplies, and automotive products are responsible for the vast majority of pet poisoning cases reported to veterinarians and poison control centers.

Here are a few of the most common, as reported by the Pet Poison Helpline and the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center:

  • More than 1,000 common plants can be toxic to pets. While not all toxic exposures are life-threatening, it is important to take any potentially harmful exposure seriously.

Lilies, azaleas, aloe vera, sago palm, English ivy, philodendron, hydrangea, poinsettia, dieffenbachia, and oleander are among the leading causes of poisoning among pets and should be avoided.

  • Many foods that we commonly eat can also present a poisoning risk to pets. Highest on the list are products containing alcohol or caffeine. Caffeine-containing products such as coffee, coffee beans, and chocolate can result in life-threatening conditions, including tremors, arrhythmias, seizures, and death.

Other common foods pets should avoid include avocado, citrus fruits, grapes, raisins, coconut, nuts,  garlic, onions, yeast dough, and any processed foods containing the sweetener Xylitol.

If you believe your pet has ingested any of these substances, contact your vet or local animal poison control center.

  • Household & Automotive Products. Many household and automotive products also pose a poisoning risk to pets. Bleach, ammonia, household cleansers, jewelry cleaner, and antifreeze that contains ethylene glycol are highly dangerous to pets and should be stored in sealed containers where pets cannot access them.

Many common cosmetic products — such as soap, mouthwash, deodorant, nail polish, nail polish remover, nail glue, sunscreen, toothpaste, and shampoo — also present a poisoning risk to pets and should be stored away from places your dog or cat (or rabbit, ferret, or other furry friends) can reach.

  • Human Medications. Many of these drugs are not appropriate for use by animals. Human doses of medications are often too potent to be safely ingested by pets.

In Case of a Pet Poisoning Emergency

If you suspect that your pet has ingested a toxic substance, do not wait for symptoms to appear. Immediately call your veterinarian, the local vet emergency hospital, the Pet Poison Helpline at (855) 764-7661, or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435.

To ensure your pet’s overall health, visit hvhospitals.org and schedule a routine checkup, today!

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Feeding Hope: Humane Pennsylvania’s Spike’s Pet Food Pantry Program

March 4th, 2025 | Posted by Maggie McDevitt in Animal Welfare | Healthy Pets | Healthy Pets Initiative | Humane Pennsylvania - (Comments Off on Feeding Hope: Humane Pennsylvania’s Spike’s Pet Food Pantry Program)

Spike Pet Food Pantry serves more than just animals in need.

Written by , Courtesy of Berks County Living

When families face financial hardship, the ripple effects often touch every member of the household, including their four-legged companions. Recognizing the critical role pets play as cherished family members, Humane Pennsylvania’s Spike’s Pet Food Pantry Program has emerged as a lifeline.

Karel Minor, CEO of Humane Pennsylvania, recalled the program’s early days. “We started doing our pantry work in late 2004 or early 2005. We were seeing animals coming into shelters not because their owners didn’t care but because they couldn’t afford to keep them,” says Minor.

By asking a simple yet transformative question — “What do you need to keep your pet at home?” — the organization, which operates out of the Community Resource Center in Reading, quickly identified the gaps that often led to surrender. In many cases, the solution was as straightforward as providing a bag of dog food. What began as an informal effort grew into a full-fledged program by 2007, a trailblazing model in the industry at the time.

“It was uncommon and even controversial,” says Minor. “We heard criticism like, ‘Why support people who can’t afford pets?’ But we knew the alternative of animals dying in shelters and people losing their pets was unacceptable.”

Today, Spike’s Pet Food Pantry stands as a testament to the power of empathy and innovation. The program has distributed more than 241,979 pounds of food, equating to nearly one million meals for pets in need.

“Pets are part of the family,” Minor emphasizes. “No child or adult should have to lose their pet simply because of temporary financial difficulties. Our mission is to empower people to care for their animals, not take them away.”

The program’s evolution includes thoughtful touches to encourage participation. Clients receive a member card, making the experience feel like shopping at a wholesale club. In addition, there are free and low-cost options so that residents can apply for membership regardless of economic status.

“Many of the previous programs were a little chiding. We’re not engaging in that,” says Minor. “People come before animals in our mission statement now because we recognize that animals can’t feed themselves. We need to make sure that people are capable, and if they don’t know how to be, we teach them. If they know but don’t have access, we give them access. And if they ultimately can’t keep an animal, then we’re here for that animal. But we don’t start the conversation with, ‘When would you like to bring it to our shelter?’ We start conversations with, ‘What do you need to keep it from coming to our shelter?’”

Looking ahead, Minor envisions even greater milestones, including expanding the pantry’s reach and potentially tackling the ambitious goal of distributing over one million pounds of pet food annually. “It sounds daunting, but it’s achievable,” he says. “As more people understand the importance of these services, the support grows.”

SID_1728.jpgWhile the one-million-pound goal was reached this past year, Humane Pennsylvania is also tackling systemic challenges beyond food with initiatives like low-cost veterinary services and community education.

“When we started, Berks and Lancaster counties were taking in nearly 30,000 animals a year. Now that number is under 3,000,” says Minor.

This remarkable reduction is attributed to proactive programs that address the root causes of surrender, from spay/neuter services to access to affordable care. The organization also encourages community involvement through volunteering, donations and initiatives like the soon-to-be launched Thrifty Kitty thrift boutique in Lancaster.

Fun Facts

The Impact. Spike’s Food Pantry has approximately 100 pet food clients any given month. Learn more about membership details and see the pantry schedule at humanepa.org.

Help People and Pets Stay Together. Whether it’s time, money or donated items, there are many ways you can show your support for Humane Pennsylvania’s mission.

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Celebrating Gloria Hill: 16 Years of Dedication at Humane Pennsylvania

February 28th, 2025 | Posted by Maggie McDevitt in Cat Lovers | Humane Pennsylvania - (1 Comments)

After 16 incredible years with Humane Pennsylvania, we are celebrating the retirement of Gloria Hill, Humane Veterinary Hospitals Receptionist. As she prepares for this next chapter, we sat down to reflect on her time with HPA, her favorite memories, and her plans for the future.

Looking back on your 16 years here, what have you loved most about working for Humane PA?

Looking back on my 16 years with Humane Pennsylvania, what I’ve loved most is working with our clients and their pets—but above all, the opportunity to work with such a talented, caring, and fun team every day.

How has the organization changed/evolved since you started working for HPA?

The organization has grown tremendously over the years, adding various programs at so many levels to better support animals and their caretakers.

What will you miss most about working for the vet hospital?

What I will miss most about working for the vet hospital is my coworkers and our shared commitment to helping animals.

Is there a particular pet or client story that has stuck with you over the years?

There have been so many fun pets and dedicated caretakers that will be hard to forget. I have truly enjoyed getting to know them over the years, sharing both laughs and tears along the way.

What are your plans for retirement? Do you have any fun adventures or hobbies that you are looking forward to?

For retirement, I have to get used to not working and am hoping to get my old hand back into watercolor painting. Of course, I also plan to continue gardening—both of which bring me joy and relaxation.

As we say goodbye, we are so grateful for Gloria’s dedication, kindness, and expertise that have made a lasting impact on our team, clients, and the pets we serve. Thank you, Gloria, for 16 amazing years! Wishing you all the best in retirement!

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Humane PA 2024: A Look Back (And Forward!)

January 10th, 2025 | Posted by KMdirector2* in Animal Welfare | Healthy Pets Initiative | Humane Pennsylvania | Humane Veterinary Hospitals - (Comments Off on Humane PA 2024: A Look Back (And Forward!))

Written by Karel Minor, Humane Pennsylvania President & CEO

Wow. 2024 was one of those years when so much good stuff happened that I had to refer back to my calendar to make sure I remembered everything! We had improvements and expansions of programs, services, and facilities at all our locations and beyond, so let’s dive in. There’s a lot to cover – grab a cup of tea and a comfy chair!

We thought it was great when our communities donated 440,000 pet meals to our pet food donation campaign in 2023. That was so great we took the brazen step of raising our sights – a lot.  In 2024 we asked you to help us meet a Million Meal Challenge. You came through. As I type, we are up to 1.47 million meals donated, and counting! That’s nearly triple the previous year!

Why is this important? HPA has long known, and more recently proven via surveys providing high-level data, that economic and food uncertainty is one of the greatest drivers of pet relinquishment and family stress. Frequently, short-term problems from job loss or some other crisis lead to the permanent decision to give up a pet. Why should a pet or family face this when temporary food support would prevent it? It’s a no-brainer approach – affordable, community-supported, and a long-term impact for a short-term input of help.

That leads to a couple more exciting upgrades to HPA’s Spike’s Pet Food Pantry (SPP) services. First, the main SPP distribution location at the Giorgi Family Community Resource Center (CRC) received a makeover and expansion. SPP services had been limited due to bottlenecks from limited space and limited supplies.  With the help of several dedicated volunteers and staff, we converted about 2,000 square feet of the CRC into a full-on “pet supply store” to serve our SPP clients. With shopping carts, a retail-style checkout counter and register, and extended hours, the new space is allowing us to distribute nearly triple the amount of food, with fewer staff and volunteers needed (saving time and money), and avoiding lines and waiting for our clients.

      

We also know that time and travel are two major hurdles for those struggling financially.  So we have begun installing Spike’s Pet Food Pantry Kiosks in our Adoption Centers.  These are SPP “light” with a more limited selection but open seven days a week, making access easier.

We also finalized our test run of using SPP “member” cards to streamline and speed up enrollment, tracking, and distribution. Each client receives a personalized bar-coded member card that can be scanned at checkout for tracking and verification. Watch out Sam’s Club, we’re coming for you! Clients are enrolled for one year based on financial need and have access to pet food and supplies. Most items are provided for 25 cents per pound, making them extremely affordable and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the program. Our clients have made it clear that most do not need or want a hand-out, they need a hand up. For those who are unable to pay even this small amount, food is made available at no charge. The cards also give discounts for low-cost veterinary care at our clinics.

Although programs like this are no longer as controversial as they used to be – 16 years ago we got hate mail for distributing food! – we make sure that donor generosity isn’t being abused. Fortunately, the vast majority of people are good, and our data shows that most people only use this program for a short period. Those who need more help get direct, intensive support. The exceptionally small number who are scammers get booted and banned. I’m glad to know that this program is there for any of us who might need it in a pinch.

You might be wondering where we got all that sweet shelving and I’m glad you asked! Thanks to some dumb luck and a great deal of sweat, early last year HPA was able to buy about $100,000 worth of retail display and shelving from a Rite Aid closing auction for $4,000! It took staff and volunteers three days to break it down and transport it to our warehouse, but we now have shelving for many more projects inventoried and in storage at our Lititz warehouse.

Not familiar with that location? It’s new, too! In order to add space needed for all our programs and distribution work, we purchased a warehouse in Lancaster County which gives us the extra space we need to receive and sort large donations arriving by tractor-trailer. It’s one of the ways we have been able to expand capacity without having to add staff or overload existing space.

All this extra warehouse and workspace also allowed us to expand our statewide emergency response support. HPA has a support MOU with the Great Pennsylvania Red Cross chapter serving 8.7 million people in 61 counties. HPA’s innovative Pet Emergency Pallets (PEP’s) are now distributed throughout PA for ready and rapid access in the case of emergencies. The pallets have all the care items needed for the emergency sheltering ten cats or ten dogs (or mixed), ensuring there is no delay in waiting for the cavalry to arrive. Why should someone have to give up or hand off their pet to a stranger when they can care for it themselves? The best time to help someone’s pet is now, the best person to care for that pet is the caretaker, and the best solutions are local! Since most emergencies are smaller in scale, these PEP’s are the perfect size to meet the need. If it’s a bigger or longer-term need, they also offer crucial time to allow HPA or other groups to get to the scene to assist further.

These PEP’s have also allowed us to blow past our goal of ensuring the capacity to provide care for 1,000 animals in a large-scale emergency. This goal, which was already reached a few years ago through a combination of HPA’s direct sheltering capacity and partnerships with other organizations, was established as part of the Healthy Pets Initiative grant received from the Giorgi Family Foundation. That grant transformed our work and informed new approaches to animal welfare nationwide. It also continues to inspire HPA to find better – bigger and sometimes smaller – ways to do more, for more people and animals, and more affordably. Thanks again to the Giorgi Family!

I hope that chair is comfy because there’s so much more! In 2024 HPA added a new affordable community service: Spike & Tilly’s Pet Resort, PA’s first affordable, non-profit pet boarding service! We were hearing from our community that they were getting priced out of swanky boarding facilities, often having a boarding bill that was more expensive than their vacation. Why should someone have to choose between traveling with family or having a pet because of the cost of boarding? With Spike & Tilly’s Pet Resort, they don’t need to. Pets of all kinds can stay safely with HPA, affordably and comfortably, with all the bells and whistles of a fancy place if you want them, but without the mandates and restrictions now so common. Not all dogs like playgroups, and some pets need special handling and care. We are literally the experts with over 100 years of experience. With online booking and two locations (Reading and Lancaster), we began booking up and are now expanding to meet the growing need!

     

Way back in March, we opened the stunning new Adoption Center for Cats & Critters at our Lancaster campus. It’s awesome. With walk-in group cat rooms, dedicated critter space, a big-a** turtle tank, and even a jukebox full of animal-related rock songs – because who doesn’t want to donate a quarter and listen to “Crocodile Rock”? – it’s really cool. Most of the lighting and fixtures are vintage and donated or found at auctions or Facebook Marketplace. This allowed us to save money, make it way more interesting and eclectic, and reinforce the idea that sometimes the best “new” thing is an older thing. Get it? Like a pet? If you haven’t visited, you should.

As soon as it warms up a little, we will be excited to have the public rededication of the center in honor of two of our very best friends and supporters, Betsy & Ted Lewin. Betsy is a legendary – yep, I’m going with legendary – children’s book illustrator and has been one of the longest-donating artists to our Art for Arf’s Sake Auction. You’ve probably seen her art, and if you have kids you probably have her books in your house right now. I am honored that she is allowing us to recognize her and her late husband, Ted, for their generosity, kindness, and the joy they have given to so many for so long. Stay tuned for the invitation to join us this Spring!

But wait, there’s more! It took a few months longer than we planned, but The Thrifty Kitty Thrift Boutique opened its doors at the end of the year at our Lancaster Campus! Technically, it may be a reopening since the Humane League used to have a thrift shop. You probably know thrift shops are all the rage. You may not know that although PA’s thrift shops are dominated by Goodwill, religious, and for-profit thrift shops, many parts of the US are dominated by thrift shops benefitting animal shelters.

We spoke to several organizations with thrift shops that were contributing HUGE amounts of money into their charitable work to discover the secret sauce to achieve success. It may come as no surprise but it boils down three big factors we thought we could cover:

  1. Free or super cheap rent (Check! We had an underutilized building on our campus already).
  2. Sell only donated items (Check! We have so much stuff donated that we could start up fully stocked with great stuff).
  3. As much volunteer staffing as possible (Check! Mostly – we have volunteers beginning to work in the shop and we have staff volunteering time as we fill the schedule – me included!).

The Thrifty Kitty is open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, and we’ve got everything and are adding more items until it’s packed to the gills. Stop by and consider volunteering. All volunteers get a discount and shop volunteers get to spot the good stuff as it arrives!

One of the last accomplishments of the past year is also a bit of a heartbreak at the moment. HPA has been quietly providing a unique approach to sterilizing free-roaming cats. Based on our data-driven models and intense intervention approaches of our Healthy Pets Initiative, we broke from the standard model of providing sterilization access. The standard model is to spread the available surgery spots as widely as possible. In the name of being “fair”, everyone was given one or two of the available spots. However, if you have twenty cats in a colony and can only sterilize two per month, all the remaining cats keep breeding and you never get 100% sterilization.

Instead, we offered all available surgical slots to a single colony manager, along with assistance and training for mass trapping, to allow us to get as many in at one time as possible. We also went the extra step of ensuring that any that were missed could be funneled into our regular surgery schedule to get any stragglers. We’d also push in any new cats that wandered in the colony in the future. Once we got them all, we’d move on to the next. Did it work? Boy, did it ever. Between March 2023 and November 2024, about 75 colonies ranging in size from just a couple to dozens of cats were fully sterilized. That’s an accomplishment that has never been achieved in our region before and we subsequently found out that this approach is now being taught in advanced trainings as the way to actually overcome the breeding cycles of free-roaming cats.  It turns out we figured it out on our own while others were!

Sadly, this program was paused at the end of the year because the grant that had been funding it was unexpectedly cut. While we are keeping our commitments to ongoing support for sterilized colonies, until we replace the funding this wildly successful program will be shut down. Maybe The Thrifty Kitty can help out with that?

OK, no chair is that comfortable. I’m not even done and this is almost 2,200 words long. That’s the big stuff and we did even so much more than that. Thank you to all the volunteers who helped with any of these accomplishments, as well as to the donors who made it possible and our dedicated staff. We’ve got a lot on the horizon for 2025 and I hope you’ll be a part of it. Please consider volunteering for any of our events or programs. If you can’t volunteer, please consider making a donation in support of the amazing work we are doing for animals and people in Pennsylvania. I didn’t add links in the blog so I could keep you hostage but links to all the mentions are below. Please take a minute to check them out!

Your proud partner in building the best communities anywhere to be an animal of animal caretaker,

Karel Minor, CEO
Humane Pennsylvania

No Pet Hungry: Million Meal Challenge

Spike’s Pet Food Pantry

Emergency Response & Disaster Relief

Spike & Tilly’s Pet Resort

Betsy & Ted Lewin Adoption Center for Cats & Critters

The Thrifty Kitty Thrift Boutique

Free Roaming & Community Cat Solutions

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Did America Become a “No Kill” Nation and No One Noticed? Or Did No One Care?

September 12th, 2024 | Posted by KMdirector2* in Animal Rescue | Uncategorized - (Comments Off on Did America Become a “No Kill” Nation and No One Noticed? Or Did No One Care?)

Written by Karel Minor, Humane Pennsylvania President & CEO

A drowning man may be forgiven for not reflecting on the size of the body of water in which he’s drowning. After all, drowning in the ocean, a lake, or a bathtub is still drowning. The volume of the body of water is irrelevant when you’re inhaling it and trying your best to survive.

But let’s say this proverbial man is in a bathtub and that bathtub has been draining steadily, yet he’s still crying out that he’s drowning. Suppose we say to him, “Hey, buddy, there’s only four inches of water in that tub. Try lifting your head up,” and he responds, “Last year there was two inches, so there’s twice as much water now, and it only takes an inch of water to drown!” Would we be wrong to wonder why he insists on drowning, splits statistical hairs, and engages in pedantry over methods and means of drowning, rather than acknowledging that he’s very definitely flailing in a puddle, not in an ocean?

I think this is an apt metaphor for what has happened this year in animal sheltering. You’ve probably seen the headlines screaming that shelters are overrun and facing massive percentage increases in intake. Many of these headlines resulted from press releases of shelter data that showed double-digit percentage increases in shelter intake and euthanasia (note that “percentage” was twice emphasized). According to the news, and many, many voices in animal welfare, shelters are drowning in an ocean of animals and that ocean has become profoundly deeper- just look at that double-digit statistical increase over three years ago!

I’m here to tell you that those statistics are true. But the narrative they imply is a lie.

Someone clever once said there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. And the heavy use of statistics over numbers, and in a vacuum of context, is often a good indicator of which kind of lie it is. In May 2007, I posted a blog under that title announcing that HPA (then Berks Humane) would be the first sheltering organization in Pennsylvania to post its raw shelter intake and outcome data. I made the case that animal shelters were then using statistics to make their circumstances and outcomes seem better than they were.

Today the opposite appears to be the case. The broader sheltering community is using carefully selected statistics with carefully chosen time spans to make things appear worse for shelters than they are. These statistics are often taken from the Shelter Animals Count reporting, the largest publicly available aggregation of intake and outcome data. They reported that in the first half of 2024, “live outcomes” outcomes for approximately 3.8 million cats and dogs entering shelters was 91% for cats and 90% for dogs.

Sorry, did I bury the lede? Allow me to scream that like it should be screamed, “Fewer than 10% of shelter cats and dogs died in shelters making America a No-Kill nation!” Why isn’t that the headline? If this had happened ten years ago, or in 2007 when I warned of squishy statistics hiding bad news, I feel like we’d have had an explosion of positive press. Instead, we get told of all the ways animals are worse off.

Here’s the deal: All of these statistics are compared against the aberrant intake numbers that occurred during COVID when shelters essentially closed their doors to the public (and, no, it was NOT a huge number of adoptions that led to empty kennels covered by the press, it was caused by locked doors). That precipitous 2020 decline took a couple of years to rebound back up by 2023. But 2023 was lower than the numbers pre-COVID. In fact, the number of animals entering shelters and dying in shelters has been on the decline for the past 50 years, from shelter deaths of 15 million or higher to only 850,000 in 2023. If that’s the case, why can anyone be claiming double-digit increases, and what do I mean by “only” 850,000? That seems like a lot of dead animals.

That’s one of the problems with success and one of the problems with the arbitrary 90% save rate defining no-kill status promoted so heavily by some national groups. First, if we want to know if 90% is no-kill, don’t ask the 9 out of 10 animals that lived, ask the one that died in a shelter. I bet that one feels like it wasn’t a no-kill shelter. The definition of “No-Kill” has always come with troublesome baggage. How do we define killing and what’s real euthanasia? When we were drowning in an ocean of dead shelter animals, we could be forgiven if we didn’t quibble over percentages while we tried to tread water. But now we are in a bathtub arguing over what counts as drowning and still clinging to the old press terror tactics our industry has relied on for decades.

Second, numeric success can fuel statistical failure. Saving 90% of a million animals might be considered no-kill, despite 100,000 dead animals. But what happens when the number drops really low? What if only two animals enter a shelter and one is euthanized? That’s a 50% euthanasia rate. It’s also 99,999 fewer than the one that achieved 90%. I know what community I’d rather live in.

We see these games played with crime statistics on the news. We have historically low crime so any blip of a low number yields large percentage increases or decreases. But numerically it’s not relevant. The whole, good, picture is lost in the statistical trickery. Is that a lie? It might depend on intent, it might be due to ignorance, or it might be lazy journalism. You decide.

To be clear, some parts of the country are much worse off than others. And if you are a euthanized animal or the victim of a crime, your rate of death and crime are 100%, and big pictures or long-term trends are cold comfort.

No-kill advocates used to berate “open-admission” shelters for their high intake and euthanasia rates and compare them against their artificially low managed intake numbers and low euthanasia rates that came courtesy of screening out problematic animals. Now “open-admission” shelters are using statistical variation to berate no-kill shelters for not doing enough to help them handle their tsunami of incoming animals. Both play games with semantics, definitions, and statistics and neither narrative has ever been truly and fundamentally honest. No-Kill shelters have always employed some measure of intake management. And open-admission shelters have never taken in every single animal presented to them. Do “Sorry, no ID, not our municipality, it bit within the last ten days, we can’t reach the owner, etc.” ring a bell?

I believe both sides of this argument suffer from the same problem of lack of imagination and inability to see the forest for the trees. An arbitrary 10% death rate is assuredly not no-kill. But a few percent up and down variation off a historically low number is not drowning in animals and certainly not a return to 1970/80/90/2000 numbers. Instead of agreeing that we have made amazing progress as an industry and a nation, but we still have work to do, we keep fighting the same battles, using the same tired and outdated arguments. Only now it is “open-door” shelters using statistics to make things look worse than they are and no-kill shelters under fire for Pollyanna claims of success while standing on a pile of dead animals.

We should not accept that any level of death in shelters is OK, even if most people can agree that some may be unavoidable or even appropriate. Sometimes euthanasia is the right choice to prevent suffering but it’s certainly not successful. We also shouldn’t pretend that every shelter death is unavoidable or appropriate. Some shelters are just bad at their jobs. Now no-kill shelters are trapped by a definition of success that doesn’t ring true to the real world. Open-door shelters are trapped in an existential crisis. What do all these shelters do when there are 90% fewer animals entering shelters than 50 years ago?

Humane PA saw this March of Dimes moment- when the problem you combat is solved- coming nearly two decades ago and we started to expand what we did to include a myriad of ways to help animals and people other than just being the dump for community animals. We have a small fraction of the intake and shelter death we did twenty years ago, but it’s still not zero. Others can and have found new directions and approaches of their own. Many still cling desperately to rigid, old models, and will survive for a while. Some organizations may, and probably should, dissolve.

Metaphors are useful because they allow a person to “get” your point via a example that is more universally understood or experienced without having to engage in extensive exposition and explanation.  If I may be forgiven beating this drowning metaphor to death, if shelters were people and they were drowning, what might they do?  If someone was swimming with other people they might call for- and accept- help.  If someone found herself in a rip current, she might change her approach, stop trying to swim back to shore, and instead swim across the current until the rip current subsided and her old swim strokes were once again effective.  Sometimes one might find himself not swimming, but being carried away in deadly floodwaters.  But floods are rare and they are transient.  We should never claim every swim is in a flood, any more than we should mistake a bathtub for an ocean.  And finally in this tortured metaphor, if people can’t swim, maybe they should stay out of the water.

Unlike English poet Stevie Smith’s “larking chap”, most shelters aren’t drowning, they’re waving.

 

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Dr. Alicia Simoneau’s 15 Year Work Anniversary!

August 23rd, 2024 | Posted by Maggie McDevitt in Animal Health | Animal Welfare | Healthy Pets | Healthy Pets Initiative | Humane Pennsylvania | Humane Veterinary Hospitals - (Comments Off on Dr. Alicia Simoneau’s 15 Year Work Anniversary!)

Dr. Alicia Simoneau’s 15-year journey with Humane Pennsylvania has been marked by a deep commitment to animal welfare and an unwavering passion for her work. As she celebrates this milestone, it’s clear that Dr. Simoneau’s contributions have been pivotal in shaping the compassionate and dynamic environment that defines Humane Pennsylvania today.

What do you love most about working for Humane Pennsylvania?

One of the things I really enjoy about my work is the variety it offers. Each day brings something new, which keeps things interesting and engaging. I also take great satisfaction in the fact that I get to assist animals in many different ways. Additionally, it’s incredibly rewarding to see the diverse ways we support both people and their pets.

How has the organization changed/evolved since you started working for HPA? And what keeps you motivated to do the great work you’ve been doing for the past 15 years?

Over the years, we’ve refined our mission to provide increasingly comprehensive levels of care. For instance, our Spay/Neuter Clinic (SNC) began in a small trailer with just a few animals, and now we’ve grown significantly from those early days. Additionally, I find the evolution of veterinary medicine to be incredibly exciting. The continuous development of new techniques and treatments offers constant opportunities for learning and growth in our field.

Are you a dog, cat, or critter person?

I’d say I’m primarily a cat person, but I also have a strong affinity for horses.

Who has influenced you most when it comes to how you approach your work?

Humane Pennsylvania’s Veterinary Team Director, Jennifer Henne, has had the most significant influence on me, particularly through her expertise in behavior. I’ve learned a great deal from her and apply those skills to better handle and care for my patients.

What’s one thing you’re learning now, and why is it important?

Currently, I’m focused on learning about new pain management techniques. This is important because it will enhance my ability to provide better care and improve the quality of life for my patients.

What do you see as your biggest accomplishment since your start with Humane Pennsylvania?

My biggest accomplishment since joining Humane Pennsylvania has been taking our CEO’s vision for the Healthy Pets Walk-In Clinic and turning it into the successful, impactful program that it is today. 

What’s one of your favorite Humane Pennsylvania memories from the past year?

One of my favorite memories from the past year was having my daughters come to work with me. It’s been a joy to see their excitement and enthusiasm as they watch what I do.

What three words would your coworkers use to describe you?

I think my coworkers would describe me as fun, uplifting, and helpful. 

What’s one fun fact about you that we might not already know?

One thing you might not know about me is that I’m a bit of a Chihuahua whisperer. I have this knack for making friends with almost any Chihuahua I meet – they seem to take an instant liking to me!

Thank you, Dr. Simoneau, for all you have done and continue to do for Humane Pennsylvania and the animals in our care!

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