Pet Adoption League - 14 Years And Going Strong
Running a rescue organization wasn't in Anna Drummond's mind 14 years ago when she started helping animals. She just wanted to do something to help them.
With the agreement of the Grass Valley Animal Shelter, Anna went to the shelter every week and took pictures of about 20 animals, made up individual fliers for each pet and put them up in Lake of the Pines, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Rough & Ready, and Penn Valley. The fliers were very well received and animals started getting adopted more quickly.
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| Lindsay is a laid-back, relaxed young cat who is also sweet, loving, cuddly, purrs a lot, and uses only the scratching post to file her nails. If you're a wonderful person who will lavish lots of attention and love on Lindsay, give PAL a call at 530-273-7958. |
That led to the first ever adoptathon in Grass Valley in coordination with the Grass Valley Shelter. This was a new concept in the area and many people came forward to foster the animals until that day so they wouldn't be euthanized. Fifty nine animals got homes that day!
By now, Anna felt she had been bitten by a bug, or got the calling, or whatever you want to call it.
She realized that we, as a community, needed to do more for animals. She and husband Mike formed the Pet Adoption League. With the cooperation of the GV shelter, PAL would take out as many cats and dogs as they had willing people to foster them, and every weekend, rain or shine, Anna and the PAL volunteers would go in front of store fronts to place pets.
People in the community were very enthusiastic and wanted to help by fostering, adopting, volunteering, and donating. All this snowballed into an organization that now helps with adoption (several thousand cats and dogs have found homes either through PAL's foster/adoption program or through their referral service), provides FREE spay/neuter (over 13,000 animals have been spayed and neutered because of PAL's intensive efforts in this area), offers a dog obedience rebate (for people who can't afford it), gives out cat and dog houses to people who can't afford to buy them (several hundred to date), distributes cat and dog food (about 10 tons a year) to people who are temporarily strapped for cash and/or people who feed colonies of (spayed/neutered) feral cats.
PAL's feral cat program pays for the altering of cats as well as providing shelter and food. Not long ago PAL did a conservative estimate of how many cats were NOT born to the feral cats they had altered that year. The answer: 16,000 kittens were NOT born into a life of misery, disease and painful death -- not born into a world that did not want them. This figure covered just feral cats altered in just one year.
PAL is now spaying and neutering over 100 cats and dogs every month, spending $3,000 to $5,000 a month to pay for either part or all of the spays and neuters for which they receive calls. In many instances, they also pay for the vaccinations if the guardians are unable to do so. PAL is budgeted to spend even more, so please call them (530-273-7958) if you need help or know someone who does. Because of the funds available, PAL paid for the spaying and neutering of almost 500 cats and dogs in Camptonville in the last couple of years and about double that many in Downieville, Sacramento and Marysville.
PAL volunteers spend a huge amount of time helping people with advice, too. Because of all the resources available, if they can't help, they'll know who to refer you to.
If your pet has died, PAL volunteers offer a sympathetic ear. Because this is done over the phone, people are even more comfortable sharing their pain.
All of this translates into fewer animals going to the pounds/shelters and dying there. When PAL first started, about 4,000 animals were dying at the local shelter. That number has dropped to under 500. The ideal, of course, would be to bring that number to zero. PAL is doing everything it can to make that happen.
After 14 years of helping animals, the Pet Adoption League continues to be an all-volunteer organization. If you would like to help with a donation or by volunteering, please contact PAL at 530-273-7958; P. O. Box 3303, Grass Valley, CA 95945; palmailbox@yahoo.com. See their website at www.pal.nccn.net. If you would like to receive their free quarterly newsletter, just let the folks at PAL know. They'll be happy to send it to you.
If you are thinking of letting your dog or cat have even one litter, please reconsider. For every kitten or puppy you bring into the world, another one at a pound or shelter dies. There really are not enough homes for all the worthy little orphans waiting and hoping to be adopted. Instead, send prospective adopters to the shelter to adopt. They will be saving a life. People sometimes say it's too painful to go to the pound and that even if they take one pet, the others will die. But if everyone adopted from shelters and pounds, none of them would have to die.
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