Feature Article
At Montgomery County Animal Services in Maryland, cruelty investigator Jack Breckenridge thumps a single arrest warrant onto his desk. The stack of paper is an inch thick.
Feature Article
It’s still dark, the coming dawn a wash of paler blue in the inky sky over Namyangju, a small city outside of Seoul, when the line of vans turns off the main highway onto a gravel side road. The vans ascend the narrow drive up a brushy, frozen hillside, assembling above a cluster of ramshackle metal and tarp hangars.
Scoop
Neighbor-Hood watch
In Virginia, community joins law enforcement to address out-of-control cat colony
No place like home
In New Mexico, theater productions promote adoptable canines
Powerful partnerships
Network connects shelters in need with critical resources
Soup for skittish souls
Canine rehab research results in permanent facility and mentorship program
Mouthpieces
Download this Mouthpiece to let your community know that there are better ways to handle wildlife conflicts.
Browse additional Mouthpieces designed to aid your community outreach. To submit a PSA your organization designed, contact us at asm@humanesociety.org.
President's Note
Three years ago, the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International embarked on an important campaign in South Korea, the only nation in the world where dogs are raised on commercial farms to be slaughtered for their meat. There are thousands of such farms and millions of dogs trapped in them. But we’ve helped to transition a number of farmers to humane livelihoods and relocated their dogs for adoption. So far, we’ve closed down 11 dog meat farms and rescued more than 1,200 animals.
101 Department
After seven years of service and several overseas deployments, Ashley Morris was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and left the Air Force in 2013. She returned to her hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, hoping to recover her mental balance. But a year and a half later, she was still sleeping on her mother’s couch, consumed by feelings of despair and isolation.
Rescue Central
If you volunteer for an animal rescue group, you’re probably too focused on finding foster homes, arranging transports or coordinating adoption fairs to worry about personal tax write-offs. Rescuers tend to be “all-in”—investing significant amounts of their time and money into the effort while overlooking or remaining unaware of existing opportunities for tax breaks.
Shelter Medicine
Like a mountain, a marathon or a long neglected inbox, the Association of Shelter Veterinarians’ standards for humane animal sheltering—all 543 of them—are out there, waiting to be conquered.
Developed by 14 veterinary professionals and released in 2010, the ASV Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters give animal welfare organizations of all types a road map for ongoing self-evaluation and improvement. The standards aim to help ensure that organizations recognize and meet their animals’ physical, mental and behavioral needs.
Unforgettable
When an animal control officer brought the young cat to the Prince George’s County Animal Services Facility in Maryland, he had severe wounds to his ears, toes, limbs and tail that left him limping and weak. He had been found wandering around an apartment building, disoriented and confused. His ears were gashed open, and his toes were hanging on by threads. Because of the severity of his injuries and the fact that he would need extensive treatment, Alley Cat Rescue stepped up to handle the care of this traumatized cat.
Magazine Article
At a time of life when most people are savoring a more leisurely pace, Harold Sims of Cullowhee, North Carolina, is busier than ever and has no intention of slowing down.
Magazine Article
I came to the Humane Society of the United States in 2014 after a decade (more if you count those years I spent as a kid sitting in cat rooms and walking dogs way too big for me) overseeing operations at animal shelters. I wouldn’t say I was particularly excited about or motivated to fit policy into my daily workload of caring for homeless pets—until I worked for an animal shelter that was located in a city with breed-specific legislation, flawed policies that ban certain types of dogs based on their physical appearance.
Magazine Article
To see Teddy and Millie now—playful and friendly, outgoing and affectionate— you’d never guess what they’ve endured in their short lives. As part of an unnecessary test commissioned by Dow AgroSciences (now Corteva Agriscience), the beagles were force-fed a pesticide every day for more than seven months at a laboratory in Michigan.
Magazine Article
Vinnie Van Gogh, a reticent feline, spent four months at Dakin Humane Society before his photo appeared on the shelter’s website with the headline “The Socially Awkward Cat for the Socially Awkward Adopter.”
“Seriously all this guy requires is a couch and someone to give him his daily necessities,” the write-up by the Springfield, Massachusetts, shelter read. “Take him home, and have a perfect buddy for all those times that going out is just not worth the effort. He understands.”
Magazine Article
Two leaders in the animal welfare field, Washington, D.C.-based Humane Rescue Alliance and New Jersey’s St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center, announced a merger in early July to create what’s believed to be the first organization of its kind in the country.
As a result of this unique combination—two community-based, but regional-focused, animal welfare groups working across state borders—the joint organization has more resources to make a bigger impact in the areas it serves and beyond.
Magazine Article
If you watched the Golden Globes back in 2016, you couldn’t miss her: Collecting a Golden Globe for best actress in a television series, musical or comedy, Rachel Bloom was visibly ecstatic, motor-mouthed and breathless, practically leaping from the screen.
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