 Whenever you're ready come down three two This is Bill Doyle and Vermont issues and Bill Doyle and selfie Kersen And our guest of course is Laurie Garrison will be talking about the Central Mon Humane Society. I say a little about yourself Sophie Well, we're really excited to have Laurie here to talk with us about the amazing work that you guys have been doing in the last few years with the Central Vermont Humane Society and maybe Can you tell us what the mission is for that the new facility there? Well the mission the official mission of the Central Vermont Humane Society is to protect and advocate for companion animals to Strengthen the human-animal bond and to create a humane community But all that means is that we as an organization is we're here for the animals and the people who love them in Our community and we try to help both four-legged and two-legged creatures hmm and Is it for? How do you call that like when vets have an assistant dog is that a part of your program as well? No, we're pretty we're primarily an adoption center Okay, so we take in animals from the community and we find them new homes. Okay, that's our primary purpose in life uh-huh Well, it's a wonderful Facility the new location seems that it's much more accessible for the public. Yes, I'm very happy. It's actually not that new We've been there since 2009, but it's a beautiful facility. It's state-of-the-art The dogs have a very nice kennel area and the cats get to live in colony rooms We call them so that we have five different cat rooms and three of the cat rooms have their own Cateaus so the cats can go outside and hang out and they can't escape and love it out there. It's great They're very happy Is it located located East Montpellier and Barry? It's an East Montpellier on route 14 They moved it Bill. Yes, it's no longer on muddy Brook no longer on money Brooke now It's at route 14 south in East Montpellier Nice new little building How many animals does the Central Vermont Humane Society care for in the course of the year in a year? We care for over a thousand animals, which if you see our little building We only can hold 16 dogs and about 30 cats the fact that we can help a thousand animals a year is pretty impressive Very mm-hmm. That's amazing. Is that number set by? Rules is a rule that govern that There's no rule all it all it is is if animals need us and we take them in and it happens to be about a thousand If there's more need we're there if there's less need we're there But it's usually right around a thousand this year. I think we're at 1100 but species that Make up most of your population a lot of people think that most of our animals are dogs, but they're not 70% of our animals are cats so out of the a thousand animals we take care of 700 cats come to us every year and are adopted out. It's a lot of cats My gosh, I know a lot of them are feral or that they Know they're like real pets. They're real pets and we adopt some come in and we call them barn cats Yeah, we call them Ecological rodent control so they'll go live in a barn because they don't really like people so much Yeah, so they live in the barn. They're very happy and they control all the rodents and it's great But for the most part our cats come to us from the community People's lives change and things like that and they're cats that want to live in a home Right, so we find them their new loving place to live right home proper Mm-hmm, and where do these animals come from? Mostly they come from our communities. So central Vermont We serve mostly Washington and Orange counties But we also help out most of Vermont when it's needed and they come to us from as strays So if animal control of a dog or cat is running around loose They'll come to us as a stray or the community somebody's life changes and they need to re-home their pets So they come to us. So almost all of our pets 70% come from Vermont We transport up about 30% mostly puppies from the South One thing that is New England has done very well is they're very into spay and neuter So overpopulation isn't a problem here so much So we're lucky enough that we can actually save the lives of puppies from South Carolina in particular Bring them up here and they're adopted like that so South Carolina in particular has a Version to spay and neuter well in the South in general and different parts of the country But we have a rescue partner that we work with that are very good And they do very good disease control and things like that. So we've been working with them for many years now So there are we call them our rescue partner and and so they operate as a branch for the Southeast or something like that mostly one or two shelters in South Carolina where they work But there's all kinds of of need all kinds of shelters in New England work with different shelters in the South some work with shelters in Puerto Rico Oh So there's different pockets kind of of need and like I said New England there's not really an overpopulation So we can save lives from other parts of the country and that's a great thing that we're able to do It's pretty cool to see all these puppies come up on a truck Oh, wow they've gone to this long journey and they come out and they just immediately go Oh, and they're so happy to be home, you know, that's almost like they know Right there at the end of the journey and now they get to be adopted into their into their new home So that's one of my favorite parts. Oh, that sounds so nice It is nice, huh? I'm very lucky that we get to do that. Yeah mentioned some of your amazing rescue stories Well, one of my favorite rescue stories was last April not this past April but the April before We got a phone call that another shelter and another part of Vermont Has a box of nine motherless puppies Newborns their umbilical cords were still attached. They were this big So they called us. I said we can't we don't know what to do with these motherless puppies Can you take them and my operations director Erica says Lori? Can you take nine motherless puppies? I said, yeah, let's figure it out So we had an hour to figure it out We cleared out one of our cat rooms and we built a welping box and we took care of nine other motherless puppies We had to feed them every four hours So all the staff at Central Vermont took turns. We had a midnight shift We had a four in the morning shift and eight of the nine survived And that still I'm touching my microphone But that still makes me reclaimed because it was so amazing to see these little Helpless vulnerable puppies that would have died otherwise, right and we were able to save them and adopt them and now eight families Have brand new family members that that they love and that's an amazing thing So that's my favorite story. So do you end up taking home one or two now and then I've already done that not from Vermont yet I have two rescue dogs of my own and my husband has put the kibosh on any more Two dogs and that's it. So I'm I'm lucky that I know that the animals at Central Vermont Are going to go to good homes. So I don't have to adopt them. I know we're gonna find them a great place so my two dogs are spoiled rotten and That's it for my family To the dogs get along well with the cut with the cats my dogs are Some dogs do my dogs do not that's why we don't have cats But plenty of dogs our previous dogs got along with cats And we try to figure it out at Central Vermont before you adopt we could tie in a tail If a dog will be okay with cats sometimes it's the cats that say no no no, right? I want to be feline only house. Yeah Well, I noticed that's a very specific part of the Interview discussion that gets printed in the paper. It's really interesting. I mean, you know You got to be conscious of what you're dealing with. Yes. That's wonderful animals are very much like people They're all individuals So some one dog might like cats another dog might say no or a dog might like one cat But different cat. No, I don't like that cat. They're very much very much like people They're individuals at individual personalities and needs and and what they want in life You they're very talk they're very unusual. Yes talks about some unusual animals You do have Well our most unusual animal is actually an animal that we couldn't Take we do small companion animals basically they have fur so no birds no reptiles But one day the animal control officer and Barry picked up a chameleon It was walking down the sidewalk Cool In the middle of Barry. He's about this big Beautiful animal. He was orange and green and yellow And he had these spines on the top of his head that looked like they'd be prickly But they were soft like rubber like an iguana. Yeah, like an iguana All right, and we actually had to find a very specialized home because there's a reptile You can't we couldn't adopt him out But we were able to find a reptile kind of sanctuary place for him to go live But that was the most unusual to think of this chameleon Just strolling down the sidewalk in February. Oh my goodness That was that was pretty amazing. I've never seen a chameleon before so it was that I was pretty cool. Did it change colors for you? No. Oh, he stayed very bright We didn't try to change his colors. We figured he was too stressed out anyway, right? So we tried to just calm him down and But he had very bright green and yellow and orange. She was beautiful Beautiful animal not a pet though. It shouldn't really be a pet. You photographed and screened it. I Did I do have a picture. I don't have it with me though. I I love those pardon. I love those stories though of like the alligators living in the New York City systems Anacondas showing up in the neighbor's house. Luckily, we don't deal with snakes or Furry animals and mostly furry animals. That's so sweet And What does it cost to care for so many animals? I mean You like one animal might be there for a week or ten months or that's right We've had an animal with us for over a year A lot of people are surprised at how much our budget is our budget I just finished our next year budget is eight hundred and five thousand dollars Wow, so for the a thousand animals we take it costs approximately $800 per animal just for us to operate and a lot of people don't know that's how expensive it is For us to do that because every animal that comes to us gets the care it needs and it also gets all the time It needs to be adopted. So if they need to stay with us for a year, right? They stay with us, right? And that's a fairly expensive enterprise So eight hundred thousand dollars a year is what we budget and do you guys? Give them shots and fix them. They get spayed or neutered or they get any Care that they like you said any care anything they need in fact, that's one of our Mantras is that we go the extra mile for the pets in our care So once an animal comes to us whatever that animal needs we try to do it In fact, we just had a little puppy come to us up from a transport and she needed emergency life-saving platter surgery Oh my gosh Yeah, but she would have died without it right and you know the veterinarian called us and I said yeah You got to do the surgery we'll figure out how to fund it right, but those kind of things come up all the time and Because our commitment is to the animal once they come through our doors We need to do whatever that animal needs And that's part of the part of the expense, but that's also when the community comes to adopt from us They know that they're getting a healthy animal right is vaccinated It is spayed and neutered and it did get whatever medical or behavioral support The the animal needed before it becomes a pet and that's that's pretty good. Yeah So we discussed the cost how do you raise the money? That's the hardest part and I think that's the other thing. I don't think the community knows is that we run at a deficit We run over a hundred thousand dollar deficit a year. We are saved by the quest or legacy gifts From our supporters, but we need more support If the community believes in what we're doing and I think the community does believe in what we do Oh, definitely, then we need community support and we need more community support Almost all of our funding comes from individuals. We don't get government money. We don't get anything from Vermont We get very little town money almost all the money comes from individuals Like bill who just made a donation at a Mountaineers game To my volunteer coordinator Christina. Thank you Gives like that keeps our doors open. Thank you used to do that. What I tell my very pleased to do that. Thank you Thank you very much. We're very appreciative So what oh what you want most people to know about the Humane Society Well, what I'd like people to know is that we're here for them we consider ourselves a strong important resource for the community and We go the extra mile for animals, but we also go the extra mile for people, you know We know that life changes all the time. I mean just last week. We had a woman who came to us and homeless She had just become homeless. She said I never thought in a million years That I would be homeless and I'd be standing here in front of you needing a place for my two cats And she was in tears. Oh, I'm sure and thank God we were there And we were there for her and we are there for for our communities in Vermont And I'd like people to to know that we're here that we're a resource for people and And that we need we need their support to be able to do that So what about when when I was a kid people used to bring a box full of kittens to the front of the Grand Union Is that illegal now? That was where we used to get our cats It's better to bring the box to the humane society so that we can make sure they're healthy and they get their shots And they're spayed and neutered Technically, I don't think it's illegal But it's definitely better to go through proper channels Sure, much better to adopt from a humane society or a rescue group that has done their due diligence That is they have vaccinated the animals make sure they have their distemper and their rabies and all that good stuff to make sure They're healthy and make sure they're spayed neutered so that we don't run into a note We don't get ourselves back into an overpopulation problem. We don't want to go backwards and so if people have a Pregnant cat and they don't know what to do with the kids is that that's the proper channel to bring them to you Call us first. Yeah, I was first. We try to make appointments because we need to control The population looks sure. Yeah, so but yes, definitely call us We can we can either help you keep them if you need want to keep them or we'll try to figure out how to find new homes for them Definitely. Oh, that's so wonderful. Yeah, it's cool Well before we leave the program with that's something you'd like to get the last word. What would you like to say? Hmm come adopt an animal. We are currently we have a lot of cats We have kittens and we have a lot of dogs that need homes So please come if you're looking for a new home, please visit central Vermont humane Our website is updated in real time so you can see who's adaptable. In fact, we have rabbits right now We'd love to adopt some rabbits And to know that we that we need your financial support in order to operate It's important now. You guys just did a major fundraising, right? That was quite successful Well, we did our walk for animals Okay, which was a huge huge success this year. We raised seventy eight thousand dollars. Wow, and even though we managed to raise $78,000 we're still running at a hundred thousand-hour deficit It's an uphill battle But that's in Montpelier at the Montpelier High School and that was in the first Saturday of June And I think it was over 200 people and they bring their dogs and your kids and they walk through town It's our biggest fundraiser. So that was a huge success Next fundraiser actually is also a lot of fun and that's called fur fest. Okay, that's October 13th Okay, and it's at the Granite Museum. No, Barry, which is a great venue and it's a casual kind of cocktail hour with really good Orderves from delicate decadence from Barry who makes delicious food. They're dangerous. They're very And we're like, yeah, we're getting them again this year Excellent food and we have a live auction and a silent auction and it's a lot of fun and it's at the granite museum Which is a beautiful place elegant and that's October 13th So that's our second largest fundraiser and is that you buy tickets online or you will be able to buy tickets October not October August 17th, I believe it'll be live on the website. Okay, so just keep an eye on our website, which is central vermont humane dot org Okay, and then we'll put that up there as soon as it's available to buy tickets That's a pretty fun event. So I hope lots of people come to that. Okay Well, thank you so much for coming in and talking with us. I Have neighbors who are big animal lovers and so I'm always glad to hear about you know the the well-being of them and the care and You know the amount of attention that it actually takes to create a healthy community of animals That's right. So I'm very grateful to you for that effort and work. It's beautiful. Well, thank you very much for having me Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Thank you for coming in. Thank you. Thank you bill. Thank you. Thank you very inviting us