Critter Club to the Rescue!

The first night of our Critter Club program for kids in 6^th through 9^th grades was earlier this month.  We let the kids do some animal socialization.  Lucy and Mia took a dog for a walk and when they returned they were very excited and concerned about a cat they’d seen “in the bushes”.  One of the girls had even taken a tight photo of its face peeking out from the leaves.  

I had one of the girls take the dog back to his kennel and asked the other to show me where the cat was.  Originally, I thought they’d meant the cat was in our landscaping in the parking lot, so I was a bit surprised when she led me to our dog walking trail.  

Sure enough, a cat saw us and scampered back into the long grass.  Knowing that frightened cats generally don’t allow themselves to get close enough for capture, I resigned myself to going back to the shelter and asking one of the kennel staff to set a live-trap for it.  But to my surprise a few seconds later the cat came out of the brush and started to meow and tentatively approach.  

Both of us sat down and remained quiet, and within a minute the cat came strolling up to Mia, sniffed her, and then started to rub up against her hands.  I told Mia to pick him up and in no time we were headed back to HAWS.  

Hawkley, as our staff has dubbed him, hasn’t been claimed by his owner.  Our best guess is that someone brought him to HAWS when we were closed, and rather than come back during our open hours to surrender him, just dumped him in our parking lot.

But even more outstanding is the concern our Critter Club members showed for this guy.  Their love for animals is why they’ve been involved in HAWS education programs, and that night they were able to make a difference for an abandoned cat trying to survive on his own. 

Hee Haw!

Where do donkeys go when they've been neglected, mistreated, or no longer wanted?  Luckily there are non-profit rescue organizations that are able to take these animals in and care for them either for life, or until they've been adopted into their own homes. 

Holyland Donkey Haven in Mt. Calvery, WI is one such place, and this semester's group of Critter Club members was lucky enough to be able to visit there last Sunday on our regular semester field trip. 

Donkey Haven founder, Angela Langoski could not have been more welcoming to our group as she explained about how she started rescuing donkeys and created a sanctuary.  

We heard personal stories about some of the donkeys -- both sad stories about their past, and happy stories about how they went to their loving new homes.  

Much like HAWS, Donkey Haven is a private non-profit that relies on donations and volunteers to care for the animals and ensure that they will always have a safe place to live. 

Critter Club members all fell in love with these wonderful animals and were astounded at how affectionate, gentle and playful they could be.  We all laughed to see them rolling around on their backs in the dirt, and moved out of the way when they got a bit frisky.  

There were a lot of requests to take one home, but unfortunately getting one on the school bus would have been a logistical problem.  We reluctantly left the donkeys behind with promises to visit again.   

Going to the Birds

"You need to do a lot of research before you go out and get a new pet.  You need to know how much the pet is going to cost, what food you need to get, the type of cage or kennel size, what types of toys..., and how loud it's going to be." 

We require Critter Club applicants to write an essay before they can be approved as members.  The above quote is from an essay written by a very recent applicant who owns two parrots.  The timing of our receiving the essay was perfect since Critter Club just took our end of the semester field trip to the Center For Avian Rehabilitation and Education (CARE) in Huburtus, WI.  

HAWS education department stresses research before you get a pet since one of the reasons so many owners fail to keep their pets is because they weren't prepared for the needs of the pet before they brought it home.  And while this is true of any animal you might want to bring home, it's especially true when talking about an exotic animal like a parrot. 

Parrots are noisy.  When we visited CARE over the weekend there were times where we couldn't hear the person talking just a few inches away.  They also require a very large (and very expensive cage), a well balanced diet, toys, and a tremendous amount of education about their behavior. 

In the wild parrots would live in large flocks of hundreds of individuals and spend their time foraging for food, searching for nesting sites and selecting their mate.  As pets they are frequently confined to small areas (even the largest cage is smaller than their natural territory), in a relatively solitary existence, with little to do all day.  It is difficult to keep a pet parrot happy, and we saw evidence of this when we visited CARE because some of the birds had engaged in feather plucking creating large areas of baldness over their bodies.  Wild parrots don't feather pluck, which tells you how stressful it is for many pet parrots. 

The fact that many people aren't successful as owners of parrots was apparent in the fact that the large room housing the birds was jam packed with cages upon cages of homeless birds. 

These are animals that can live between 25 and 80 years, depending on their species.  If someone is going to have one as a pet, they owe it to their parrot to learn as much as they can and attempt to give the parrot the best life possible in unnatural circumstances.  And since parrots do live so long it would be great if prospective parrot owners would adopt a parrot from a rescue, rather than purchase a young parrot from a breeder or a store. 

Public Service Announcements

Back in the end of November I published a post about the public service announcement project the Critter Club kids were doing.  At that time we had two finished PSAs, and I promised to post the other three when they were finished.

They actually were finished shortly after that, but what with the holidays and planning and running HAWS Kids 'N Critters Winter Camp I completely forgot.  Last night one of the club members reminded me.  So here they are -- enjoy!


Adopt an Adult Cat


Do Your Research First


Don't Pet Unfamiliar Dogs

Public Service Announcement

Each semester we try to have the Critter Club kids do some kind of a project.  Critter Club is a program at HAWS for middle school students that helps them get involved in HAWS through educational meetings on Thursday evenings, and volunteer work on the weekends.

This semester I decided to have them create video Public Service Announcements, which meant I had to do some research on them myself.  PSAs are advertising to the public with the goal of raising awareness, or changing behavior or attitudes towards a social issues.  It is not advertising a product or promoting a company or organizations.

I also learned about what goes into a good ad and passed this information onto the club members.  A good PSA is 30 to 60 seconds in length, usually has a tag line, and narrows it's focus onto one simple concept.  A PSA that gives out too much information is one that isn't going to be remembered.

I also showed the kids some videos of both PSAs and regular commercials.  It was a great trip down memory lane to show the PSA with the Native American Indian crying over pollution and the frying egg showing what your brain on drugs looks like.  The commercials I showed were more current and I was able to point out the short duration of shots within a given commercial -- nowadays individual shots last about 2-3 seconds at the most.  Apparently modern viewers have a really short attention span!

The kids broke up into 5 groups, chose their topics, wrote scripts and created story boards.  Then they got to work shooting video, and went through the process of editing it.  Two of the groups finished their PSAs last night and those are displayed here.  I'll post the other three when they're done.

Valley of the Kings

Each semester the HAWS Critter Club goes on a field trip to an animal related location.  A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to be able to visit Valley of the Kings, a sanctuary for large cats and other exotic animals. 

Unfortunately there are people who aren't satisfied with the selection of pets from those animals humans have already domesticated.  Wanting something "different" or because it would be "cool" some people get animals such as lions, tigers or wolves. 

Unfortunately in many states this is legal, and additionally private owners are usually unable to care for the animals properly.  Good zoos spend a tremendous amount of time and resources to ensure their animals are cared for properly.  Not only does the animal need food and water, but they need an appropriate habitat and their emotional and instinctual needs met.  Many zoos place a priority on environmental enrichment which allows their animals to use their natural behaviors and keep their minds engaged. 

Often people who get exotic pets don't do their research and aren't able to provide for the animal in a humane manner.  Additionally many times exotic animals are dangerous since they are still wild animals, and require enclosures that are much more secure than needed for a domesticated animal.   And sometimes private owners
 of these exotics end up being neglectful or downright abusive.

Many of the animals at Valley of the Kings come from previous owners such as this.  Some are retired circus animals which are no longer useful after just a few years performing tricks in front of audiences. 

The Critter Club kids learned about these animals on our visit to the sanctuary and how damaging it is to keep them as pets.  The kids were able to meet all the animals, and feed the big cats raw chicken legs by piercing it on the end of a bamboo pole and passing it through the double layer of fencing to the cats. 

Valley of the Kings tries to provide a final home for wild animals who previously lived terrible lives.  While they should never have been born into these lives, the sanctuary tries to make their last years comfortable and as happy as possible.   Hopefully the Critter Club kids can pass the message on that people should stick to keeping animals that were actually domesticated and therefore happy living with people. 

Service Learning and Critter Club

Service learning is a tool that a lot of humane educators use in their work with kids.  Through service learning kids learn about an animal welfare related issue and then perform a service using what they've learned.

This semester our Critter Club members were challenged to do a service learning project and were given a choice of 4 different topics.  Two of the topics were very popular with the kids when put to a vote, and so we allowed them to split into two groups with a different topic for each group.

One of the groups chose the topic of puppy mills.  Although these are kids who are already sympathetic to animal welfare, I think they learned a lot and were appalled at the conditions in which dogs are kept in breeding facilities.   They chose to do a movie to be placed on YouTube and spent a lot of time on-line doing research and looking for photographs to use.  

While most of the kids in this group were already aware that puppy mills aren't very humane, I think they were shocked at just how bad they really are.



The other group chose the welfare of circus animals as their topic.  They put together a PowerPoint and originally were going to present it to parents, but we ran out of time as the semester is almost finished and the club runs on semester basis.  We decided to make it into a video and place that on YouTube as well. 

As we started the service learning project I introduced the students to the "Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare".  Originally developed in the United Kingdom as a guideline to how farm animals should be housed, it's been adopted by many facilities that house animals all over the world.  Animal shelters in particular have adopted this concept.

The circus animal group used the Five Freedoms as part of their presentation to show that circus animals do not enjoy the standards required to ensure that their physical and emotional wellbeing. 

Not only did the club members learn about an aspect of animal welfare not directly related to animal shelters, but they also had to work as a team and in some cases compromise in order to work on the project. 

It's All Happening At the Zoo

Earlier this month the Critter Club took a field trip to the Racine Zoo for a program on careers with animals in a zoo.   After the program we spent quite a bit of time walking around and looking at the various animals in their exhibits. 

When we came to the bears I started reminiscing about going to the Milwaukee County Zoo as a kid with my family.  I happened to mention that we used to bring bags of marshmallows with us and entertained ourselves by throwing them to the bears.  The kids were amazed that the zoo allowed this, and it's a good reminder of just how far animal welfare has come.  Nowadays any zoo prohibits members of the public bringing food in to feed the animals.  And when you think about how many families visit a zoo on any given day, it clearly is not a good idea for bears to eat who knows how many pounds of marshmallows. 

The Milwaukee County Zoo was one of the early adopters of exhibits that attempted to provide animals with a more natural appearing habitat, rather than housing them in cages.  Over the years zoos have also become more aware of providing for their animals mental and emotional needs, in addition to their physical needs.  Good zoos have animal enrichment programs which allow animals to fulfill these needs. 

It makes sense when you think about the fact that in the wild an animal would spend most of it's waking time searching for food and some animals would also be searching for or building living space.  Captive animals have all of their needs provided for them, but they still have the instincts and habits in place that can cause extreme boredom and even depression if they aren't given an outlet for them.  

Zoos make an effort to constantly make changes to an animals environment, provide interactive materials as toys, and feed in such a way as to require the animal to hunt or forage their food.  Really great video and photo examples of these types of activities in zoos can be found at the Honolulu Zoo's website.

Zoos aren't the only organizations to make such changes to better the welfare of their animals.  In my next blog I'll talk about some of the changes that can be seen in animal shelters. 

Compassion and Kids

Wade might not be the cutest dog at HAWS.  And he certainly isn't the most playful.  But despite his disability, or perhaps because of it, he has captured the hearts of several of our Critter Club members. 

At last nights club meeting the middle school aged members spent part of their time at HAWS training some of the shelter dogs.  Like many shelters, HAWS has a large number of ill-mannered adolescent aged dogs that benefit from training to make their adoption more likely.  The kids greatly enjoyed working with the dogs during the training session. 

The last half hour of the meeting the kids were allowed to socialize the animal of their choice.  Out of all the animals they could have chosen, Jennifer and Caitlin were excited to be able to spend some time with Wayde - an 8 year old blind terrier mix.  Expressing their love for him and how wonderful they think he is, the girls quickly brought him into an interview room and spent the next 30 minutes telling him how wonderful he is, and giving him non-stop petting. 

One of HAWS goals in our education program is to instill empathy for all living creatures.  I don't know if the programs are working, or if we just happy to be attracting kids who are already outstanding animal ambassadors to our programs.  Either way, it makes me happy to see young people be able to appreciate an animal who isn't young, cute and energetic.  It's spending time with kids like this that make my job truly worthwhile.   

Critter Club Starts Again!

Summer is over, camp is a not so distant memory, and with the start of the school year HAWS begins again with our fall programs.

One of my favorite programs is Critter Club -- a club for students in grades 6th through 9th, in which members learn about animals, do special animal related projects, and volunteer on Saturday mornings helping at HAWS. 

Last night was the first meeting night.  Critter Club consists of 15 students.  Ten of them are returning Critter Club members, which speaks to how much fun the kids had in their previous semesters in the program.  It's nice to see familiar faces -- I've really gotten to know these wonderful kids during the time I've spent with them.  And I look foward to getting to know the five new members this semester as well.

HAWS Education Assistant, Megan Katzuba, is new to Critter Club as well.  Last night she did a great job training the kids on cat socialization, despite the rowdy mood that came from the kids reuniting with students they hadn't seen since the end of the last school year. 

After the brief training session the kids were given a quick tour of the cat area, had a chance to look at all the adoptable cats, and were allowed to take some of the cats out for a little bit of play-time.   

I'm really looking forward to this year's group of kids.  Many of them have attended HAWS Kids 'N Critters camps over the years, and I've watched them grow into some amazing people.  They are the future of animal welfare, and it's wonderful to see that they are going into that responsibility.

Critter Club Again

Critter Club runs during the school year, and as we head into summer the club ends it's current session.  One of the projects the kids undertook was shooting a music video.  The project was inspired by a music video produced by the SPCA of Wake County in Raleigh, NC to the song by ABBA "Take a Chance on Me".   The Critter Club members saw that video, were enthusiastic about putting together their own and set about deciding on music and putting together choreography. 

After an entire meeting of listening to a variety of songs, the kids finally chose "Say Hey" by Michael Franti and Spearhead.  We all liked the idea that the song was about unconditional love -- something that fits in really well when we think about our pets. 

The video may not be professional quality, but the kids worked really hard at making it into something they could be proud of, and we rehearsed several evenings before we shot the final product. 

Another recent highlight of the Critter Club year was a few weeks ago when one of our employees. Jessica, allowed the kids to spend a bit of time with some 2 week old kittens she was fostering.   This is the time of year when we start to get them in, and many times they're too young to be away from the mother cat.  We greatly rely on foster homes that can hand raise them -- including bottle feeding every few hours and making sure they are pottied (very young kittes and puppies need to be stimulated by their mothers in order to produce urine and feces). 

Jessica was kind enough to show the kids how to feed and potty them, and then let the kids take over.  The kids were amazed by how small and dependent the kittens were, and really enjoyed caring for them. 

Critter Club Weekend

It was a busy weekend for HAWS Critter Club kids as we had activities for them both on Saturday and on Sunday.

HAWS annual Walkathon was on Saturday.  I've always wanted the education department to have some kind of activity for kids to participate in while attending the walk, but never had the time to create something.  Since one of the things incorporated into the Critter Club agenda is projects that help HAWS, I delegated the responsibility of game creation and implementation onto the club members. 

I couldn't have been more pleased with the result.  The club members came up with a scavenger hunt for kids having to do with getting answers on dog safety questions.  Once they completed the scavenger worksheet the participants brought the sheet back to the education booth.  Club members checked it over for errors, explained any answers that were wrong, and every child who completed a worksheet got a prize. 

Not only did the Critter Club members come up with a really fun and educational game, but they did a fantastic job the day of the walk itself.  They went around finding kids to play, and handled the education aspect of it in a very kind and informative manner -- making the younger kids completely at ease.   

Additionally, Critter Club member Carly Perock was awarded the Diana Boettcher Youth Community Kindness Award for her outstanding volunteer work at HAWS through Critter Club, as well as for organizing a fundraiser for HAWS in which she managed to collect and donate several hundred dollars.  Carly has been a long-time participant in HAWS kids programs, and it's fun seeing her grow up to be not only an animal lover, but someone who cares enough to take time and energy to help them. 

Critter Club Goes to the Llamas

For years Kathy and Mark Harder have been bringing their Llamas to HAWS for camp and other kid programming, and were kind enough to invite us to visit them sometime. Critter Club provided the perfect opportunity since it was a small group of middle school aged kids and because they've been cleaning cages on Saturday mornings they deserved a special treat.

On Sunday morning a school bus picked our Critter Club members up and drove them just over the border in Jefferson County to the Harder Llama Farm. There they learned about llamas, life on a hobby farm, and how much work goes into taking care of farm animals.

The kids moved bales of hay and dropped them down a chute from the second floor of the barn down to the first floor where the llamas eat. They discovered just how heavy dried grass can be!

I think the best part was spending time with the animals -- including the farm's cats,and of course the llamas. And after they got over how cold it was in the barn, the kids really enjoyed sitting in the bales of hay eating apples.

Critter Club Starts Again!

Last spring I wrote a post about a new program we started for middle school kids called "Critter Club". The program was a huge success -- the kids truly enjoyed coming on Saturday mornings to clean cages, scrub litter boxes and fold laundry. I think their parents were a little jealous they don't enjoy doing similar chores at home!

They also enjoyed the educational component to the program where they came to HAWS once a week for an educational program and had opportunities to spend time with HAWS adoptable animals. Many of the kids were invited back to become regular volunteers with their parents, despite the fact they were younger than 13, since they had shown a tremendous amount of responsibility, maturity and committment to HAWS.

Critter Club Fall 2011 started a few weeks ago. We have a total of 16 kids in this semester's program. Some participated in Critter Club last spring, and many are familiar to me since they've attended our camps in the past. We've picked up several new faces -- kids who hadn't been involved in any previous educational programs.

So far things are going extremely well. The club members have been trained in cat cuddling and small animal socialization, and will be trained as dog walkers next week. We plan to have them create a project to help HAWS during this semester's program, and they'll have a chance to visit a Llama farm and help care for the Llamas in November.

One of the best parts about the program is that I get to hold conversations with the kids and hear their thoughts. One of the kids told me last night about a dog owned by a relative. It upsets her that the dog is crated for most of the day and night, gets yelled at a lot and doesn't have access to water except for certain times of the day. These relatives have kids - I suggested she encourage this family to send their kids to HAWS Kids 'N Critters Day Camp because maybe we could help them develop empathy and learn how to be responsibile dog owners.

While it's a tough lesson for a kid to learn that not everyone is kind to their pets, I'm heartened that this club member is concerned, has empathy for the dog, and wants to make a difference. Hopefully HAWS programs will allow her to continue to feel this way.

Learn more about Critter Club and how your child can apply!

Critter Club

For years HAWS has had to disappoint animal-loving kids by turning them down as volunteers. Our policy is that teens between the ages of 13 and 15 need to volunteer with a parent, and can only volunteer without parental supervision once they reach 16. This means that teenagers who don't have a willing parent, or kids under the age of 13 don't have an opportunity to contribute their time to the animals at HAWS.

This policy is difficult for many kids and their parents to understand. It's not that we don't like children -- we do, really! It's just that interacting with animals at a shelter is very different than interacting with the family pet. Here at HAWS we get a range of personalities in our adoptable animals -- everything from easy going and extroverted, to shy and intolerant of certain interactions by strangers. It takes a certain degree of maturity, responsibility and common sense to ensure safety around some of our animals. And while there are some adults that don't have these qualities -- they are much more likely to be lacking in children.

We've started a new program called Critter Club on a trial basis. For the next two months 15 kids between the ages of 11 and 13 will be allowed to volunteer under the direct supervision of HAWS staff. It won't all be about cuddling with fuzzy creatures, however. The kids will be cleaning cages, washing dishes, restocking poop bags in our out-door waste stations, and cleaning windows. Once their work is done they'll be allowed to take out cats and some of the other animals and do some socialization.

The other component to Critter Club is educational. Last night they went through the same training that our regular volunteer cat cuddlers go through. Next week we'll be doing trials on some scent games with adoptable dogs that we plan on using at HAWS Annual Walkathon in May. And in May they'll have an opportunity to watch our veterinary staff at work doing surgery in our SNIP Clinic. If this program is successful we'll be offering it to a limited number of kids each semester during the school year. Watch out for updates, and I'll let you know!