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CEO: Public steps up to help Humane Society

Most animals in foster care; having to halt spay/neuter a concern

Dr. Jennifer Fitzpatrick shows Strawberry Shortcake to Maui Humane Society CEO Steve MacKinnon. RUBY HERNANDEZ photos

Before arriving in November from San Diego, Steve MacKinnon could hardly have imagined just what awaited him less than six months into his job as CEO of the Maui Humane Society.

The facility has evolved from housing about 200 animals to fewer than 40 right now due to the coronavirus pandemic.

While some of the organization’s main missions — most notably the spay-and-neuter program — have had to be scaled back or put on hold, the community has rallied behind the Humane Society since the pandemic, especially by fostering animals. The waitlist to foster animals has grown to triple digits.

The animal shelter is “pretty much closed, only by appointment or for emergencies,” he said. The enforcement team of three to four officers remains on the job and on-call around the clock.

No one has been furloughed and most are working from home, said MacKinnon. Staffers have been assigned to watch training videos, do research projects and pursue long-term goals.

Lexi Hughes gives Kit Kat her ear meds while Leonard looks on.

The Humane Society started a two-team, two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off approach in mid-March, splitting the nucleus of the staff into Team A and Team B. They have already modified that plan to one-week or fewer intervals.

There is a third team, Team D, that MacKinnon is part of that is present during working hours each day. The total staff number is 63 — 18 people each are on Team A and B — and the balance are on Team D.

“The only problem we’ve found with the 14 days is there’s a bit of a burnout toward the end of that second week,” he said. “We’ll more than likely drop it down to a week, or four days on, four days off, or seven days on, seven days off.”

MacKinnon laughed when asked what the “D” stands for in the team concept.

“Team D stands for ‘Dirty,’ meaning that we’re not with either team,” he said. “We have maybe a little bit higher possibility of exposure, so we did that (designation) as something a little bit humorous.”

Lexi Hughes holds Smalls

Dr. Miyo Kim, director of shelter medicine, is on Team A and recently came off her 14-day run. The first two weeks were “probably the hardest . . . because we still had quite a few animals in the shelter,” she said.

“Our job was to basically get them as healthy as possible and get them either adopted or out into foster,” Kim said. “So, our foster team worked double time. We had an amazing response from the community when we put out a plea for foster parents.”

Obviously, things are not perfect at the Humane Society right now, but MacKinnon said “things are working pretty good.” The management team meets virtually at the end of the day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to do check-ins, he said. Even the team at the animal shelter doesn’t meet as a group; they are essentially dialing in through Zoom.

With only a few exceptions, the public has been cooperative and “really stepped up,” MacKinnon said.

“We have a lot of our animals in foster care right now, and we have a very long list of citizens who have said that ‘if you have additional animals, we’d be happy to take them,’ ” he said. “We have now over 125 families that are on a wait list.”

The shelter is down to 10 dogs, eight cats (there are some kittens, though MacKinnon wasn’t sure of the exact number) and four “critters, which are guinea pigs, turtles or things like that.”

The animals may be helping their foster parents, too. Animal companionship can help with the anxiety brought on by the pandemic.

“People, who are getting a little cabin fever, see the advantages of having a pet in their home to help handle the stress and distract the kids,” MacKinnon said. “We see a lot of that going on.”

About two weeks ago, the shelter had to suspend its headline spay-and-neuter program right as “kitten season” was about to arrive. The Humane Society had been prepping for this critical eight-week effort to keep the cat population down.

“It’s a gut punch, for sure,” said Kelly Maguire, the director of veterinary services at the Humane Society. “This is the most crucial time as our new kittens are just starting to pour in from the community, so to have to pause spay and neuter right now is horrifying for us.”

Maguire said that there could be an explosion in the feral cat population because of the suspension of the spay-and-neuter program, but the bigger picture must be kept in focus.

“It’s a slight shift in our thinking,” she said. “It’s always been about animals first, and it’s kind of like the flight attendant telling us to put our mask on before our children, right? We know that we have to take care of ourselves and the community members right now so that we can all be here to take care of the animals in the future.”

At that point, Maguire said, the Humane Society will be able to do a strong spay-and-neuter push with help from the community. “So I think that’s what we’re gearing up to, to take this time to be able to come back really strong with the community’s help,” she said.

Maguire also oversees the foster program and likened the community response to the coronavirus crisis to the massive brush fire last year that forced the evacuation of the animal shelter.

“The minute the word got out, the community started pouring in with offers of help, whether to come down here to help take care of the animals that were in need, walking animals, taking care of them while they’re here at the shelter,” she said. “Our biggest push was to have these animals get out into foster care, and they did not disappoint. We had an overwhelming response to the community need to step up and help us.

“I think it’s been beneficial for the animals to be in their homes and vice versa.”

She said the shelter had close to 200 animals when the call went out. More than 150 of them were placed in foster care right away.

“Isn’t that awesome? A make-you-cry kind of thing,” she said. “It was just such pride that I have in our community. I have been doing this for 27 years, and I have never been prouder.”

There have been many adoptions, as well, especially after a $20 adoption program was set up. Maguire said there are 94 animals still in foster care after 68 adoptions in the last three weeks.

“Animals that are in foster care, we still have them up on our website so that people can see that they are available for adoption,” she said. “We are making appointments with foster (people) to bring them back if there is somebody that is interested in adopting. We make that as safe as possible in an appointment-like basis.”

While the animals physically at the shelter have been reduced, to the staff’s joy, there still are needs that must be met for foster animals. A lot of people volunteering to foster care don’t know the animal well.

“They’ve got concerns, like ‘he’s not eating too well’ or ‘he vomited today,’ ‘they’re kind of coughing.’ So we are fielding a lot of phone calls from foster parents,” Kim said.

“We are trying to help them along, we are trying to do more virtual telemedicine with a lot of our foster parents, whereas previously we would just have them bring their foster animals to us,” she said.

Kim echoed the need to take care of the humans in the community before the focus can shift back to the animals.

“We have to support our human counterparts, our health care system where they’re asking us to stay at home,” she said. “And so for various reasons, we need to really limit our shelter operation to emergency only, which means only emergency surgeries, no spay and neuter.”

One emergency surgery was needed for a dog with numerous tumors that were bleeding; another dog had a fracture that required attention, she said.

“But also we want to keep people at home,” she said. “We don’t want people to be coming out to us, bringing their animals for spay and neuter, which is not an essential surgery.”

* Robert Collias can be reached at rcollias@mauinews.com.

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PET TIPS

The Maui Humane Society’s Rachael Magee offered these tips for dog owners during the coronavirus stay-at-home orders.

• Play “hide and seek” with pup’s favorite toy. To start, show the pet the toy, tell them to “stay” and then shut them in a room while hiding the toy. Return to dog, say “go find it” and let it out to explore. Follow the pet and help out during the first few rounds. Reward with a tasty treat and start again. To advance on this game, teach dog to “stay” and then do this routine without having to shut them in a room. Have them “stay” in different locations around the home.

• Puzzle toys. Make many different puzzle toys from everyday household objects. For ideas, go to barkpost.com/life/3-dog-toys-you-can-make-from-things-around-the-house/.

• Clicker training. Clicker training is a handy tool to use to mark a desired behavior when training. This also can be used on cats, which are highly intelligent, inquisitive creatures who could benefit from mental stimulation. For dogs, to go www.clickertraining.com/. For cats, go to www.adventurecats.org/backcountry-basics/how-to-clicker-train-a-cat/.

• Teach good leash skills. One of the most heartwarming byproducts of the pandemic is how many families are out walking their dog. If struggling to have a relaxing walk with your dog, now is the time to teach your pet good leash skills.

• Structured separation. For those who usually work out of the house, it’s important to set regular intervals throughout the day without your dog, such as working in the office with the door closed and going on one walk without your dog. This will help your dog cope when it’s time to head back out to work. While it’s wonderful having all this extra time to play, train and hang out together, not having any sense of distance could leave you with a very clingy, confused pup.

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