“Have pets, will travel: Dogs, cats make cut on family trips, poll shows - El Paso Times” plus 1 more

Have pets, will travel: Dogs, cats make cut on family trips, poll shows - El Paso Times

Posted: 25 Nov 2010 10:56 PM PST

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Hotel bellhop Lester Delacruz takes Keiko, a Maltipoo, for a walk at The Peninsula Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills, Calif. Dogs are treated to ultra-suede beds, a monogrammed towel, a bowl, designer water and Iams dog food at The Peninsula. A bellman will walk your dog, sit your dog or arrange a massage, training, grooming, transportation or appointment with a vet.

LOS ANGELES -- When the Eubank family plans a trip, airplanes are usually out of the question. That's because the family's oversize dogs -- a Great Dane and a pointer -- are coming, too.

"Our dogs are part of the family. That's why they go everywhere we go," said Mike Eubank, 51, of Overland Park, Kan., who piles the dogs, his wife and three kids into a motorhome for trips to a lake where Eubank keeps a boat.

Nearly a quarter of pet owners have taken a vacation with their animals in the past two years, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications.

Seventy-five percent found the trip more enjoyable than stressful.

Randall Balmer, 56, of Woodbury, Conn., considers the best part of his vacations playing with his 12-year-old yellow Lab, throwing rocks and watching Dakota chase them.

The worst part? Watching Dakota get wet, then get in the car.

"He's just kind of part of the family. We like to have him with us," Balmer said, even if Dakota is getting too old for the trips.

Although more hotel chains now allow pets, 70 percent of the people who vacationed with their pets recently said they have stayed with relatives, 55 percent with friends and 52 percent in a hotel. Four in 10 said they have taken their pet to a campsite, and 34 percent took an RV trip.

Dog owners (31 percent) were more likely than cat owners (19 percent) to bring their pets along, and among those who have only cats, only 7 percent

included them in trips.

Karen Miles, 66, of Altoona, Wis., takes both.

Fletcher, a pug-dachshund mix, and Snuffleupagus, a Himalayan cat, make the trip when she and her family hook up their trailer and go camping or visiting, usually about twice a month. Both pets travel well and just need bowls, food, toys and a litter box for Snuffy, Miles said.

Most people who have had a good experience traveling with their pet plan to do it again. But such dedicated pet-vacationers are a rare breed: Just 22 percent of all pet owners said they were extremely or very likely to include their pet in a future vacation. Seventy-four percent of cat owners said they were not at all likely to take their pet along.

Hotels and campgrounds have changed a lot in the past five or 10 years, so that traveling with pets can be as luxurious as any owner wants it.

At The Peninsula Beverly Hills, dogs are treated to ultrasuede beds, a monogrammed towel, a bowl, designer water and Iams dog food, spokeswoman Sharon Boorstin said. A bellman will walk your dog, sit your dog or arrange a massage, training, grooming, transportation or appointment with a vet.

There is also a room service doggy menu that includes an aperitif called a "tail shakin' not stirred martini" and a disclaimer: "No hooch for your pooch." (The martini uses beef bouillon.)

Based on registration forms, between 55 percent and 60 percent of campers at Kampgrounds of America Inc., the largest network of campgrounds in North America, travel with pets, said spokesman Mike Gast. That's up from around 45 percent eight years ago.

"Pets are something people aren't willing anymore to leave home without," he said.

Peter Furgis, 74, of West Jordan, Utah, said trips are more fun with his dog, Charlie, "just like everything else is more enjoyable."

Furgis has a cabin in Wyoming and heads there often with Charlie, a 6-year-old Yorkshire terrier. But he concedes his travels with Charlie aren't always easy.

"Last time I went it was in July and quite hot," Furgis said. "It was quite inconvenient. I couldn't leave him in the truck and we had to stop at drive-ins to eat. We were both hot."

Traveling with Hercules, a mixed Pekingese and poodle, added some stress to Vickie Lojek's latest car trip because she wanted to impress her in-laws and it required a bit more coordination and time.

Lojek, of Richmond, Va., wanted Hercules to be a compatible guest, not a "barking knucklehead."

In the end, Hercules was a big hit with all three generations at the family reunion, and he'll be more than welcome on the family's next trip, Lojek said.

The AP-Petside.com Poll was conducted October 13-20, 2010, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved land line and cell phone interviews with 1,000 pet owners nationwide, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

For more information: www.petside.com/pet-net-family, www.peninsula.com, www.koa.com

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When families can no longer afford pets, N.J. farm lends a hand - NJ.com

Posted: 28 Nov 2010 04:23 AM PST

Published: Sunday, November 28, 2010, 7:23 AM Updated: Sunday, November 28, 2010, 7:23 AM

JACKSON — When money troubles forced Gabrielle and Fred Kay from their home, the couple and their two children found shelter with relatives in South Jersey.

Their dogs — Diesel and Philly — weren't as lucky. The Kays' relatives are allergic to animals, meaning the beloved pets the family had raised since they were puppies were soon to be homeless.

Then Laura Pople stepped in.

"She's like an angel," said Gabrielle Kay.

Pople runs Seer Farms, a shelter in Jackson Township that provides temporary care for furry victims of the recession. Diesel and Philly are now among the 20 dogs and 65 cats biding time at the farm while their owners try to get their lives back in order.

Pople, a longtime animal and community activist, opened the shelter last year after reading about the growing number of pets lost or left behind after foreclosures.

"Families were dumbstruck," Pople said. "They're thinking, 'What are we going to do with the dog and the cat that we love? We don't want to give them up long-term.'"

Nationwide, the economic crisis has been a triple whammy for pets — shelters are overwhelmed with unwanted animals, fewer people want the expense of adopting pets, and financial donations are drying up. U.S. animal shelters take in between 6 million and 8 million unwanted pets in an average year, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. But the recession has added an estimated 2 million more animals to the ranks of the abandoned.

"Two-thirds of all households have pets — so two-thirds of the foreclosures involve pets," said Stephen Zawistowski, science adviser to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Pople, 48, who has two dogs and eight cats of her own at home in Perth Amboy, came up with the idea for Seer Farms in June 2008.

"There were people suffering, and there were animals suffering," said Pople. "I felt if you could put the right people, resources, talent and energy together, there was a way we could make a difference. Once I saw that, I didn't see how I couldn't move forward," she added.

Within three months, she assembled a board of directors for the nonprofit agency and found a property in Jackson being sold in an estate sale. The property's previous owner had cared for a colony of feral cats and saved dogs from being euthanized. So Pople thought the site was a perfect match.

She said she took out a mortgage and pulled money from her 401k retirement plan to pay for the $326,000 property. By the time the shelter opened, Pople already had a waiting list of desperate pet owners.

At a time when many animal shelters were bulging with abandoned or surrendered pets, Seer Farm became an oasis where owners could leave cats and dogs knowing the animals wouldn't be given away or destroyed.

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

The animals are housed in large pens attached to three neat backyard sheds and a mobile home. Families are asked to stay involved with their pets, often making weekend visits. Owners are also required to commit to a timetable for taking back their pets.

Each owner is asked to pay $50 a month per pet to defray expenses. But families in financial distress often pay little or nothing. The farm survives on a combination of donations from pet supply companies and private gifts and Pople's fundraising efforts.

So far, the shelter has accepted pets from more than 80 families. More than 60 of the pets have eventually gone back to the their original owners once their finances improved.

The families who use the facility say they are grateful their pets have a safe haven.

"At another shelter, the dogs definitely would have been euthanized because they are part pit bull," said Gabrielle Kay, who dropped her dogs off in August.

The family hopes to be in a new residence with their pets by midspring.

"It's great to see them but it's hard, very hard, to leave," Gabrielle Kay said. "My husband said if he ever hits the lottery, the first thing he's going to do is get his dogs."

When Jen Bonocore had to sell her condominium in Jackson Township and move in with her parents, she said her 6-year-old son, Vinny, was upset that they couldn't keep their cats, Sophia and Swayla.

"He wanted to make sure we didn't have to give them up," Jen Bonocore said. Then a friend found information on Pople.

Vinny's day brightens each time they visit the cats, she said. The cats have been at the farm since April, said Bonocore, who also is hoping to take the pair back next spring. However, she keeps encountering the same problem.

"It's so hard to find an apartment that accepts animals," she said.

Word about Seer Farms has spread beyond New Jersey. The facility has accepted pets from Florida and received requests from as far away as Texas.

A REAL LIFESAVER

Biscuit, a 3-year-old beagle, from Virginia is among the out-of-state borders. He sits in one of the farm's large pens, barking through the chicken wire gate at anyone who passes as he waits to be let out for a walk on a leash.

"They were going to put him down the day before he was brought here," said Lori Sully, one of two full-time employees at the farm.

Sully was among the first of 70 volunteers recruited to help at the farm each week. Sully worked 18 years as a quality assurance analyst in the insurance industry but abandoned that career to follow her love of animals and work full time at Seer Farms.

This isn't the first time economic troubles have caused the number of abandoned pets to spike. During the Great Depression, 300,000 animals were brought to New York City animals shelter annually.

In addition to taking in animals whose families are struggling financially, Seer Farms also takes in pets from women fleeing domestic violence situations, animals belonging to deployed soldiers and pets that need temporary care while their owners are undergoing medical treatments.

"The tricky part is whether the people are coming back for their pets," said Zawistowski. "These are people whose lives are falling apart. Their lives are under stress. How long do you keep these animals?"

'ONE OF A KIND'

Pople's goal of keeping pets and owners connected makes Seer Farms "a one-of-kind facility," said Adam Goldfarb, director of the Humane Society Pets at Risk program.

Pople, who has a graduate degree in research psychology from Rutgers University, works full time as a college textbook editor. She is also president of the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition.

As as volunteer executive director of Seer Farms, she raises money for the facility and screens potential clients.

She said she has heard stories of pet owners going to desperate measures to keep their animals — including living in cars or tents with their pets when shelters, relatives or friends are unable to provide temporary shelter for the animals.

"We hear of a lot of people living in cars. Often the animal is giving them continuity, giving them a kind of hope," Pople said.

In addition to helping the pets, Pople uses her network of contacts to find assistance for families in crisis. She has arranged for counselors to meet with some clients and coordinated free real estate assistance for families in need of new homes. Even animal behavior specialists have offered their help.

A few pets have remained at Seer Farms for more than a year. But nearly every family, even ones that stopped visiting for long periods of time, eventually comes back to pick up their pets.

"I cry like a baby every time an animal leaves," Sully said.

Pets Zone

Sunday, November 28, 2010