Pets and Their People

It was one of those January storms everyone talks about the next day. The National Weather Service reported gusts of 60 mph. Trees toppled. Thousands lost power. Structures collapsed.

The barn-size aviary flight cage at Sacramento’s Wildlife Care Association turned into a pile of rubble—only weeks from the nonprofit’s busiest season, when abandoned and injured baby birds must learn to fly.

Second Act Senior pets have more love to give By Cathryn Rakich May 2021 I picked up the 10-pound mutt—a brown and black muddled mess of terrier, chihuahua and who knows what else—from Sacramento County’s Bradshaw Animal Shelter. My husband and I foster...

I was pulling out of a parking lot when I spotted her—a reddish ball of fluffy fur sprinting southbound on Fulton Avenue. Dodging car after car, she crossed the freeway overpass and then Auburn Boulevard.

I followed the wayward pooch to Edison Avenue, where she took a hard left. Twice when she stopped, I jumped out of my car and called to the misplaced mutt—only to have her ignore my pleas and keep moving.

You’ve heard the myths. Pit bulls have locking jaws. They are unpredictable, stronger and more aggressive than other dogs.

Here to debunk these misconceptions is Dawn Capp, director and founder of Chako Pit Bull Rescue in Sacramento.

“These are all myths,” she says. “No dog breed has locking jaws. Their jaw strength is not any more powerful than other breeds their size,” adds Capp, citing a National Geographic study that measured the strength of dog bites in pit bulls, German shepherds and rottweilers. Pit bulls came in last.

Thousands of wildfires raged across California last year, burning millions of acres, destroying buildings and taking lives—the majority being wild and farm animals with no means of escape.

In mid-August, the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine deployed its Veterinary Emergency Response Team to the LNU Lightning Complex fire in Solano and Sonoma counties, and the North Complex and Bear fires in Butte County.

The team’s mission was to care for injured animals in evacuation centers and animal shelters—and to rescue those still trapped on scorched ranches, farms and in backyards.

Sacramento has numerous boards, commissions and committees to help the mayor and City Council run the city smoothly. One of those entities is an advisory committee for the Front Street Animal Shelter.

Unfortunately, the Animal Care Services Citizens Advisory Committee, formed in 2002, has not met since 2018, mostly for lack of a quorum. The committee currently has one member and six vacancies—which is why the city is looking for a few good animal lovers to bring this board back to life.

The 4-month-old kitten was neutered, vaccinated, microchipped and ready to take on the world—including the festive new “cat tree” with the shiny round “toys” dangling within paws’ reach. One exuberant leap into the decorated fir branches and the whole Christmas tree came crashing down.

Though the holidays look a little different this year as people scale down the family get-togethers and forgo neighborhood parties, it doesn’t mean we won’t be adorning a tree, hanging a wreath or indulging in spiked eggnog. Including our companion animals in the festivities is part of the fun—just remember to do it safely.

U.S. sales of pet products and services reached a record-breaking $95.7 billion in 2019, reports the American Pet Products Association, which releases a detailed roundup of how much the nation spends on companion animals each year. Of that total, vet care comes in at a whopping $29.3 billion, up from $18.1 billion in 2018.

Clearly, we love our pets. But, during this unprecedented pandemic, are we showing that same love for the health care workers—veterinarians, vet techs and other staff at local animal hospitals and clinics—who care for our four-legged critters?

“Why are Sacramento’s animal shelters overcrowded?” asks Kenn Altine, chief executive director of the Sacramento SPCA. The answer: Pet owners are not spaying and neutering.

Why aren’t they spaying and neutering? “For years, we kept saying people won’t do it. We need to do more education,” Altine says. “Well, people want to do it. People call us every day to do it.”

He was four months into his job heading the city’s animal shelter when COVID-19 shut down Sacramento. Phillip Zimmerman joined Front Street Animal Shelter as animal care services manager last November after leading the Stockton Animal Shelter for six years.

“I was running a shelter with the same number of animals, but with a lot less staff,” Zimmerman says of his time in Stockton. “We were doing really great things with a lot less money. So, I thought, I’ll be OK in Sacramento. Then COVID hit.”

Unaware they are trespassing on land owned by the Sacramento Kings, hundreds of snowy egrets and black-crowned night herons have taken up residence in a deserted oasis on the north side of Sleep Train Arena.

From a chain-link fence surrounding the grassland, the birds can be seen gliding among cement slabs and rebar, the foundation for a baseball stadium project led by Greg Lukenbill in the late 1980s that never came to fruition.

Beauty in Bats No reason to fear these beneficial creatures By Cathryn Rakich June 2020 I expected the sky to move in waves of solid black, back and forth, around and under—the air to be filled with spine-shivering screeches. But that’s not what...

When the owner of a Tahoe Park rental home abruptly sold the house, Kelly Cunningham and her 37-pound Australian shepherd mix found themselves unexpectedly searching for a new place to live.

“I started looking for housing and was completely dismayed,” Cunningham says. “There was a scarcity in rentals that would take pets, specifically a 37-pound dog.”

After the death of her husband in 1998, Carol Stirnaman needed something to occupy her time.

Always a pet lover, the Sacramento-born resident considered volunteering at a local animal shelter. “I was looking for some type of volunteer work and I wanted it to be with animals,” she says. “I had cats and dogs all my life. I’m one of those people who just falls in love with animals.”