#michael limper

By Melissa McKenzie

Pet overpopulation is a huge problem throughout the country. Unfixed feral cats breed multiple litters of kittens throughout their lives. Think of it this way. The average number of litters a cat can produce in one year is three and the average number of kittens in each litter is six. Over the course of seven years, one female cat and her offspring can produce up to 420,000 cats*. Only a fraction of those cats will be adopted – the rest euthanized. But how is the problem fixed and how do cities keep feral colonies from expanding? How do shelters curb the population problem without euthanizing thousands of cats each year? In the case of Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority, and other shelters in the nation, it’s with program called Feral Freedom.

Similar to a TNR (trap, neuter, release) program, Feral Freedom allows feral cats to live out their lives without putting a strain on shelters or the community.

“It is essentially a TNR program, but geared towards targeting community cats in the neighborhood and educating our citizens on the importance of getting these neighborhood cats altered to reduce the overpopulations of cats,” said SVACA Shelter Manager Michael Limper.

In the past, when feral cats were picked up by animal control or brought to the shelter, they would immediately be euthanized. That’s starting to change as shelters are moving forward with Feral Freedom programs that alter, mark, and return the cats into the community.

“We do the [ear] notching so people know that they’ve been taken care of and the Feral Freedom ones get microchipped also,” said Limper. “They’re vaccinated for rabies and FVRCP and if they have any issues – mites or anything like that – we treat those as well.

“[When we started the program,] I was anticipating more customer complaints from the public because you get a lot of folks that say they don’t want cats in their backyard and that sort of thing. We explained it to them and said that the old way of doing things was that every feral cat that came into the shelter was euthanized, but that didn’t fix the problem because new feral cats would just move right in. If we alter them, put them back out, they don’t reproduce, and they just live out their lives then it just works out. It will be a few years before we get all the data to see if it’s been working but it seems to be a positive thing.

“We also keep track because they’re microchipped,” he continued. “We’re in the animal field so we don’t want to see cats hit by cars. But, if we do get those DOAs coming in we can scan them and say, ‘oh this is one of our Feral Freedom cats.’ I keep track of it and my list is about 15 cats that have come in deceased since we’ve been doing it…And our intake numbers are down from last year overall so I like to attribute it to the Feral Freedom program and our low cost spay/neuter. I don’t know if that’s how it is but I’d like to think it has an impact on the numbers.”

SVACA’s Feral Freedom program is a free service to the community. Visit http://www.svaca.com/services/trapping.html for more information on the TNR program.

By Melissa McKenzie

There’s been some dust over at Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority lately.

After the shelter picked up the Mountain View contract for animal services last May, it became clear that the small facility on Thomas Road might not be large enough to cater to the influx of animals. Since the building is still fairly new, moving to another location wasn’t an option. So, in order to expand, SVACA got creative.

“This is our old volunteer room,” said Shelter Manager Michael Limper of the gutted space near the shelter’s bunny area. “This is going to be a cat adoption space. We’re going to put two big rooms in here, similar to the big room in front, with a big window on each side.”

“We’re hoping, it depends on if we have cats or kittens, but [room for] six to twelve,” he continued. “If it’s kittens, we will have at least 12; if it’s adults, at least six. At times we can fit up to five in a room - depending on if they all get along. With kittens, we can sometimes do eight or nine, depending on how big they are.”

In addition to the two new spaces for cats, the shelter is adding six dog rooms in what was the shelter’s storage area.

“We will take down [a current room] and make a hallway so we have two adoption spaces. Folks can go into [the current room] and then walk through a hallway to get to this room...We will be able to fit at least six to eight dogs in here.”

The expansion, which is being partially paid for by the City of Mountain View, started at the end of February. The project is coming together quickly and scheduled to open sometime in June. The drains have been put in, duct work completed and the frames for the new walls are finished.

While the additional rooms don’t seem like much of an expansion, the space should be adequate for the animals that the shelter will see. “Mountain View has a really high return to owner rate so a lot of the animals coming in from Mountain View are getting reclaimed by their owners, which is great...We’ve also had a good amount of adoptions so far this year,” said Limper. “It’s good because we can put more animals up, even if they’re not from Mountain View - we can take in more guys to put up for adoption. Even though we have a great live release rate already, it might open us up to rescue more animals from other shelters and we will have the space to do so.”

So far, the shelter is keeping its live release rate on par with last year’s numbers. “We finished the year for both dogs and cats combined at 87 percent,” said Limper. “Cats, I think, we are at about 86 percent for the calendar year so far, and dogs, we’re at like 94 percent.”

By Melissa McKenzie

It’s that time of year again. Kitten season is just getting underway and shelters across the Bay Area are trying to get their older animals some extra attention before the young guys move in and take over all the available space. Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority paved the way to kitten season by holding its seventh annual pay-what-you-want-in-adoption-fees Adoptathon event on May 4.

“We always do this event at the beginning of May,” said Shelter Manager Michael Limper. “It’s kind of the precursor to the busy season to try and get a lot of our guys out. We have a lot of guys who have been with us awhile. Sport, he’s one of our dogs, has been with us since November. He’s a great dog - a Chihuahua-Jack Russell mix. He’s a little senior - about eight or nine years old and has had some teeth extractions, but he’s really friendly. We try to get a big crowd in and see if anyone is interested in these guys. When summer comes we get the puppies, we get the kittens ad we don’t get as much interest in some of the longer-term guys. Hopefully we’ll get a big crowd and they’ll see what a great dog he is.”

In the community partners room, Buddy, a five-year-old black pug sits patiently and waits for his next “victim.” As potential adopters meander through the dog and cat areas and back into the space where MickACoo, MickABoo, Save A Bunny and Pug Rescue of Sacramento are set up, Buddy waddles up and says hi. He’s calm, friendly, and the perfect ambassador for the organization.

Earlier this year, Jason Visperas and Steve Elgin adopted Buddy at a similar event. “We went to an adoption event in Concord,” said Visperas, who took the couple’s two pugs, Keoni and Malia, to the event. “As we walked in we saw Buddy. Instantly we felt the connection and fell in love with him.”

For SVACA’s Adoptathon, PROS brought a handful of pugs to give adopters the opportunity to see how social they are.

Over in SVACA’s cat rooms is Sia, a three-year-old black domestic short hair. “Sia has been here a long time,” said Limper. “She’s a special kitty. She came to us with a head trauma. We don’t know what caused it, but she has one eye looking one way and one eye going the other way. It was hard to tell what it was that did it to her. We also did some teeth extractions. Unfortunately, all of the extractions were on the side were her bad eye is so her mouth is a little droopy on that side. She’s a wonderful cat, but she just looks kind of special. She’s really sweet.”

By Melissa McKenzie

Approximately 20 people could be found waiting outside of Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority just before 11 a.m. on May 5. When the doors opened, there was no prize package or giveaway, but there were plenty of dogs and cats anxiously waiting behind glass doors for someone to adopt them.

Each year, SVACA prepares for kitten season and tries to combat the overflow of unwanted animals in Silicon Valley by holding an adopt-a-thon.

The idea for the event is simple. Encourage people to visit the shelter, showcase the animals, and waive the normal adoption fees to allow adopters to pay whatever they can afford.

"We are overflowing in dogs to our stray area because we have so many," said Shelter Manager Michael Limper. "We probably have about 16 dogs and then five kittens and maybe 12 adult cats and a couple of bunnies as well [up for adoption today]."

Once spring hits, most people look to adopt kittens and many adult cats get overlooked. Even though SVACA only had five kittens available at the adopt-a-thon, they expect to have many more in the next few weeks.

"[Right now] we have one kitten litter and 35-40 in foster homes," said Limper. "Our foster parents are taking care of them so we think that within three weeks will have 20-30 more kittens rolling through the shelter."

Along with partners North Star Rescue, MickaCoo and MickaBoo there were plenty of animals to appeal to everyone’s preferences. North Star specializes in smaller animals like rats, mice and guinea pigs, while MickaCoo rescues and adopts pigeons and doves and MickaBoo finds homes for domestic birds. German Shepard Rescue, Toy Breed Rescue and Nor Cal Toy Breed Rescue were also part of the event, filling space at SVACA with many of their adoptable dogs. Our Pack, Inc., one of the organizations that helped rehabilitate and adopt out many of the Michael Vick dogs, Animal Health Center, and dog trainer Donna Johns were at the event as well.

Early indications showed the event had the potential to be extremely successful and by the end of the day 3 of SVACA’s dogs, including Cassidy, a three-legged Chihuahua who needed an amputation when she was brought to the shelter after being hit by a car and 9 SVACA cats and kittens had gone home with new families. The 12 adoptions cleared space for the next batch of animals to come through the ever-revolving shelter door.