Local Rescue Volunteers are Passionate About Pets

Here on the East Side, animal rescues are serious about their missions, because the need is huge. The almost all volunteer-run  houses as many as 400 cats during the height of “kitten season,” but Marilyn Hendrickson, who handles donor recognition for the nonprofit organization, says there are lots of cats and kittens who need homes all year round.

“I have foster cats 365 days a year,” Hendrickson says. Hendrickson also writes . 

It’s the dedication of volunteers such as Hendrickson, who volunteers full time for the shelter, that allows MEOW Cat in Kirkland, and Motley Zoo rescue in nearby Redmond, to help so many animals. Hendrickson says that MEOW Cat, which has been operating for about 14 years, has a couple of paid employees but is 99.5 percent volunteer based.

“Money that might be used to pay us can go to vet bills,” and care for the animals, she says. The shelter holds several fundraisers throughout the year, including a wine tasting fundraiser called “Sips for Snips” that brought in $1,300 last weekend and will be used to help spay and neuter rescued animals. Hendrickson says every animal (MEOW Cat has a dog division, too) that comes through MEOW Cat is altered, dewormed, vaccinated and microchipped. Since MEOW Cat is a no-kill shelter, the animals can be in the shelter or a foster home for anywhere from an hour to a year.

Nearby in Redmond, Jme Thomas' life has basically gone to the dogs, but she couldn’t be happier.

At any given time Thomas has several animals in her home, and she can spend as many as 10 hours a day chauffeuring them to and from vet appointments, foster homes, and appointments with their potential new families.

Thomas (whose first name is pronounced as Jamie) is the executive director and a founding member of the nonprofit Redmond-based animal rescue Motley Zoo, which has rescued and placed about 425 dogs and a number of cats since it started taking them in May of 2009. Though the group has a number of volunteers and volunteer foster homes, all of the dogs that come through the program make their first stop at Thomas’ home in east Redmond.

Before launching Motley Zoo with her husband Bryan and board member Nancy Jones, Thomas had been working on a business plan that entailed creating a fashion line that would allow her to pursue philanthropic interests. She had also been fostering dogs with her husband for some years and said she had an epiphany that she could skip making money to give to charity and just go straight into philanthropy.

In the meantime, after working with some other rescue organizations, Thomas had developed ideas that she believed would help her create a rescue that used business fundamentals to allow it to do the most good possible—while honoring the commitment of the families that make the work possible.

“We try to emphasize that people are volunteers, and we respect and appreciate them,” she said.

People who provide foster homes help Motley Zoo learn as much as it can about each animal so it can match the pets with their new families with no surprises. Though Motley Zoo serves mostly dogs and cats, the organization has placed exotic pets such as lizards, birds and even a cow at one time, says Nancy Jones, who serves on Motley Zoo’s board of directors and has fostered 26 dogs for the organization so far.

Motley Zoo has foster homes all over the Puget Sound area and is always happy for whatever help people can offer, whether it's respite foster care over a weekend, or short-term placements called “dog-dating” that allow a family to do a test run with a pet.

MEOW Cat has between 40 and 50 active foster homes from Everett to North Bend, Hendrickson says, and always needs more. Some fosters families, of course, fall in love and keep the pets they foster. Cats that are housed in the shelter are all matched with a human “buddy,” a volunteer who makes sure their feline buddies get plenty of individual attention. “They get a crash course on socialization,” Hendrickson says.

Other ways people can help local animal rescues include donating money, food, or consumables, such as postage stamps, and of course to adopt a pet.

“It really does take a village to run an animal shelter,” Hendrickson says. “The way we see it, everyone is good at something.”