Artichoke (left) and Mindy (right) await adoption at the Wallingford Animal Shelter.
When Mr. Mitch Gibbs, Director of the Wallingford Animal Shelter, thinks about local animal conservation, he thinks of the time a town resident reported a stray cat he’d seen on his security footage. The cat had an infected wound encircling three quarters of his neck, and Mr. Gibbs reported that the animal did not have good odds of survival. The cat went into the care of the Wallingford Animal Shelter, where his wounds were operated on twice. Both times, his stitches reopened and his condition worsened. A third and final surgery, Mr. Gibbs recounted, was a “magic number. He’s a brand new cat. He’s loving. He loves his treats. He’s just a good boy.” The cat will soon be available for adoption.
Located just a short walk away from Choate campus, the shelter is an organization dedicated to rescuing and providing loving homes for stray or surrendered animals. While the shelter gives priority to local animals and pets given up by Wallingford residents, it accepts animals from across Connecticut. Their work has made them a popular place of refuge for a wide range of rescued animals, including dogs, cats, rabbits, hedgehogs, ferrets, and recently, a guinea pig.
The shelter’s “low-kill” policy is responsible for saving the life of the injured cat. The shelter euthanizes only when animals are deemed too dangerous to place in a household, or when they have a debilitating and terminal illness that prevents them from having a pain-free life. In other cases, the shelter prioritizes rehabilitation and adoption for the animal.
The stray animals that the shelter takes in are often, as Mr. Gibbs put it, “rough around the edges.” Frequently, they are anxious and physically injured. Mr. Gibbs finds it fulfilling “just watching their transformation — watching them blossom into a new animal that we’re able to find a home for. A lot of times it’s like night and day — the animal that we brought in to what they turn out to be — and it’s just great to be part of that process.”
More recently, the shelter has greatly benefited from an online trend named the “Betty White Challenge,” after the late actress, comedian, and animal-rights activist. Through fundraising with nonprofits, the shelter has raised nearly $7,000. “We were going to be happy if we made three or four hundred dollars,” Mr. Gibbs said, “We were all amazed.”
While the shelter is a municipal organization, like many animal shelters, it works closely with a nonprofit, in this case, Friends of the Wallingford Animal Shelter. With the money donated from the nonprofit, the shelter has been able to expand their volunteer opportunities. For example, they have cat socialization and dog walking programs, which offer the participants and animals an opportunity to get outside.
Ms. Jackie Richo, the founder of Friends of the Wallingford Animal Shelter, said, “Volunteers are there to make an animal’s time in the shelter as comfortable as possible with the ultimate goal of getting them out of the shelter.”
Before the pandemic, the shelter hosted events that ranged from fairs with an assortment of rescue groups to bake sales and Easter egg hunts. The shelter has now adapted to Covid-19 restrictions, presenting at the annual Wallingford Holiday Stroll around Christmastime and planning an open house for the fall. Presently, walk-in visits to the Shelter are not allowed. Instead, visits are made by appointment, and volunteers can participate in initiatives organized through the Friends of the Wallingford Animal Shelter.
The organizations have also pooled resources to expand their fostering programs, in which households can temporarily take in animals. The Animal Shelter has also found success using Petfinder, a website that allows the organization to showcase pets that are up for adoption to people in the surrounding area. The shelter has managed to process four adoptions in only a matter of weeks using the platform.
The money raised from general fundraising and the Betty White Challenge will go toward new programs the Friends of the Wallingford Animal Shelter is developing through the shelter. They are specifically working on efforts to implant microchips in each animal that is adopted and provide health check-ups for senior animals that enter the shelter. Mr. Gibbs hopes that with the Shelter’s new developments, more animals will make it into the homes of families across the Northeast.
