Lynchburg Humane Society Blog

Recently you may have heard reports about discussions between the Lynchburg Humane Society and the City of Lynchburg.  As someone who cares about the well being of the pets in our community, you are important to us and our efforts.  We are writing to share information and to ask for your help. Some fifty years ago the Lynchburg Humane Society was founded on the idea that the pets of this community mattered.   Since that early beginning the City of Lynchburg has partnered with the Humane Society to provide pound services for the community.  We feel that this has been a worthwhile partnership for the citizens of Lynchburg. The Lynchburg Humane Society, under the leadership of its Board of Directors, is poised to take the next step in its journey to prevent the unnecessary euthanasia of animals in our City and to solve the problem of pet overpopulation.  This journey began in earnest three years ago when Makena Yarbrough was employed as our first full time E...

I know I am not alone when I say that holiday time always feels very busy and stressful to me.   The normal day-to-day stress of balancing work and home is already difficult, and when you pile on the expectations and duties of the holidays it becomes even worse.   But this year I am making the choice to do things differently and I challenge everyone to do the same.   I have decided to slow down and not get wrapped up in the chaos of the holidays but instead get wrapped up in the true message of this time of year, which is family, love and life. The Lynchburg Humane Society and most of the shelters in the area are seeing more animals in need of our services this year and less money coming in due to the economy.   Our Home 4 the Holiday promotion serves to encourage the community to help pets find homes before the end of the year.   This is the perfect time of year to bring home a new pet through adoption or foster care.   Even though the idea of putting ...

The Lynchburg Humane Society takes in every animal including those that are injured, sick, traumatized, under-socialized or too small to thrive on their own. Just the other day a 10 year old hound mix,we call Allie, came in on the end of a chain so heavy her head hung low from the weight. She suffers from untreated ear infections and is nervous of any physical contact. When we give her love she cringes in anticipation but then returns the favor with quick licks on our hands. She obviously suffered for most of her life in a neglectful situation and now we are her only chance at a normal life. Carmen was brought to us with active Parvo, a very deadly and contagious condition that her owner couldn’t afford to treat. We took on the responsibility to treat Carmen and after a very difficult few days, she pulled through with flying colors. She now is vibrant, full of life and living with her new family.  These are just two recent examples of the powerful impact our Second Chance Fund has...

I saw a poster recently that had a picture of a feral cat and it said, “I have been living outside for 7 years… I am not homeless.” The Lynchburg Humane Society made a bold decision this year to stop taking in feral (wild) cats, except in extreme circumstances.  While we still accept feral kittens for rehabilitation, we were euthanizing the adults; it was something that made the people trapping them feel good but did nothing to solve their problem. Studies and actual accounts in Lynchburg have shown that this method of trapping and killing is not effective.  Due to something called the “vacuum effect,” the cats that remain around the food source will continue to reproduce at an alarming rate in order to compensate for the cats removed.  For example, one local business brought us 11 feral cats last year when we were still taking them in.  This year they showed back up claiming they now had to bring us 15 feral cats.  Because they never removed the food source and...

Letter appeared in the News and Advance in the editiorial section on 10/4/11 in response to a letter posted on September 24th by Jason Shelton. I first want to thank Jason Shelton (The Forum, Sept. 24) for raising awareness that the Lynchburg Humane Society’s current facility is inadequate to meet the needs of this community, continue saving lives and reach our goal of an open-admission, no-kill shelter. Our new building project will enable us to provide more services to the community and alleviate the overcrowded conditions that affect the animals, staff and the public. Similarly, we acknowledge that there is a problem in the city with the cat population. We are dedicated to solving this problem by providing free spay and neuter services through our City Cat Fix Program and a grant from PetSmart Charities. Unfortunately, as long as people allow the cats they care for to reproduce and not take full responsibility for them, the problem will persist. The standard opera...

 Article published in the News and Advance on August 30, 2011 We thought it might be funny to have a “Vacancy/No Vacancy” neon sign that we could hang out front, letting people know our status of cage availability for new animals coming to the shelter. We wondered if it would make a difference. Spring and Summer time signals kitten season plus an over-abundance of stray dogs and puppies. Shelters can’t handle the increased volume and it seems like everyone makes decisions in June, July and August to move to places that won’t allow pets or they decide that they can no longer handle pet responsibilities. Or, they decide the outside cat for which they have taken responsibility over months or years needs to go because it keeps having kittens or they are tired of it and it must go now; they can’t wait. At this time of year we struggle to find the funds to take care of the little ones who are brought to us, we struggle to find the space to put them, and we ...

The most heart wrenching thing we see here at the shelter is an animal that has been neglected or abused.  We always find it amazing when they can still look you in the eye sadly and lick your hand or wag their tail.  All they want is love and attention and when they suffer at the hands of the person who is suppose to love them and care for them it is heart breaking.  Samantha here is such a dog that was beaten, kicked and thrown against a wall by her owner and it caused major internal injuries and broken bones.  In these cases animals have every right to hate humans and not trust them, but most will forgive and only ask for love in return.  I think some of us we can learn a lot from pets.  Most don't give up on people and sometimes it feels like we give up on them too easily. Let me make sure I disclose that this is a hard time of year for us and we sometimes find it hard to focus on the positive even when there is so much positive around us.  At ...