This Valentine’s Day, Young-Williams would like to invite you to join us in celebrating our Furry Friends sponsorship program. We will be highlighting this program as an alternative to a typical “pet sale”. What better way to show love than by giving the gift of life, love, and companionship?

We realize that pet adoption is not always a “right now” option for some, so if now is not the time to bring home a furry family member, won’t you consider sponsoring an animal?
Our Furry Friends sponsorship program is the perfect way to let the ones you love know just how much you care.

This Valentine’s day, instead of flowers or candy, we’d like to encourage you to come visit us and give the best gift of all: love.

Our sponsorship fees are $75 for a dog/cat 6 months and older. This fee includes the spay/neuter, boosters, micro-chipping procedure, a complete set of vet records, a heartworm test (dogs), FIV & feline leukemia tests (cats), and flea preventative (given prior to placement on the adoption floor).

When you sponsor an animal, you will also receive a beautiful card to present to one you love for Valentine’s Day. We look forward to seeing you soon!

*card offer is valid 2/10/2012 – 2/24/2012

During the month of February only, Young-Williams Animal Center’s “Beat the Heat” campaign will provide $20 spays for female cats to prevent unwanted litters from being born in the spring.

Last year, Young-Williams Animal Center took in about 2,648 kittens. A female cat can reach sexual maturity at four months of age, and she can have as many as three litters per year. With an average of six kittens per litter, a cat that lives for 10 years could produce around 200 kittens over the course of her lifetime!

This special offer is for female cats only, and space is limited to the first 180 appointments. Visit our web site at young-williams.org, or call 865-215-6677 to schedule your appointment. Please be sure to mention this ad!

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This grant was made possible by PetSmartCharities®, who created the “Beat the Heat” campaign as part of a national campaign to get an additional 10,000 pets sterilized across the nation this year.

EVENT INFO

2012 Registration Form [PDF]

www.Young-Williams.org

Restaurants that Allow Dogs on Patios

Downtown Parking Map [PDF]

SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2012
11 AM – 2 PM

Rain or Shine!

Proceeds to benefit Young-Williams Animal Center!

Put your best foot and your best friend’s best paw forward to march in the 5th Annual Mardi Growl Parade and Festival, hosted by Friends of Young-Williams Animal Center and the City of Knoxville.

REGISTRATION INFO

Randy Boyd, CEO of Radio Systems Corporation, the makers of the PetSafe Brand; Dr. Michael Blackwell, administrator of Young-Williams Animal Center; and Mark Williams, chair of the Friends of Young-Williams board, greet guests at a reception on Jan. 11 to celebrate the first year of operations of the Young-Williams Animal Village facility at 6400 Kingston Pike. At the event, Dr. Blackwell shared plans for the organization’s new spay/neuter program aimed at decreasing the pet overpopulation and ending animal homelessness in Knoxville.

Young-Williams Animal Center is rolling out a new and expanded spay/neuter program aimed at even more aggressively decreasing pet overpopulation and animal homelessness in the region.

The spay/neuter program will consist of two parts: the low-cost spay/neuter clinic at Young-Williams Animal Village at 6400 Kingston Pike, which will be available to community members who income qualify for reduced cost surgery services, and the mobile Spay Shuttle, which Young-Williams will utilize to target and alter high-risk animals, at no cost, where they live throughout Knox County.

“The changes to our spay/neuter program are aimed at serving the pet owners in our community with the greatest need and the pets in our community with the highest risk to impact pet overpopulation,” said Dr. Michael Blackwell, administrator of Young-Williams Animal Center. “Every year, we take in roughly 16,000 animals. We must work to decrease the number of homeless pets in East Tennessee, and the most simple and humane long-term solution is to spay and neuter more animals.”

Of the thousands of animals taken in at Young-Williams Animal Center each year, about half are stray or abandoned pets and the other half are surrendered by their owners for various reasons such as not being able to afford to care for them.

The Spay Shuttle, a mobile spay/neuter surgical clinic, is funded by a grant from the Aslan Foundation which allows Young-Williams to provide free services. The animals served by the Spay Shuttle are those that have been identified as being at highest risk for reproduction and then admission to the shelter, based upon breed, age and residence within high-intake neighborhoods in Knoxville and Knox County. This strategic focus will thus have a greater impact upon decreasing the number of unplanned litters and unwanted pets born into our community each year.

High-risk animals include dogs and cats less than six months old, bully breeds of dogs (as these breeds account for a significant portion of the intake population at Young-Williams) and “community” or feral cats. High-incident communities have been identified based on shelter intake data such as the most common areas for stray pick-ups by Knox County and City of Knoxville Animal Control, for animal-related calls to law enforcement and for owner surrender of animals to Young-Williams, for example.

Because the spay/neuter program is an imperative focus, and because the demand for services from the Spay Shuttle has been so high since its launch, Young-Williams has added a clinic at the Young-Williams Animal Village. The new low-cost spay neuter clinic at the Young-Williams Animal Village, funded in part by PetSmart Charities® and The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), will provide qualifying local pet owners affordable spay/neuter services for their dogs and cats. The focus of this clinic is broader, because it is important for all community pets to be spayed and neutered.

The standard co-pay will be $35-$65 depending on species (cat or dog) and gender. Additional grants may be available to supplement these low co-pays. Grant availability will change over time, and can be determined when the pet owner calls for an appointment. Typical fees for spay and neuter surgeries in the Greater Knoxville area can average up to a few hundred dollars, depending on gender and other factors.

In order to qualify for the low-cost spay/neuter service, pet owners will need to provide evidence of some form of state or federal public assistance. Young-Williams staff will assist individuals in determining their eligibility. The spay/neuter clinic will open on Jan. 17, and the public is asked to call 865-215-6677 starting Jan. 12 to request an appointment.

According to Blackwell, Young-Williams also will work with organizations in nearby counties to provide spay/neuter services for citizens throughout East Tennessee through the Young-Williams Animal Village spay/neuter clinic. Many East Tennessee counties have limited or nonexistent low-cost spay/neuter resources.

“We’ve been pleased with the success of our spay/neuter program over the past few years, but we believe that this restructured program makes the most effective use of our resources moving forward,” Blackwell added. “It’s more focused and aggressive, and we hope to see an increase in significant positive effects quickly. This is an absolutely necessary step toward achieving a Knoxville community that is able to provide loving homes for all our companion animals.”

“Please call us if you need to spay or neuter your pet, and we’ll help find the best, most affordable solution available to you.”

To learn more about Young-Williams Animal Center and the spay/neuter program, visitwww.young-williams.org or check out Young-Williams Animal Center on Facebook.

Help is on the way for some financially strapped pet owners in Knoxville who may lack the resources to have their dogs and cats spayed or neutered.

Young-Williams Animal Center will unveil a new and expanded two-pronged spay/neuter program on Wednesday aimed at curbing the prolific pet overpopulation in Knoxville.

“The key driver for everything is the fact that we’ve got more dogs and cats in the community than homes willing and able to take them in,” said Dr. Michael Blackwell, administrator of Young-Williams Animal Center, 6400 Kingston Pike.

“At the heart of our mission is to do all we can to address the excess numbers of homeless dogs and cats. It has been well established that spaying and neutering dogs and cats is the most effective cause for reducing those numbers.”

Blackwell said dogs and cats can produce staggering numbers of offspring. Every year, Young-Williams takes in about 16,000 animals for which there are simply not enough homes.

“For cats, they have an average litter size of six, and they could have three of those a year,” said Blackwell.

“Dogs (can reproduce) twice a year and the litter size depends on the breed.”

The most innovative part of the new program is the targeting of neighborhoods that, according to shelter data, have high numbers of stray pickups and owner surrenders.

Young-Williams, working with community leaders, will dispense its mobile spay/neuter surgical clinical unit to select areas and perform services free of charge on high-risk animals.

“This is a new way to go into these communities, park and do surgeries throughout the day,” said Blackwell.

High-risk animals include dogs and cats less than 6 months old, bully breeds of dogs and feral cats that often establish colonies.

Blackwell said bully breed dogs, such as pit bulls, are winding up at the shelter in increasing numbers.

“We have an overrepresentation of bully breeds in our intake population. Bully breeds are what I would characterize as dogs that are extremely intelligent and loving, but if they’re not handled properly then we start to see some bad behavior. And, with that bad behavior, you can see aggression. At the top of the list are pit bulls and pit-bull mixes.”

Given the size and strength of bully breed dogs, they can obviously present a danger in the community if left unchecked to roam free.

The spay shuttle, which Blackwell said could be operational later this month, is funded by a grant from the Aslan Foundation.

The second part of the program is the new low-cost spay neuter clinic at the Young-Williams Animal Village, funded in part by PetSmart Charities and The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Blackwell said the standard co-pays will range from $35 to $65, depending on whether it’s a dog or cat, and gender.

Retired Knoxville veterinarian Dr. Nick Wright said the Young-Williams spay-neuter program is a winner for both pet owners and animals.

“It’s really a public security and health issue that it addresses — as well as the pet owner that doesn’t have the finances to get their pet spayed or neutered,” said Wright.

“Economic times are such that (some people) aren’t paying as much attention to their pets out of necessity, not because they don’t want to. I think the Young-Williams program is doing a great service for the community.”

© 2012, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.

Kassidy’s case, while it created controversy, allowed us to remind everyone why responsible pet ownership is so important.

Young-Williams is required by Tennessee state law to spay or neuter every animal that is adopted through the shelter before it leaves the property. Once Kassidy had been held in our lost-and-found facility, she became our legal property and responsibility. She was then scheduled to be spayed. If she had not given birth before being spayed, the surgery would have resulted in the pregnancy being terminated.

An animal shelter is not equipped to care for newborn animals. By isolating the delicate newborns to protect their health, we would forfeit available room for other adoptable animals. As an open-intake shelter, Young-Williams must focus on the 50 or so animals brought in every day to a building that can house only 500. This is the harsh reality we face.

Young-Williams is required by law to spay and neuter all animals or reach a contractual agreement with a suitable adopting organization to do so at the appropriate age. Therefore, the options to handle Kassidy’s case — and others like hers — are limited. Young-Williams explored legally viable options to place Kassidy with a rescue group or foster parent. We were pleased to place her with Adopt a Golden Knoxville.

However, some misinformation that led up to the statement about Kassidy’s placement is still being perpetuated.

Emails and social media posts that circulated insinuated that Young-Williams was planning to euthanize her while pregnant, had already euthanized her or planned to remove her puppies via Caesarean section and then euthanize them. These statements were completely false.

The woman who turned Kassidy in to Young-Williams was advised by staff and signed a document forfeiting any and all rights to the dog. Claims that she was not fully advised are also false and seem to have been spread by people outside Tennessee.

Young-Williams’ staff members work tirelessly to care for the dozens of animals coming through the shelter doors daily. They often must do what is difficult but necessary — including euthanasia when that is the most humane option for animals who come to us too ill or too aggressive because they’ve been abused, abandoned or neglected by irresponsible pet owners. I commend our staff and volunteers and thank them for their service.

We appreciate the ongoing support of the community and look forward to working together in our efforts to better animal welfare in East Tennessee. We aggressively promote adoption. We’re working to help many more animals find homes and have started regular transport trips to Northeastern states where there is a demand for adoptable dogs. In January, we will announce exciting updates to our spay/neuter program.

Please encourage others to spay and neuter. For more information about spay and neuter services or adoption, please contact Young-Williams.

Dr. Michael Blackwell is administrator of Young-Williams Animal Center.

Featured presenters include Dr. Cheryl Greenacre, veterinarian and professor at University of Tennessee, and Dr. Micah Kohles, veterinarian and Director of Technical Services at Oxbow Animal Health. Peggy Barron with Knoxville Guinea Pig Rescue will be on hand to answer questions about small pet adoptions.

The event will include door prizes, children’s activities, and information on care, nutrition and signs of illness in small pocket pets.

The seminar will be held on Monday, January 9, 2012 from 6:00-8:00pm at the University of Tennessee Vet School, Room A118.

Donations

Donations postmarked by 12-31-2011 can save you on the amount you owe the IRS.  Simply pop a check in the mail Friends of Young-Williams Animal Center, 6400 Kingston Pike, Knoxville TN 37919 or go to our online donation link located on your website (www.young-williams.org ) to make a secure location via credit card through PayPal. You can make an unrestricted donation to YWAC which will help us help thousands of animals who enter our shelter by providing them with food, shelter, veterinary care, and cuddles while they await their forever family.

IRA Charitable Rollover

The IRA Rollover was first enacted in 2006 as part of the Pension Protection Act.  The provision allows individuals aged 70½ and older to donate up to $100,000 from their Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to public charities without having to count the distributions as taxable income.  Talk to your accountant or financial adviser on how to donate from your IRA to the YWAC to help the animals.

Memorial/Honorary Donations

Donations made in honor or memory of a friend, family member or beloved pet are an especially nice way to thank or remember someone special. For more information on how to honor or memorialize a person or pet through a donation to YWAC, please contact David Bolton (dbolton@young-williams.org) or Martha Armstrong (marmstrong@young-williams.org) or call them at 865-215-6360.

Furry Friends Fund

Donations to our Furry Friends Fund help to cover the costs of adoption fees for our animals.  Applicants for sponsored pets still go through the entire adoption process to Sponsorship is $75 for a dog or cat or $50 for a senior (7 years or older) dog or cat. Click on the link for more information about this program. Furry Friends Sponsorship Form

In-Kind Donations

YWAC can always use donations of various in-kind gifts such as pet treats, toys, cat litter, and pet beds. (Follow link for full list of items we need – http://www.young-williams.org/donations/wish-list)  Through the generosity of Hill’s Pet Nutrition®, the shelter receives free dry food for all of the dogs and cats in our centers but we can use donations of canned cat and dog food for our residents and will add dry food to our Pet Food Pantry to help pet owners who are having difficult times financially.

Thank you to all our friends and supporters for your generosity to Young-Williams Animal Center.  Your gifts and donations help us to help thousands of animals each year and to provide them with food, shelter and love.