In Noah's Footsteps: Traditions of Animal Rescue Groups in Baton Rouge

1. In "The Shelter Voice: Types of Shelters," Darlene Duggan (2012) explains four general kinds of animal shelters and their functions. Municipal "control facilities" like the East Baton Rouge public shelter are funded by city or county/parish government and act as "homeless/unwanted pet repository[ies] and their mandate is to handle every animal surrendered to them. Control facilities may adopt animals directly to the public, or transfer them to other shelters to save lives. Traditional humane societies are privately funded and take in animals for the general public and adopt them to new owners. Rescue organizations "often specialize in certain breeds or categories of animals" and usually obtain their animal populations from traditional or municipal shelters, rather than taking animals directly from the public (Duggan 2012:1-2). The fourth kind of shelter is animal sanctuaries, which "serve as a respite for animals that may not be adoptable for one reason or another" and receive their animals from sources such as other shelters, pet stores, the public, puppy mill raids, and so on. Although I do not always use these terms to distinguish among Baton Rouge groups, these descriptions more or less fit most of the organizations discussed in this essay, although boundaries are sometimes imprecise.

2. This movement was influenced in part by Nathan Winograd's 2007 book Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America. Critics argue that, among other problems, Winograd unjustly blames shelter workers for the high rate of euthanasia at many open-access animal shelters.

3. In Bridging the Bond: The Cultural Construction of the Shelter Pet (2002), Tami Harbolt reported that 80% of animal shelter and rescue workers are female.

Alger, Janet M. and Steven F. Alger. 2003. Cat Culture: The Social World of a Cat Shelter. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Allen, Rebekah. 2014a. Stray Cats to get Second Chance. Baton Rouge Advocate. http://theadvocate.com/news/police/10360101-123/stray-cats-to-get-second-chance.html. September 26.

___. 2014b. After a rocky few years, BR's animal shelter is on the road to achieving no-kill status. Baton Rouge Advocate, p. 1A. December 28.

Bacher, Renee and Teresa Devlin. 2005. LSU in the Eye of the Storm: a University Model for Disaster Response. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.

Baton Rouge Advocate Staff. 2013. Coalition to discuss animal rescue, no-kill initiatives. http://theadvocate.com/news/7435856-123/coalition-to-discuss-animal-rescue. October 30.

Baton Rouge Spay/Neuter. 2015. Mailer.

Bethencourt, Daniel. 2014. Oh Yappy Day: Dog's best friends help raise funds for BR animal shelter. Baton Rouge Advocate, pp. B1-B2. October 27.

___. 2015. Super dogs take to streets. Baton Rouge Advocate, p. 1B. February 9.

Bordelon, Pam. 2015. For love of the children. Baton Rouge Advocate. May 17.

Brasted, Chelsea. 2015. Marvelous mutts on display for a barking good time with expanded parade route. NOLA.com. http://www.nola.com/entertainment.baton-rouge/idex.ssf/2015/02/marveous-mutts-on-display-for.html. February 8.

Capital Area Animal Welfare Society. 2015a. Feral Cat Program. http://caaws.org/baton_rouge_feral_cat_program.htm. Accessed June 1, 2015.

___. 2015b. Welcome to CAAWS. http://www.caaws.org. Accessed June 2, 2015.

Cat Haven staff member. 2015. Personal Communication. June 14.

Cat Haven. www.cathaven.org. Accessed January 3, 2015.

Coleman, Sharon (Friends of the Animals). 2015. Interview with the author. June 17.

Companion Animal Alliance of Baton Rouge. 2014. Cat Caretaker Testimonials. http://www.caabr.org/#!cat-caretaker-testimonial/chqx. September 10.

Couvillon, Ellyn. 2015. Ascension Parish considers turning over animal shelter. Baton Rouge Advocate, p. 1B. June 12.

Decker, Wendy (Cat Haven). 2015. Interview with the author. May 22.

Duggan, Darlene. 2012. The Shelter Voice: Types of Animal Shelters. http://www.tailsinc.com/2012/07/the-shelter-voice-types-of-animal-shelters. July 19.

Dunnig, Jennifer. 2005. Voices from the Storm: Standing in For Noah and His Ark. New York Times. October 2.

Ezkovich, Lesley. 2015. Personal Communication. February 3.

Feliciana Animal Welfare. 2015. lafaws.org. Accessed May 10.

For the Love of Rats Rescue. 2015a. https://www.facebook.com/ForTheLoveOfRatsRescue. Accessed January 30.

___. 2015b. Brochure.

Foster, Ken. 2006. The Dogs Who Found Me: What I've Learned from Pets Who Were Left Behind. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press.

Frey, Kevin. 2015. Baton Rouge animal shelter sets sights on new building at LSU. WAFB. June 22. http://www.ksla.com/story/29382131/baton-rouge-animal-shelter-sets-sights-on-new -building-at-lsu.

Friends of the Animals. 2015. About Us. www.friendsoftheanimalsbr.org. Accessed May 2.

Gulf Coast Doberman Rescue. 2015. About Us. http://www.gulfcoastdobermanrescue.org/about us.html. Accessed May 2.

Gulf South Golden Retriever Rescue. 2015. Education. www.gulfsouthgoldens.com/education. Accessed June 1.

Harbolt, Tami L. 2002. Bridging the Bond: The Cultural Construction of the Shelter Pet. Purdue University Press.

Hill, John. 2006. Animal rescuers want plan for pets. TheTownTalk.com. April 17.

Hirsch, Adrian.2011. Dogged Determination. 225 Magazine. Dogged determination-[225] http://www.225baton rouge.com/article/dogged-determination. September 30, updated May 4, 2012.

___. 2015. Unleashed: Companion Animal Alliance saves nearly 5,200 lives. http://www.225batonrouge.com/community/unleashed-companion-animal-alliance-saves-nearly-5200-lives. Accessed June 21, 2015.

Hokie's Hounds. 2015. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hokies-Hounds. Accessed April 3.

Hokie's Hounds, PetFinder. 2015. http://awos.petfinder.com/shelters/hokieshounds.html.

Hollow, Michele C. 2015. Foster Pet Parents Learn How to Say 'Good-bye'. Pet News and Views. http://petnewsandviews.com/2015/04/foster-pet-parents-learn-how-to-say-good-bye.

Huston, Lorie. 2014. Easy Ways to Reduce the Number of Homeless Pets. The Daily Vet Blog. m.petmd.com/blogs./thedailyvet/lorieahuston/2014/easy-ways-reduce-number-homeless-pets-32113. November 4.

Kehret, Peg. 1999. Shelter Dogs: Amazing Stories of Adopted Dogs. Albert Whitman and Co. Looking Fur Love Dog Rescue. n.d. Brochure.

Magic Happens Rabbit Rescue. 2015. https://www.facebook.com/magichappensrescue. Accessed April 3.

Morris, George. 2014a. Group captures wild cats for spays, neutering. Baton Rouge Advocate. http://theadvocate.com/features. March 19.

___. 2014b. Rescue Bank of BR distributes pet food to where it's needed: Helping out the angels. Baton Rouge Advocate. http://theadvocate.com/features. June 10.

Northside Humane Society. 2015. www.northsidehumane.org. Accessed June 1.

Olivier, Jonathan. 2014. For Pets' Sake. Baton Rouge Advocate, p. 3-4B. September 20.

Peterson, Cindy (Hokie's Hounds Beagle Rescue). 2015. Phone interview with the author.June 16.

Peveto, Kyle. 2013. Vet keeps working to tackle overpopulation. Baton Rouge Advocate, pp.1B-2B. January 1.

Project Purr. 2015. Fundraising letter. April 16.

Project Purr. 2015. About Us. www.projectpurrbr.org. Accessed June 2.

Ray, Candy. 2015. Personal Communication. June 14.

Red Stick German Shepherd Rescue. 2015. www.redstick\germanshepherds.org. Accessed May 1.

Rose, Leslie D. 2015. Marvelous Mutts: CAAWS promotes pet projects with parade of pooches. Baton Rouge Advocate Red section, p. 14. February 6.

Samuels, Diana. 2015. Baton Rouge feral cat program will be piloted for one year, following council vote. The Times-Picayune. http://www.nola.com/news/baton-rouge/index.ssf/2014/09/baton_rouge_feral_cat_program.html. September 25.

Santini, Abby (Project Purr). 2015. Interview with the author. June 16.

Santino, Jack. 1989. Miles of Smiles: Years of Struggle: Stories of Black Pullman Porters. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Schoen, Paula (Friends of the Animals). 2014. Interview with the author. December 18.

Scott, Traer. 2006. Shelter Dogs. London and New York: Merrell Publishers Limited.

Spay Baton Rouge. 2015. http://spaybatonrouge.org. Accessed May 1.

SPCA of Livingston. 2015. www.livingstonsprca.com. Accessed June 10.

SPCA of Livingston volunteer. 2015. Personal Communication. June 6.

Winkler, Beatrice. 2010. Neighbors Form Animal Welfare Organization. Garden District News, p.1. February.

Winograd, Nathan. 2007. Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution. Sunnyvale, CA: Almaden Books.

YelpBR!. 2015. www.yelpbr.com. Accessed March 6.