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Meagan Koehler is President & Founder of It Takes A Village Animal Rescue & Resources which is a US based, animal welfare organization. Amy Bolend, Norbrook’s customer marketing manager, spoke to Meagan about the organisation’s role in sheltering homeless and vulnerable animals.
Amy: Can you tell us a little bit about your shelter?
Meagan: We are a privately run (not municipal) non-profit animal shelter, located in Muscatine, Iowa, USA. On March 16th, we celebrated our 4th year in operation. We have just one physical shelter, but also extend our animal housing capability to more than 200 approved foster homes as well. Our shelter staff includes 1 veterinarian, 3 administrative staff and 8 technicians.
Amy: How many rescue animals do you care for in a typical week?
Meagan: During slower months, over the winter, we typically have 75-90 animals, while during the busier months of spring, summer and fall, we will often have 100 -135 animals in our care daily.
Amy: You must see some difficult animal welfare cases during your work, what's one of the most challenging cases you’ve seen?
Meagan: From one disturbing hoarding case, we brought in an Amazon Parrot, budgies, a cockatiel, rabbits, multiple ball pythons, bearded dragons, rats and geckos, among many other cats and dogs. The total number of animals removed between 2 seizures was over 90! Almost all these animals were in horrific medical condition, many even deceased upon our arrival at the home.
Amy: How do you fund the ongoing running costs of the shelter?
Meagan: Our operations are funded entirely by public donations, grant funding and adoptions. Not having a government contract for animal control does make securing funding a much more difficult task, with greater uncertainty, but this also allows us to focus our mission on life-saving efforts and emergency cases, rather than exclusively stray intake.
There is another shelter in our community that exclusively does that work. It Takes A Village Animal Rescue & Resources was created with the laser-focused goal of saving as many lives as we possibly can. This often takes shape as rescue transport missions from high-kill shelters in the southern states, disaster relief missions (in hurricane, flood or wildfire affected areas), or hoarding/cruelty/neglect cases right here in our own region.
Amy: What changes have you seen in the animal shelter industry over the past number of years?
Meagan: The change that excites us most is the wider acceptance of no-kill practices in shelters, and also the implementation of TNR programs to combat the community cat population crisis. In general, the shift towards Humane Litter Prevention via spay/neuter is not only more ethical, but it is also immensely more effective. In our region, there are only enough homes and spaces in shelters for about 10% of the cats that live here. That is NOT a problem that we can adopt our way out of. So many animal welfare organizations are understanding this and focusing their efforts on proactively PREVENTING animal homelessness, rather than reactively finding placement for the animals after the fact.
Amy: What advice would you give to people who are considering buying a new pet?
Meagan: My strongest piece of advice would be to foster first. Fostering a pet prior to adopting plays two very crucial roles in the happy outcome of shelter pets. First, it allows you the unique opportunity to get to know the pet prior to making the life-long commitment. This results in fewer returns/surrenders. Second (this is where the real magic happens), if that pet was not a good fit for your home long term, you were still able to spend valuable time getting to know them, their personality, their habits and behaviors. You likely snapped at least a few cute pictures, and maybe have a funny or endearing story to share about them. All of that combined makes that pet 14 times more likely to get adopted. That is a win-win for both human and animal! <3.
To learn more about the work of It Takes a Village Animal Rescue & Resources, visit It Takes A Village.
A member of the It Takes a Village Animal Rescue & Resources veterinary team
