I Work With Animals!

When Jesse Oldham moved to Brooklyn, NY in 2003 she had no idea that she would become a driving force behind New York City's movement to protect its feral cat population. Feral cats are a particular challenge as they are not domesticated and often live their entire lives outside. Most will not allow a human to touch them, or even make eye contact. Those who do go to shelters will usually be deemed "unadoptable" and euthanized so it takes special consideration to care for them.

In addition to running her own nonprofit feral cat protection and advocacy organization, Slope Street Cats (2004-2009), she's since worked extensively with the NYC Feral Cat Initiative including teaching Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) certification workshops and working as a humane trapping coach.

What do you do?
Right now I work at the ASPCA. My title is Senior Administrative Director for Community Outreach.

What is your history with feral cats?
Honestly, I had no idea what a feral cat was until about 2002. I moved to an apartment in South Slope, Brooklyn, and the area was just overrun with cats ... I tried to rescue what I could and start adopting them out, and then I realized, there were these other cats left over [that] I couldn't touch ... I couldn't get near them.

As much as this thing we call the Internet has changed the lives of humans all over the planet, it's had perhaps an even greater impact on another, slightly furrier species: shelter pets.

The Internet has connected millions upon millions of lonely shelter puppies and kitties with forever homes, facilitated a boom in pet fostering, and changed the way we look at adopting pets altogether. One of the adoption innovators responsible for this shelter pet revolution is none other than Petfinder co-founder Betsy Saul.

As part of our coverage of Petfinder's Adopt the Internet Day (March 15), Paw Nation got the chance to chat with Saul about Petfinder's humble beginnings, the joy of rescuing pets and the letters she gets about some of the 17 million animals that have been adopted through Petfinder.

Petfinder.com has been going strong since 1996. Can you give us a little history of how the whole Petfinder phenomenon came about?
When Jared Saul, my ex-husband, and I started Petfinder 15 years ago, we never dreamed it would be as powerful as it turned out to be. I remember hoping that we could save at least one life a month. And I remember fantasizing about being able to do it as a part-time job -- and really give it the attention it deserved. This year we expect to help find families for 2.5 million pets and there is a whole team of people working full-time to make sure we meet our goal to end the euthanasia of adoptable pets.

Photo courtesy of Abby McMillen

Name: Abby McMillen

Age: 34

Title: Folk dog painter and owner of Folk Dog Art in Bozeman, Mont.

What services do you offer?
I paint mostly dogs and some cats in traditional folk art fashion, which basically means they are simple, colorful and whimsical.

How and when did you get started painting pet portraits?
I have three dogs of my own, and I just adore each of them. I've always been an artist, and one day several years ago, I decided to try painting my dogs, just for fun. After several attempts, the folk dog art style emerged. I was fortunate enough to be able to hang my work in some local galleries, and ever since then I find myself painting dogs almost full-time.

Name: Jan Folk

Title: Founder, Orange Dog and Freedom Flights

Jan Folk not only owns the Orange Dog, a Canadian online boutique specializing in high-end products for dogs and humans, but she uses those profits to run Freedom Flights, a charity that takes dogs at risk of being euthanized in California and delivers them to a no-kill shelter in Canada to find new homes.

The charity, which works through an agreement with private airline Global Exec Aviation, has made headlines recently thanks to an endorsement from Kevin Costner, who recently flew with Folk on one of the flights.

Why did you start Orange Dog?
When my business partner and I sold our company, I thought it was a little early in my life to retire, so I began wondering what I was going to do next. In 2009, a friend came to see me and said that you're obviously a fanatic about dogs, and you live in Orange County part-time, (my other home is in Edmonton Alberta), why don't you start a store and call it Orange Dog? Later on we found out that it is the universal color for animal rescue, but that was a lucky coincidence; we had no idea at the time. We decided to start a web-based company. I'm very proud of the fact that 100 percent of the store's profits go to help the dogs.

How did Freedom Flights begin?
I sit on the board of the local Humane Society in Edmonton, and one day when I was speaking with the executive director, she said what would really help is if I could find a plane they could have access to and bring in dogs so they could get them adopted. I thought that was a good idea, not even really thinking it through, of course.

I had a marketing company put together a media plan, and we called them the Freedom Flights. The first flight we did was in June 2009, and we brought up 60 dogs. We bring them to Canada is because in California, the shelters always have an overabundance of dogs. Always. The shelters there unfortunately have to euthanize animals. That's why we take them to our Humane Society. As long as the animal is healthy, they aren't euthanized.

Tell me about your first Freedom Flight and how that motivated you to keep working.
It was absolutely amazing. The dogs were on this Gulfstream III, riding in the lap of luxury. I swear they acted like they knew they were going somewhere safe. When we got to Canada, the Humane Society was there to meet us, the media went crazy and everyone was happy. They took the dogs to the Humane Society, and within two to three weeks maximum, every one was adopted! This continues to happen time and again.

Even better, every time the California dogs come in, the adoptions of other dogs and cats also increase dramatically. It's a real bonus, and helps get a home for dogs that might not have been adopted.

Name: Ron Trotta
Age: 50+
Job Title: Meteorologist With Schmitty the Weather Dog

How did you end up working with Schmitty?
During the 2008 presidential election, I traveled 8,000 miles across the country with Schmitty and "entourage" on the Bark the Vote tour to help get out the vote, raise awareness and visit animal shelters across the country. I started including Schmitty on my daily "Climate of the Election" weather reports as we crisscrossed the U.S.A.

When and how did Schmitty's talents get discovered?
We were doing a weather report on top of a mountain in Trinidad, Colo. I was holding Schmitty, preparing to talk about the temperature and the wind, when I suddenly got this vibe from Schmiitty that the unusually warm weather was all about high pressure. It was an ESP kind of a moment. That's when I found out Schmitty the Weather Dog has a nose for the weather.

How does Schmitty predict the weather?
The correct term is "pawcast." Psychics "predict" things. Schmitty has a nose and an ear for the weather. Schmitty has focused that very keen canine sense of smell and hearing on detecting pressure changes in the atmosphere and the movement of air masses around the planet. Her forecasts, which are communicated subliminally to me, are 99 percent dead-on accurate. Schmitty helps me be a better meteorologist.