It was Snow’s first check-up. Clutched in the attendant’s arms, the baby chihuahua braced for his microchip injection. The syringe was half the length of his body.
Both the dog and his 8-year-old owner, Leo Campos, were surprisingly calm.
“I’m excited to have a friend,” Leo said. His family adopted Snow — named for his white coat — four days earlier, from a relative.
Before the appointment, Leo kept Snow tucked inside his jacket, safe from the numerous other yapping dogs, trembling cats, and mingling people at the latest community outreach clinic hosted by Oakland Animal Services.
Most of the city’s public pet programs take place at the shelter on 29th Avenue in Fruitvale. But not everyone can get to that site or afford services at private vets.
“There are so many people who don’t have the ability to get pet care,” said Martha Cline, community outreach and transfer coordinator. “We come out to the community, because that’s where we’re getting the best response.”
And a response they sure got this past Monday, at 75th Avenue and Hawley Street, a few blocks from the Oakland Coliseum. People and pets waited patiently, for the most part, in long lines in the sun.
Leo Campos, 8, and Snow
“I’m excited to have a friend. I’m writing a book about him. It’s called Diary of a Snow, inspired by the book Diary of a Pug.”
The goal is to “help people keep their pets,” said Cline. “People will surrender them [to the shelter] because they don’t have vet care.”
The other goal is to keep the pets healthy. An untreated illness in an animal can cause heartbreak for owners and pain for pets. It can also spread rapidly throughout a neighborhood and turn into a dangerous and costly community-level problem. OAS sees lots of puppies with parvo, a deadly and highly contagious disease most common in young, unvaccinated dogs.
Geared primarily toward unhoused and low-income pet owners, the East Oakland clinic drew people from many different backgrounds — homeless residents, housed families, a recent college grad, and older Oaklanders.
Although OAS is a public shelter run by the city, the mobile clinics are paid for by Maddie’s Fund, a foundation supporting shelters across the country. The organization pays for Cline’s salary. Five other organizations also helped put on Monday’s event.
But OAS faces many barriers to meeting the community’s needs. Already spread thin, the organization just went through more budget cuts. The tight resources make it all the more difficult to reach pet owners who might have no other options for care.
Pets can provide lifelines for unhoused Oaklanders
Kerry Rogers has been the proud owner of Prettyboy Floyd “since I pulled him out of his mommy and cut his umbilical cord,” she said Monday. She found good homes for the rest of her dog’s litter, but kept him.
Together, Rogers and her canines have been through a lot. Prettyboy Floyd was kidnapped for a traumatic three weeks. And his mother came to visit Rogers at Highland Hospital after Rogers was shot. “I was happy to have her dog hair all over me,” she said, recalling that scary period.
Kerry Rogers and Prettyboy Floyd
“I’ve had him since I pulled him out of his mommy and cut his umbilical cord. He was born back-feet-first. The whole litter was. He was the cutest puppy. At night he’s really needy — he has to be right next to me and touching me.”
When she was unhoused, Rogers’ life was unpredictable. The dogs were a source of consistency and safety.
“His mom is real protective of me,” Rogers told The Oaklandside. The 60-pound-plus Prettyboy Floyd, on the other hand, relies on Rogers.
“He fulfills my sense of him needing me,” she said, snuggling against him.
Until recently, Rogers lived at the city’s “cabin” shelter on Wood Street, but she recently secured an apartment in San Leandro. It’s a big deal, but she hasn’t been sleeping there yet. The building requires dogs to have updated vaccines, which is common. Hence Rogers’ trip to the clinic.
“I ain’t gonna be there without my dogs. I care more about them than I do myself,” she said.
OAS’ work often intersects with the housing crisis. Sometimes cats and dogs end up at the shelter because their owner had to move in an emergency to a rental that prohibits pets. And homeless who depend on their relationship with their pets also often depend on free care from the shelter. For Monday’s clinic, OAS advertised in advance at encampments.
When people are suddenly displaced or spend stretches in the hospital or jail, pets can end up on the streets by themselves. Maddie’s Fund pays for care for pets with owners, but not for strays, which the shelter world calls “community” cats or dogs.
Michael Taylor and Goldie
“I found Itty Bitty as a stray in my backyard a few years ago. She acts more like a dog than a cat. Goldie is the only one who survived out of [her] litter.”
Michael Taylor found his cat Itty Bitty as a stray in his backyard a few years ago. About a month ago, she had babies, but only one survived. Taylor’s named the kitten Goldie. Like Snow, her name reveals her coloring.
“I’ve been trying to find somewhere to take the cat — she has a bad cold,” Taylor said Monday. “I’ve been calling around and getting the runaround. I’m glad this place is here.”
For strays and outdoor pets, spaying or neutering is crucial, animal care professionals say. Acting OAS Director Joe DeVries recalled a day when 15 or 20 puppies were dropped off at the shelter at once. But the surgery can cost $300-$500, simply unaffordable for many pet owners. OAS does 3,000 operations a year, often offering low-cost or free surgeries, but they can’t serve everyone who needs it.
In an interview last week, DeVries said Oakland’s law requiring pets to be spayed or neutered can “end up punishing working-class families desperate to get their animals fixed. They can’t afford to do it, and now they feel like they’re a criminal.”
In a package of proposed code changes, city animal services staff is attempting to clarify the requirements but stop short of making the operation mandatory across the board.
But, DeVries said, “Please get your pet spayed or neutered. And get on a waiting list if you need low-cost.”
The rest of the proposed changes, which will come to a City Council committee meeting on July 8, range from tweaks meant to lessen the influx of animals and burden on OAS staff, to more equitable access to services.
The shelter suffers under the city’s new two-year budget, which included widespread cuts in an effort to close a massive deficit. The director position is frozen, and seven currently vacant roles are eliminated. While this means no layoffs or major reductions in services, OAS has already experienced difficult cuts in recent years. The total budget for the fiscal year that just started and ends next June is a bit over $5 million.
Without a permanent director, DeVries, who has lots of other duties as a deputy city administrator, will continue to act in that role.
In response to the squeeze, Friends of Oakland Animal Services, the philanthropic group that’s supported OAS for 20 years, launched a fundraising campaign. Now led by former OAS Director Ann Dunn, Friends funds 14 employees at the shelter, who handle adoptions, the volunteer program, and more. According to Friends, its work with the city has brought the “live release rate” — the percentage of pets that make it out of the shelter alive instead of getting euthanized — from 50% to 90% over the past two decades.
The work done by the organization is “vital,” said DeVries. “If they weren’t doing that, this shelter would be a very, very grim place.”
Pets get pampered, people get care
While the providers working at Monday’s clinic were all too aware of the limitations in which they were working, the people who attended the event were just happy their pets were getting help.
Michael Diaz brought his cat Tom for overdue vaccinations.
Diaz, who grew up in East Oakland, got Tom right after graduating from college in Los Angeles two years ago.
Michael Diaz and Tom
“I got him a month after I graduated college. His nickname is Psycho Cat — he’s the most playful cat.”
“His nickname is Psycho Cat,” he said. “My roommate had a German Shepherd and Tom would bully the dog.” Diaz knew he needed to bring Tom into the vet back then, but “I was working two jobs, so I never got around to it.”
But pets weren’t just getting poked and prodded at the clinic. Volunteer groomer Cindy Perry was offering “pawdicures” and combing balls of fluff off of puppies. By her side was Betty, a pitbull belonging to a regular, low-income client. The person couldn’t make it to the event, so Perry, an IT professional who retired early to focus on pet grooming, brought Betty along.
Stationed next to the pet health station was HEPPAC, a harm-reduction program. The vet clinic can serve as a connection to human healthcare for pet owners who might not otherwise seek it out.
Cline, the outreach coordinator, said people often leave clinics asking how they can volunteer in the future.
Eli Wolfe contributed reporting.
