Celebrating the human-animal bond
Safely Helping the Most Fragile Little Lives
What should you do when you find stray kittens?
Alternative Treatment That Will Save More Lives
We’ve treated the most heartworm cases across Canada
Microchipping Your Pet
An essential safety measure for your pet and peace of mind
Safety – to be safe and to feel safe – should not be a privilege. But the sad reality is that there is a cost to keep pets safe and this is a privilege that many pet parents cannot afford.
The latest Pet Population Survey from The Canadian Animal Health Institute (CAHI) revealed that there were 7.9 million dogs and 8.5 million cats in Canada in 2022 – which is an increase from 7.7 million dogs and 8.1 million cats in 2020.
It brings me great joy to see that more families are enjoying the unique human-animal, a companionship that animals bring, but the same survey also revealed that nearly 1 in 5 pet parents wanted or needed preventative care in the past 12 months but were not able to access it due to affordability or the inability to get an appointment, among other reasons.
This means that 1 in 5 pet parents can’t access the care they need to keep their pets safe.
Access to animal care and support is a critical challenge facing animals globally. As a leader in animal welfare, we’re taking a holistic approach to remove barriers and provide access to care.
For example, through our Public Veterinary Services so far this year, we have provided core vaccines for over 1000 cats and over 530 dogs to protect them against serious illnesses such as parvo-virus, distemper, and rabies – but our mission moves us to do more.
You’ll see in this issue of Animal Talk that our experts are also continually exploring new treatment types and plans, such as a faster treatment for heartworm, sharing our research with other organizations, and going outside of our community to help those who have limited access to veterinary care.
Our fight to ensure access to care is far from over – we have much more work to do to help keep more families together and keep more pets out of the cycle of vulnerability.
Together, we continue to effect change in our community. I want to personally thank you for all that you’ve done. It’s your support behind every life-saving vaccine, every preventative measure, and every published research article. It’s you, and people like you, who provide every animal with their own home to live a full and meaningful life. Your generosity is what makes all this possible.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jacques Messier, DMV, MBA Chief Executive Officer02. A Message from Our CEO Ensuring access to care to provide safety
04. Safely Helping the Most Fragile Little Lives
What do you do when you find stray kittens?
06. Why Pet Microchipping is Essential for Their Safety and Your Peace of Mind
It’s the only permanent, reliable way to identify lost pets
07. Making Cake My Day One of the Sweetest Days of the Year
A fundraiser that helped to bake a difference
08. Safely Dealing with Infectious Disease
Why following safety protocols with every animal that comes into our care is important.
10. Helping Your Animal Feel Safe During Noisy and Stressful Events
How to read their body language and take action
12. Improving the Lives of Heartworm Positive Dogs
A highly effective system developed by our experts that help treat animals with the disease quicker.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The role of the board is to provide governance oversight for Toronto Humane Society. Toronto Humane Society’s Board of Directors is a volunteer board and no member of the board receives compensation to perform their board role.
President: Josh Shanahan
Vice President: Yussef Hafez
Chair: Martin Buckle
Secretary: Nicholas Kanhai
Treasurer: Charissa Lai
Assistant Treasurer: Damian Creber
Malcolm Bernstein
David Bronskill
Krista Bulmer
Jennifer Dernek
Mark Dilworth
Brownwen Morgan
Peter Newell
Nabila Tisha
Angela Young
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Dr. Jacques Messier, DVM, MBA
Tegan Buckingham, MSA, CFRE
Phil Nichols, RVT, CAWA
DESIGNER
Jessica Harwood
CONTRIBUTORS
Beverley McKee, BA CDBC CPDT-KA
Conor McMullan
Dr. Jacklyn Ellis, MRes PhD CAAB CSB-C
AnimalTalk is distributed free of charge to Toronto Humane Society members and donors. Contents of AnimalTalk are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the written consent of Toronto Humane Society. Nothing in this publication shall constitute an endorsement by Toronto Humane Society of any product or service.
Canadian Charitable Registration Number 11925 9513 RR0001
Jessica Harwood
What do you do when you find stray kittens? Don’t kitnap them.
Written by: Dr. Jacklyn Ellis, MRes PhD CAAB CSB-CIf you find tiny kittens without a home, it can be very tempting to bring them in and find a home for them. But this is not always in the best interest of the kittens. There are several factors you should consider before taking any action. Do they appear healthy? Is their mother still caring for them? Are they eating solid food? Do they enjoy petting or seem curious about people?
If the kittens do not look healthy – for example, they look dirty, appear to be injured or have a runny nose and eyes – do not delay getting them help. You can contact Toronto Humane Society, or your local veterinarian, for support on how to care for them or on how to admit them to an animal welfare organization.
If they seem relatively healthy but are alone when you
find them, wait a few hours to see if their mother returns. If you can’t wait for her to come back, try sprinkling some flour on the ground nearby and look for her paw prints later.
If the mother returns, and the kittens appear healthy, leaving them with her until they are weaned and eating solid food is the best thing you can do for them. Though they can be bottle-fed by us, a mother’s milk contains antibodies that newborn kittens desperately need to fight disease. Formula can also cause diarrhea or constipation in many kittens.
In addition to promoting physical health, staying with their mother and siblings can greatly contribute to the behavioral wellbeing of the kittens. The best company
for un-weaned kittens is their mother and siblings. They learn normal behaviours from their family. Kittens that are removed from their mother at a very young age often have abnormal behaviours that can develop into permanent challenges for the kittens and their adopters.
If the mother does not return in a reasonable amount of time, and they are not yet old enough to eat solid food, these kittens will need help immediately. They’ll need someone to take their mother’s place, which means giving them formula, stimulating their bodies, and making sure they’re clean and healthy. If you’re ever in this situation and would like to care for the kittens until they’re old enough to be on their own, Toronto Humane Society has resources and information available to support you and their well-being. You can reach out to us about becoming their Foster Parent or surrendering them to our care.
If the kittens are eating solid food, regardless of their mom being around, rehoming might be the best choice! However, think about their age and response to human interaction. The older a kitten is, the more difficult it is for them to socialize with people. For kittens that enjoy petting or show genuine curiosity about people, adoption is likely to result in a very happy ending. However, older kittens who have had very limited exposure to people and only show signs of terror towards them may not be appropriate for life in a traditional home environment. For these cats, adoption may seem like a prison sentence, and they may be
happier living life as a community cat – safely, after receiving their spay or neuter surgery, of course!
We can all play a part in safely caring for the fragile little lives of kittens by first taking a moment to assess the situation. Your first instinct may be to remove the kittens from where you found them and bring them to an animal welfare organization right away, but if the kittens are very young, appear healthy, and are still cared for by their mother, it is best to leave them where they are until they’re older – otherwise, although with good intentions, you may be kitnapping kittens.
Jacklyn Ellis is board certified by the Animal Behavior Society as a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist, is Certified in Shelter Behavior – Cat by the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants and is the Director of Behaviour at Toronto Humane Society.
She earned her PhD in Animal Welfare at the Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island, where she conducted research on methods for reducing stress in shelter cats.
Her work has been published widely in peer reviewed journals and she has presented at many national and international conferences, particularly on feline stress and elimination behaviour. She has recently completed two chapters for a new edition of the leading textbook on the behaviour and welfare of shelter animals.
Chimken was found alone in a new development construction site in Toronto. She was fearful at first, but after a few treats, Chimken began to trust her finder.
The finder waited a few days to see if Chimken was alone. During that time, Chimken’s playful, curious, and sweet personality started to shine through, so her finder decided that it was time to bring her to Toronto Humane Society to help her find a home.
She received her medical exam and spay surgery and after 5 days Chimken was adopted!
Now she enjoys endless play time, all the treats she could ask for, and endless cuddles on her new favourite couch in her forever home.
It’s the only permanent, reliable way to identify lost pets
Have you ever experienced the heart-wrenching feeling when your pet goes missing? Whether they bolted out of the door because of a thunderstorm, escaped out of a window, or simply wandered off, millions of pets go missing in North America every year.
According to Humane Canada, 86% of dogs and 16% of cats that were lost were reunited with their pet parents in 2021. Microchipping your pet can be the deciding factor between them being sent to a shelter or happily reuniting with their family.
Every microchip number is different, so think of it as your pet’s own unique fingerprint. No two are the same. Microchips are encoded with a unique registration number that is connected to your contact information. The tiny microchip, which is no bigger than a grain of rice, is implanted under your pet’s skin. The procedure is quick and can be done during a veterinary appointment. The microchip is injected with a little needle, just like a vaccination.
The key benefit of microchipping your pet is that it offers a permanent solution that ID tags and collars cannot. Many pets wear ID tags and collars, but these can become worn and unreadable - not to mention, they easily fall off when your pet is dashing away!
In the case that your pet has been microchipped and has slipped away, any veterinary office or animal shelter can scan the microchip and the microchip company will contact you. It’s important to pet parents to update the microchip company with their new address if they move. Even if your pet went missing years ago, their microchip could help you to be happily reunited – just like what happened to Jazz and Rose!
Rose was moving to a new place and needed someone to temporarily watch over Jazz, her beloved Rottweiler that’s been a part of her family for over 5 years. Unfortunately, once Rose was settled in and was ready to take Jazz back, Rose was told that her dog was no longer in their care. And just like that, Rose’s world started to crash – her dog was missing.
After some time, Rose discovered that Jazz was in West Ontario, but over a year had gone by and she started to assume the worst.
A wonderful turn of events unfolded when one of our Animal Transport partners took Jazz into their care. After scanning her microchip, they promptly notified Rose, and relocated Jazz to Toronto Humane Society where they could finally be reunited.
The reunion between Jazz and Rose, two long-lost friends, was a heartwarming moment full of tears, hugs, and wet kisses.
If Jazz was not microchipped, she may have never been reunited with her loving family. This is just one example of the life-changing power of microchipping your pet.
We start with recognizing the signs and taking the appropriate actions – but it doesn’t end there.
Featuring an interview with Dr. Linda Jacobson, Senior Manager,
Animals come into our care with different backgrounds and stories – they may have been brought to us from a compassionate caretaker, transferred in as a group from a remote community, or surrendered to us in need of urgent medical care. Regardless of their background, their health and safety are always a top priority.
With many years of experience of dealing with infectious diseases, we have developed a system that helps prevent disease outbreaks before they occur – and if they do occur, we have a process that helps to minimize the impact of the situation.
“We’re assessing risk before intake all the time because a shelter is a shifting population of animals from different environments,” explains Dr. Linda Jacobson, Senior Manager of Shelter Medicine Advancement at Toronto Humane Society. “So, we start off with a good understanding of where they’re coming from, and then we try to control for that. Animals that are transferred into our care, for example, we make sure they’re vaccinated before they come into the building. We also frequently know what kind of health problems they have.”
Animals who are transferred into our care in groups are housed together, in separate kennels, for their first 10 days. We do this to help protect the other animals in our care from anything unexpected that might show up within the first few days of settling in.
In December 2022, our team set out to help Provincial Animal Welfare Services (PAWS) after they had to intervene at an overcrowded animal welfare organization. We agreed to help assess, and to bring in many of the cats
that had been removed from the organization. When our team arrived at the site, they found approximately 250 cats living in a small, congested environment. In total, 45 cats were brought back to Toronto Humane Society and many of them had serious medical conditions. The others were sent to other animal welfare organizations around the GTA.
With this group of animals, we identified a rare disease outbreak with a bacteria called beta-haemolytic Streptococcus. “The thing about that situation was that we were able to identify an unusual infection that is typically only found in hoarding situations or severely overcrowded shelters or rescues, and that allowed us to appropriately treat the affected animals so that we could save as many as we could and make humane decisions for the ones that we couldn’t,” Dr. Jacobson explains.
Once we identified this unique disease outbreak, we reached out to the other animal welfare organizations that some of the cats went to so that they could identify and treat the disease correctly.
Because the cats who were brought into our care were housed together, we were able to readily identify which cats were showing clinical signs, who had been exposed to the disease, minimize the number of pets affected, and treat the ones that needed medical care.
Following strict, yet balanced, health and safety protocols with every animal that comes into our care is just one of the many ways that Toronto Humane Society Improves the Lives of Animals every day.
Understanding your animal’s body language and preparing ahead of time are key
Written by: Beverley McKee, BA CDBC CPDT-KASome pets are happy-go-lucky and seem to take everything in stride, while others can experience noise aversion that may escalate to phobic levels of fear, anxiety, and stress during noisy events.
Some examples of stressful events are firework shows, thunderstorms, or other loud occurrences, and if we don’t take measures to make them feel safe, we may be encouraging fear or anxiety.
It’s not unreasonable or uncommon for any animal, including humans, to feel jumpy or fearful when there are sudden, loud noises. Pets, with their heightened hearing ability, may be even more sensitive to sudden loud sounds.
A process called sensitization, which occurs when an animal’s fear escalates or increases dramatically from repeated exposure to a fear eliciting stimulus, can result in very poor welfare for that animal. Additionally, animals that are panicking can be at risk of bolting and getting lost. Thankfully, we can prevent this in a way that is both helpful to their safety and to ours.
Here are a few things you can try to help them feel safe during any stressful event.
Familiarize Yourself with Signs of Stress: Prevent Before it Persists
If you can identify body language cues that indicate that your pet is stressed, you can take measures to prevent their fear from escalating.
Signs of stress in cats can include:
• Hiding
• Large pupils
• Ears to the side or back
• Tail tucked or tight to body
• Hissing, growling, or yowling
• Hair standing on end
• Leaning away, crouching, or tense body posture
• Rolling on back with their feet ready to strike, or feet tucked under with paws on the ground, ready to flee
In dogs, signs of stress may include:
• Excessive panting
• Pupil dilation
• Ears pinned back and tail tucked
• Trembling and hiding
• Clinging to their pet parent
• Digging or chewing, including attempted escape from confinement
• Urination or defecation
• Excessive drooling
• Aggression
• Barking or howling
The second step in making our pets feel safe is to manage the environment during stressful events as much as we can to limit exposure.
Pet parents may be tempted to simply expose the animal to the things that scare them at full intensity, thinking that they will get over it, but this can have the reverse effect and cause the animal to panic and injure themselves in frantic attempts to escape. This approach can also cause the animal to develop phobias.
Instead, create a safe space in your home for the animal where you can limit their exposure to noise and other stressful triggers. Play soothing music or use a white noise machine to further block or minimize scary sounds.
You may worry that comforting your pet will reinforce the fearful behaviour, but because fear is a reflex or an instinctual response that is beyond the animal’s control, the benefits of providing comfort to try to soothe the animal and to create more pleasant associations outweigh the potential for creating a behaviour or consequence that may cause the animal to willfully exhibit fear in the future.
When an animal becomes stressed or fearful from certain stimulus in the environment, a method of training called systematic desensitization and counter conditioning is employed. This helps to change the animal’s conditioned emotional response to the eliciting stimulus from a fearful response to a neutral or happy response instead.
For example, if an animal becomes frightened during thunderstorms, in a desensitization and counter conditioning training plan, the sound of a thunderstorm is introduced at low volume from a
recording. This low intensity presentation is played at a level where the animal does not feel fear, and then pair this with a high value food reward.
Over time, the volume level turns up as the animal gains confidence, while the pairing with high value food continues.
Throughout the process, the animal’s body language should be closely monitored to ensure that the volume is not increased at a pace that makes the animal fearful.
The ultimate objective is for the animal to perceive the loud sound, link it to a desirable outcome, and subsequently eliminate its fear response. This kind of training can also be conducted proactively and is often a part of puppy socialization plans which are geared towards familiarizing puppies during their critical socialization periods to common sights and sounds that they may encounter as they navigate the world.
If your pet displays fear or panic from loud noises or other stressful events, consult with your veterinarian who will provide situational medication if need be so that your pet can remain calm. Your animal will also benefit from a behaviour and training consultation with a certified animal trainer, who will identify your animal’s triggers, advise on how to manage the environment during stressful events, and help you work through a carefully constructed desensitization and counter conditioning training plan.
We want to see all animals succeed to the best of their ability. Certified animal trainers at Toronto Humane Society can help. For more information on behaviour and training services available visit www.torontohumanesociety.com/training.
About Beverley McKee
Certified Dog Behavior Consultant and Business Development Associate
Beverley McKee is a Certified Dog Behaviour Consultant through the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer –Knowledge Assessed through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers.
She is a Fear Free Shelter Graduate, and a Living and Learning With Animals Graduate under Dr. Susan Friedman. Beverley has published articles on dog behavior and has presented on various animal behaviour topics at national and international conferences.
She currently works with the Public Training Services department at Toronto Humane Society as a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant and Business Development Associate.
Heartworm is a challenging disease to treat, but with years of experience, we’ve developed a highly effective system to care for and treat animals with the disease.
Featuring an interview with Dr. Karen Ward, Chief Veterinary Officer
Heartworm is a serious disease in which parasitic worms live in the blood vessels of a dog’s lungs and sometimes in their heart. The best way to protect your dog against heartworm is with a preventative vaccine. Once a dog is infected with heartworm, it is a complicated disease to treat because it presents in a spectrum – but whether a dog has a few worms or a lot, heartworm can be fatal if left untreated.
The Challenges of Treating Heartworm
Dr. Karen Ward, Chief Veterinary Officer at Toronto Humane Society, has been treating heartworm for over 15 years. “It’s not a one-solution-fits-all type of treatment”, she explains. “If you think about the animal, the pet parent, and the environment, sometimes you have to make specific decisions for a specific individual, so we offer two types of heartworm treatments at Toronto Humane Society, but we almost exclusively use the melarosmine treatment in the shelter.”
Using melarosmine is the American Heartworm Society recommended treatment. It is slow, expensive, and potentially dangerous. It involves an antibiotic, a heartworm preventive to kill the baby heartworm called microfilariae, and three injections of a medication called melarsomine.
“Melarsomine is an arsenic-based drug, so it’s pretty serious and has a narrow margin of safety. After the melarosmine injection, you’re going to get a big worm die off – we never really know how many worms each animal has – so that first month, you’ll get a worm die off and maybe that’s half of the worms, and then the second month, the other half of the worms die,” Dr. Ward explains. “But we have to think about where the worms live. They actually live in the blood vessels that supply the
lungs more than in the heart. Unlike other worms, like roundworm, the dog cannot poop out heartworms. The dead worms are in the blood vessels of the dog and then the dog’s own immune system is going to eventually nibble away at the dead worms, and those white blood cells are going to get rid of it. As that happens, the little bits of dead worm break off and get pushed forward in the blood vessels where it narrows and they’ll cause little thromboembolism, which are little clots. We know that’s going to happen. Sometimes it’s asymptomatic, and at other times it’s mildly symptomatic – or it can go all the way to being catastrophic.”
Coupling the difficult treatment for heartworm with limited exercise for a dog further complicates the treatment process. It is no walk in the park, quite literally, as strict exercise restriction is an essential component of the treatment process. If there is a large heartworm die off and a dog continues to exercise, there will be an abundance of worms moving into their blood vessels and the consequences are serious.
“We had big 40 kg dog, and he was living with his foster parents during treatment. They lived in a walkup apartment that was above a retail store. For him, after his melarsomine injections, walking down the flight of stairs to go to the bathroom, and then walking back up, caused him to become clinical. He presented with coughing and a bit of difficulty breathing, so that was too much exercise,” Dr. Ward shares. “He was too big for his foster parents to carry, and there was no elevator, so they ended up setting up a toileting area on their patio.” Luckily, with their new bathroom approach and some additional medication, the dog got better and eventually became heartworm free.
Toronto Humane Society conducts outreach trips where we send a group of volunteers to help treat animals that have no or very limited access to veterinary care. Dr. Ward shares, “Because they’re in areas where it’s difficult to access veterinary care, when pet parents are presented with the different treatment options, they almost inevitably choose the alternative, or slow kill treatment. It’s a much longer treatment (anywhere from 6 to 18 months) and does not use melarsome, but the dog still gets to be reasonably active for the most part. While it’s very efficacious, it’s not as efficacious as the melarsomine treatment.
With years of experience of treating heartworm, our experts have developed a highly effective system to care for and treat animals with the disease. We estimate that we’ve treated more heartworm cases than almost any other veterinary clinic in Canada thanks to the generosity of our donors. Not many other animal welfare organizations have the resources necessary to provide treatment for heartworm because it can be very costly.
The standard treatment, according to the American Heartworm Society, is that on day one of diagnosing the animal, they’re given a month’s worth of doxycycline, then after one month the melarosmine treatment is given. This means that their melarosmine treatment begins 60 days after they’ve been diagnosed.
“Doxycycline is an antibiotic and there is a bacterium that is a symbiotic bacterium with the heartworm – symbiotic means that they need each other. This bacterium, Wolbachia, and the heartworm don’t thrive without each other,” Dr. Ward explains. “As veterinary research and knowledge of heartworm evolved, it came to be understood how important the Wolbachia is in the lifecycle of the heartworm and how starting animals on this antibiotic decreases inflammation, decreases some of the inflammatory factors that this parasite produces, makes the worms a little weaker, and makes them easy to kill. The animal receives more effective treatment and
With new research and information available, Toronto Humane Society’s Dr. Karen Ward and Dr. Linda Jacobson modified the standard treatment to a more efficient and shorter treatment process. “We start doxycycline on day one – all treatment plans include doxycycline – and we give our first melarsomine injection on day 14. So, we start melarsomine 45 days earlier than the American Heartworm Society,” Dr. Karen Ward shares. “That means our treatment protocol is 45 days shorter, and our dogs have 45 days less of exercise restriction. We’re really shortening that treatment interval, which is better for the welfare and emotional wellbeing of the animal and allows us to help more animals.”
Our experience and desire to improve access to veterinary care in underserved communities led us to publish the first comprehensive review in 2021 of alternative heartworm treatments. This peer reviewed article piqued many conversations in the veterinary world. “Because of Dr. Linda Jacobson’s academic strengths and her skills in research and professional medical writing, we were able to share our learnings along with those of many other groups, so that folks working in the field, pets, and the people who care for them can also benefit,” Dr. Ward shares.
Thanks to their hard work, the review serves as a guide for veterinarians, detailing doses, duration, and efficacy. It has served as a go-to resource for veterinarians all around the world to provide pet parents with more options as we collectively work together to save more lives.
Pictured from left to right in the banner: Rally, Sika, Casey, Satwa, Kola, and Silas. All of these loving dogs were heartworm positive and recieved treatment from Toronto Humane Society in 2023.
