Cincinnati Animal CARE Humane Society

Cincinnati Animal CARE Humane Society began door-to-door outreach educating about the importance of spay/neuter. Additionally, they held an in-shelter session teaching someone how to give fluids to their cat. Haveena was devastated when her beloved cat Bruce was diagnosed with kidney failure, thinking she’d have to surrender him to get necessary medical treatment. Much to her relief, they’re providing all of the fluids and prescription food needed and Haveena’s family has been able to keep Bruce.

Cincinnati Animal Care (Director, Carolyn Evans) Animal control officers are beginning to implement HASS approaches to field services, providing support for struggling families. In one instance, officers provided a dog house to a family rather than simply citing the family for lack of shelter for their pet.

Our pop-up food pantry events have increased in frequency, our finder-to-foster program is expanding, and a clearer picture of what community needs are is beginning to form, as we just assumed control of the shelter on August 1.

Cincinnati Animal CARE has begun to establish a presence in the community that includes going door to door and offering pet food at local food pantries and church events. We have also initiated a SW Ohio Regional meeting for local county shelters to encourage collaboration.

There are a lot of big changes happening at Cincinnati Animal CARE as we enter our second month of operations. The last couple weeks have seen a big push into the community. We’re partnering with local food pantries to provide a “one stop shop” for the community to pick up free pet food in addition to the human food they’re receiving. We’ve also started heading out into communities with high surrender and stray rates to let them know that we are here to help. We’re hoping that by building these relationships now, we’ll be a resource families know they can turn to in the future.

In Cincinnati, our focus has been launching all operations, not just HASS, as the new animal services provider for the Hamilton County shelter we took over on August 1st! Starting from scratch has actually made HASS easier in some ways because our staff at the new facility will know no other way than strong, community-focused sheltering.

Specifically, we have hired a Community Support Manager and re-assigned 4 “intake” staff members to new roles as Community Support Specialists. This team of 5 is developing and building out “before the door” support and alternatives to surrender, as well as community engagement like attending community meetings and contacting local resources for partnerships. Additionally, our Field Services team of 9 officers is empowered, for the first time in county history, to proactively solve problems in the field and collaborate with the shelter to provide resources to keep pets home and get them home.