Richmond SPCA Blog

With 2012 Outstanding Women Awards, YWCA acknowledges cause of animal welfare

Robin Starr with Dumbledore and Emma, credit Pink Photography

On Friday, May 4, Richmond SPCA Chief Executive Officer Robin Robertson Starr was recognized by the YWCA with a 2012 Outstanding Woman Award. Each recipient addressed the crowd at the luncheon to celebrate the accomplishments of the nine honorees. Robin has been honored in the communications category for her work to revolutionize the approaches to and attitudes about animal welfare issues in our own community and nationally as a leader of the no-kill movement. 

We wanted to share her remarks with our readers and take another opportunity to thank the YWCA for courageously acknowledging that the cause of animal welfare matters. 

Click the link below to listen to Robin's speech: 

Robin_Starr_YWCA_Outstanding_Women_Awards

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Visiting veterinary resident returns to Shelter Medicine program inspired by experience in Richmond

Each year, our Veterinary Services team enjoys the company of wonderful visiting veterinarians and students from all over the country. Typically these veterinary professionals are coming to our Robins-Starr Humane Center to learn more about shelter medicine and high-volume spaying and neutering, to observe our medical staff in action and to learn more about our lifesaving medical operation from Director of Veterinary Services Dr. Angela Ivey.

Recently, Dr. Laura Andersen completed an externship at the Richmond SPCA as part of the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida. Upon returning home, she wrote a blog about her experience in Richmond, which we thought readers of our own blog might enjoy. 

Innovation = Inspiration

For me, one of the best parts about being a resident in Shelter Medicine is visiting various shelters, learning first hand the challenges they face and the creative ways they are responding to these challenges. I have had the amazing opportunity to tour over 100 animal shelters and spend extra time as an extern at a handful of these organizations. I enjoy sharing my own knowledge and I always learn something new everywhere I go. The innovative programs implemented at the Richmond SPCA in Virginia, my most recent shelter externship, truly inspire me.

Among the many programs they offer in addition to humane animal care and education, the Richmond SPCA operates a free [for feral cats] and low-cost spay/neuter clinic and behavior helpline and offers pet behavior classes, children’s educational programs, a pet pantry, an affordable wellness clinic and numerous volunteer programs. As an animal sheltering organization that has been in existence for over 120 years, one might assume such an organization would become comfortable in these programs, in their position within their community and no longer feel the need to be creative or innovative. Not the Richmond SPCA.

Continue reading at ufsheltermedicine.com. 

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City of Richmond’s indifference to lifesaving partnership for animals is subject of insightful RTD editorial

The lead editorial on the editorial pages of the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Tuesday, April 24, articulately and appropriately took the City administration to task for their “indifference” to the life-saving services that our organization has provided to the homeless animals of Richmond and to the immense success of the partnership that we formerly had with Richmond Animal Care and Control in saving an ever increasing number of homeless animals’ lives every year. We are deeply grateful to the editorial page writers for their perceptive piece which challenges our City leaders to act with greater responsibility and sincerity with regard to animal welfare than they have done to date. 

Our Board leadership and I worked for more than 20 months to seek to re-establish with the City the working public-private partnership that we had with them starting in 2001. That partnership reached its highest degree of effectiveness when Jody Jones headed the Richmond Animal Care and Control (RACC) due to her progressive philosophies and sincere desire to partner with us effectively to save animal lives.  Our partnership had expired by its terms in 2008 and Jody worked with us to try to get the City administration to work out a new partnership agreement between our organizations. The City’s lack of support for RACC and their hostility toward the Richmond SPCA and reluctance to re-establish our partnership were among the main reasons for Jody’s decision to leave Richmond. An issue of crucial importance now is whether the City will undertake a true nationwide search and will hire replacement for Jody who has progressive philosophies and will truly prioritize saving animal lives.

Even though City Council authorized the City administration to enter into a new agreement with us, the City never did so and, in fact, someone introduced into the draft agreement that went to Council for its approval a paragraph that we had never seen and never agreed to. This introduction of a new paragraph without bringing it to our attention was unethical and no one with the City administration would ever discuss the addition with us. We made more than 30 documented attempts to get the City administration to create a new working partnership with us and were consistently ignored or rebuffed. Then, last month, CAO Byron Marshall went before City Council and was asked if the partnership with us had been signed. He told them that it had been. Clearly, this was a misleading and disingenuous statement for which we have heard no explanation yet having been offered. 

While it is clear that the City of Richmond has no sincere interest in partnering with us, that does not mean that the Richmond SPCA will desert the homeless animals of the City of Richmond who need us now more than ever. Despite the absence of a working relationship with the City, we took in nearly the number of animals from RACC in 2011 that we did in prior years. Despite our help, whether desired or not, the City of Richmond saw a significant decline in its live release rate from RACC’s shelter in 2011 over the prior year. Calendar year 2011 was the first year in many that the live release rate for the City did not improve. According to annual shelter statistics submitted by RACC to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, RACC took in fewer dogs in 2011 than it did in 2010 but nonetheless took the lives of more dogs than it had in the past. RACC is now taking in more cats than it used to do when Jody was actively supporting and promoting Trap-Neuter-Return programs for feral cats. Consequently, more cats are also losing their lives. The outcome was that their live release rate declined by about 7%.

On the other hand, the Richmond SPCA worked energetically in 2011 to save more animals from a greater number of shelters in and around our community. We have done this in order to be sure that we utilize our resources effectively to save as many animal lives as we possibly can. The outcome for us is that we saved more lives of precious homeless animals in 2011 than in prior years – in fact, we saved 9% more animal lives in total in 2011 over 2010. 

Our life saving is going in the right direction and that of the City is not. They may not want our help but we know that the animals want it and need it. And, we will be there for them no matter what. The animals are the focus of our mission, not any local government entity. Please do all you can to express your concern for the lives of homeless animals to those in City administration and on City Council. If, as anyone would surmise, the inaction and disingenuousness of City administration reflect their belief that the people of Richmond do not care about the lives and well-being of companion animals, then they are very mistaken.  We need to let them and the members of City Council know that loudly and clearly. 

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Robin Robertson Starr is the chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA. To read her biography or that of our other bloggers, please click here. Before posting a comment, please review our comment guidelines. Please note that our comment policy requires a first and last name to be used as your screen name.

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Related links:
April 12, 2012: What is going on with our City? Questions about partnership raise issue of credibility
April 9, 2012: Setting the record straight before City Council regarding the partnership agreement with the City

Guest post: Report from the 2012 General Assembly Session

Greetings Richmond SPCA advocates!  As the Virginia state director for The Humane Society of the United States, I’d like to share an update on the animal protection legislation that was considered during the 2012 legislative session.  When looking back on this session, it’s important to also keep in mind that policy reform takes time and perseverance. It took nearly a decade to pass effective puppy mill legislation, and now Virginia has the top ranked commercial breeding regulations in the country.

We must celebrate our achievements, and not lose heart over battles not yet won. I look forward to working with you all as we continue to be tenacious advocates for animals.

Our successes:

• H.J. 143 – Spay Day Virginia. Patroned by Del. David Englin, D-Alexandria, and passed by the Senate on Feb. 28, this bill designates every Feb. 28 as Spay Day in Virginia.  Four million cats and dogs—about one every eight seconds—are put down in U.S. shelters each year. Spay Day will create a wave of spay/neuter awareness and activities across the Commonwealth by linking together hundreds of events organized by local animal welfare organizations and veterinary professionals. 

• S.B. 610 - Regulation of care and handling of agricultural animals. Patroned by Sen. Richard Black, R-Loudon, this bill would have exempted hunting dogs, working dogs and show dogs from our strong companion animal care standards and redefined them as “agricultural animals.” It also stated no locality or humane society would have authority to regulate the care and handling of agricultural animals. Such a ludicrous bill incited outrage among animal advocates and was thankfully tabled.

Your advocacy is needed on these measures that didn’t pass in 2012:

• H.B. 363 – Pet Protective Orders. Patroned by Del. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, this bill sought to extend protective orders being sought by survivors of domestic violence to include animals.  Although successfully reported from the House courts of justice committee, this bill stalled in appropriations.  More than 20 states now have such legislation and Virginia should enact this measure to protect pets and people.

• H.B. 695/S.B. 202 - Fox and coyote penning; Class 1 misdemeanor for purpose of pursuing foxes and coyotes with dog within an enclosure. Patroned by Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax and Del. Kenneth Plum, D-Reston, this bill proposed to outlaw fox and coyote pens, which are fenced enclosures where dogs are released to chase wild-caught foxes, often in staged competitions to judge how long the dogs will pursue the captive wildlife.  In just three years, Virginia pens took nearly 4,000 live foxes from the wild to fuel this fenced bloodsport. The Senate agriculture committee carried over Senate Bill 202 and requested the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries study the issue. This is a great beginning in a widely-supported campaign to end this cruelty.

• H.B. 1242 - Dangerous Wild Animals.  Patroned by Del. Chris Peace, R-Hanover, this bill would have restricted the possession of certain dangerous wild and exotic animals to licensed and qualified facilities. In the wrong hands, these animals threaten public health and safety and their welfare suffers. This bill was crafted with a wide array of stakeholders at the table, and much momentum was gained, however time ran out in Virginia’s short legislative session and the patron requested the bill be carried over to next year.

• H.B. 1159 - Shark Fins. Patroned by Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax, this bill sought to make the sale, possession and trade of shark fins illegal. Tens of millions of sharks have their fins cut off for use in shark fin soup and are then discarded back in the ocean to die. Sharks have roamed the oceans for millions of years but many species are now threatened with extinction due to this cruel industry. Watch Dan Rather’s investigation of shark finning here. Unfortunately, this bill was voted down in committee due to opposition from the VA Seafood Council.

• H.B. 888 – Tethering; companion animals. Patroned by Del. Ken Alexander, D-Norfolk, this bill simply clarified that localities may regulate tethering laws at the local level. Some localities in Virginia already have done so, such as Richmond and Danville, but other localities don’t feel the General Assembly has given them regulatory authority over such a policy. This bill was opposed by the VA Farm Bureau — which is baffling given this bill only applies to companion animals. Dogs (like people) are social animals, yet more than 200,000 dogs live empty lives chained or tethered outdoors. Tied-up outside, dogs become lonely, bored, and anxious, and they can develop aggressive behaviors. Bring a dog inside (or help a chained dog in your neighborhood) and you’ll keep everyone safer.

• S.B. 359 - Trap, Neuter, and Return programs. Patroned by Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, SB 359 proposed to improve cat overpopulation control efforts by allowing TNR programs and exempting citizens who engage in TNR from the definition of companion animal abandonment found in §3.2-6503. The bill passed the Senate but failed in the agriculture subcommittee in the House. It is anticipated that the Department of Agriculture will convene a work group on this issue.

Next year’s legislative success depends on our continued dedication to being a voice for animals in Virginia. Now that the General Assembly session is over, it’s the perfect time to let your representatives know that you are an advocate for animals. You can find who represents you here.  For tips on speaking with your legislators check out our advocate toolkit or contact me. I would be delighted to join you in a meeting with your Virginia legislator.

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Laura Donahue is the Virginia State Director for the Humane Society of the United States.

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Clinic for Compassionate Care will offer pets affordable care they can’t afford to do without

Today we made an announcement to the media that we are very excited about, and I wanted to share this news directly with those of you who read our blog. The Richmond SPCA will open the Clinic for Compassionate Care on March 5, providing full-service veterinary care by appointment to the pets of low-income guardians, pets adopted from the Richmond SPCA on or after March 5, pets referred to the clinic by another veterinarian, and pets in government shelters on a low-cost, high-quality basis.

This is the most recent in the many groundbreaking advances for the well being of animals that the Richmond SPCA has made. Since our founding in 1891, we have always been on the forefront of positive change and have pushed both our community, and the animal welfare field nationwide, to adopt new approaches and to let go of outdated notions in order to save more animal lives. Playing that role is not always easy because ours is a field that resists change. Well, when you think about it, what field does not resist change? Maybe some high-tech fields do not, but most of them resist change because people resist change.

Offering low-cost, high-quality veterinary care for pets of low-income guardians is a new and novel approach that has not been done in our community or in many other communities in the US. We know that many companion animals desperately need us to do this for them. There are many of them who are beloved members of families that simply cannot afford to provide their pets with the veterinary care they need. The result is that many pets suffer and die needlessly and many people are faced with the misery of relinquishing or euthanizing a beloved pet with a treatable ailment. This has been confirmed in empirical research that was done for us by Alan Newman Research and in our own experience with the Wellness Clinic we have operated since 2009. We do not in any way fault the veterinary community for this circumstance because they must make enough to pay the expenses of their clinics and to provide themselves and their families with a reasonable living. Veterinary practices are regularly faced with the difficult situation of a pet in need of expensive treatment and a guardian who cannot afford it. The Clinic for Compassionate Care will provide them with an alternative to offer the guardian.

The Richmond SPCA’s role is to save animal lives, advocate for their well being and make sure that more cats and dogs find good homes where they will be loved. Our new Clinic will be a great tool in accomplishing these goals. Our Smoky’s Spay/Neuter Clinic will continue to do its great work providing sterilization surgeries for our pets available for adoption, feral cats, pets adopted from other shelters, and pets of clients of the Clinic for Compassionate Care. The reception office, which may be reached by calling 804-521-1330, will begin taking calls for appointments and other information February 27. In the meantime, please visit the Clinic for Compassionate Care website at www.richmondspca.org/clinic for more details.

We are proud to be that rare organization that does not see obstacles as insurmountable, is not mired in the status quo and does not fear forging a new way. We act with energy and guts because the animals count on us for their lives.

Robin Robertson Starr is the chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA. To read her biography or that of our other bloggers, please click here. Before posting a comment, please review our comment guidelines. Please note that our comment policy requires a first and last name to be used as your screen name.

Important animal welfare legislation needs your urgent support

There are two matters of significant importance before the General Assembly this week, and we need your help to better ensure a positive vote.

Please take a moment to contact your state delegate and senator before Wednesday and urge them to support the essential pieces of legislation outlined below that will protect defenseless animals and the individuals who care for them throughout Virginia. It’s important that you call your House and Senate representatives since ultimately the bills, if passed in the Senate, will cross over to the House for another vote and ultimate passage. To obtain the contact information for the representatives of your districts, click here. Calls are always best; however, emails can also be effective.

S.B. 202
This bill, which is patroned by Sen. David Marsden, would make fox penning a Class 1 Misdemeanor that is punishable with up to 12 months in jail and up to a $2,500 fine. Currently in Virginia, wild foxes can be trapped and transported to fenced enclosures where they are released. Hounds are then turned out in these pens in order to chase the foxes, whom they oftentimes tragically tear apart and kill. Opponents of this bill say that fox pens provide a safe training tool for dogs and that the foxes are hardly ever harmed. In reality, this activity is tantamount to animal fighting, and more than 3,600 foxes died in these pens over the last three years (and it was not from old age). In summary, we hope very much that legislators will support and pass S.B. 202 to ban fox pens in Virginia because they are inhumane and because they pose a serious threat to Virginia’s wildlife heritage. Read the Richmond Times-Dispatch's editorial, which supports S.B. 202.

S.B. 359
This bill, which is patroned by Sen. Creigh Deeds, would clarify the existing Virginia code in order to protect individuals who compassionately care for feral cats. Under current law, returning a spayed or neutered feral cat to his outdoor home may be construed as a crime of abandonment. In some municipalities, this means that feral cat caregivers are prevented from engaging in the responsible practice of Trap-Neuter-Return and are threatened with charges and penalties by local law enforcement who claim the caregivers are acting as “owners” of the cats once they trap them. Under S.B. 359, returning a feral cat to his colony after he’s been neutered could no longer be interpreted as abandonment. In summary, we hope very much that legislators will support and pass S.B. 359 to reaffirm Virginia’s commitment to animal welfare and to protect individuals who are responsibly ensuring that feral cats are being sterilized and vaccinated against rabies. To read a prior blog post on this bill, click here.

We are grateful for your deep commitment to the animals who share our world and for your ongoing advocacy.

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Wise RTD editorial comes to correct conclusion about fox penning

Earlier this week an editorial appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch taking a strong and well-reasoned position in support of the House and Senate Bills (House Bill 695 and Senate Bill 202) that would make the inhumane practice of fox penning a Class 1 misdemeanor. We could never thank the editors of the Times-Dispatch editorial pages enough for their wisdom and courage in supporting our efforts and those of the Humane Society of the United States to outlaw this horribly cruel practice.

Their editorial received many comments from all the usual suspects who regard animals as nothing but tools for their own profit and pleasure regardless of the suffering and death that they cause. These commenters expounded at great length as they always do claiming that the foxes have places where they can escape (stretching the truth by a mile) and that the hounds really do not often kill the foxes (wonder why, then, the enclosures have to be restocked each year with thousands of new foxes) and (my personal favorite for its sheer nuttiness) that the foxes enjoy the chase. The latter absurd suggestion leads one to imagine just how much you yourself would enjoy being placed in an enclosure from which you could not escape with Bengal tigers which you would run from until utterly exhausted at which point you would be torn apart in their jaws. Sounds like a rip-roaring good time, doesn’t it?

These people are the group that we will have to contend with as the opposition as we work to get the legislators to take a courageous step in the direction of compassion and ethics for our state. They conduct themselves with no greater ethics in their efforts to lobby than they do in their treatment of defenseless animals. The patron of the Senate version of this bill, Senator Marsden is himself a hunter and one who believes deeply in the ethics of fair chase. He is appalled by the utter cruelty and lack of ethics of the people who engage in fox penning. We applaud his wonderful stand and will do all in our power to support him.

Fox penning is a stain on the honor and integrity of our state and an example of the thinking that animals’ suffering and death is to be disregarded entirely in favor of depraved human pleasure. It places the most miserable of human motives on a pedestal and attempts to make them sound positive. It is no different and no better than any other sort of animal fighting. The closing line of the Times-Dispatch editorial said it beautifully and I quote it here: “Humanity's dominion over the earth and its wildlife does not translate into a right to torture the beasts of the field.”

Please help us to protect these animals by calling and writing your senators and delegates and urge them to support these two bills. It is crucial to our living in a state with a heart and a conscience.

P.S. To those fox penners who will send comments in to try to get them published in our blog, save your efforts. I have no inclination whatsoever to allow you a forum on our organization’s blog. You have plenty of other places to spew your venom.

Robin Robertson Starr is the chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA. To read her biography or that of our other bloggers, please click here. Before posting a comment, please review our comment guidelines. Please note that our comment policy requires a first and last name to be used as your screen name.

Guest blog: UVA’s founder would be unhappy with school’s cruel use of cats

Thomas Jefferson would not be happy about the University of Virginia’s cruel use of cats in its pediatrics residency training program. “For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it,” Jefferson said about the school he founded. But the university is tolerating an egregious error in judgment by using cats instead of human-based alternatives [i.e. simulators] for medical training.

As a cardiologist and director of academic affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), let me provide reason to combat UVA’s cruel and unnecessary training that forces cats to suffer broken teeth, tracheal bruising, bleeding, scarring, severe pain — and risk of death.

I signed a complaint PCRM recently filed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Eastern Region Animal Care office stating that “UVA is violating the AWA [Animal Welfare Act] because superior training methods exist that could replace the university’s use of live animals and alleviate this severe pain.”

AWA regulations “require that a principal investigator — including course instructors — consider alternatives to procedures that may cause more than momentary or slight pain or distress to any animal used for research purposes.”

UVA has bought kittens from Liberty Research, a company that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has cited more than 20 times in just two years for lack of sanitation, lack of adequate housing, and substandard air transport of at least 147 cats. Once the kittens arrive at UVA’s pediatrics training program, their pain is well-documented.

Pediatrics training at UVA involves using live cats for endotracheal intubation. This includes repeatedly forcing a plastic tube through the mouth and into the windpipe (trachea) of a live cat.

These cats’ stories are tragic. Fiddle, a calico cat, had plastic tubes forced down his throat 22 times in one day. He and other cats are routinely intubated more than 10 times in one day. Fiddle, Alley — a female calico cat — and other cats at UVA have also suffered broken teeth caused by “blunt trauma,” according to documents that PCRM obtained through the Virginia Public Records Act.

But UVA’s state-of-the-art medical simulation center already owns simulators that are validated for this training and better mimic the airway of a low-birth-weight premature newborn. So why is UVA one of only 6 percent of 186 pediatrics training programs in the United States that continues to use animals?

The great majority of other pediatrics residencies use the Gaumard Premie HAL and Premie Blue simulators, as well as other simulators specifically designed to replace the use of animals in pediatrics training. Virginia Commonwealth University Health System in Richmond, Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Inova Fairfax Hospital and Hospital for Children all use nonanimal education methods that are exclusively used by 94 percent of U.S. pediatrics programs.

It’s time for UVA to honor Jefferson’s words and “follow the truth to wherever it may lead.” It will lead to a better education for residents, improved outcomes for newborns, and an end to the unnecessary cruelty these cats endure.

John J. Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C., is director of academic affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

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T’is the season for…threats? Our CEO receives tidings from Rick Berman

Last week, I got all kinds of lovely correspondence: holiday cards from friends, invitations to a couple of parties, messages from adopters with cute pictures of their adopted pets in holiday regalia and then there was what could only be described as a lump of coal. And, then this week, I got another one. Rick Berman of Berman and Company sent me not one but two letters expressing unhappiness with what I wrote in my blog post last week about Humane Society for Shelter Pets (HSSP). Mr. Berman threatened to sue us if we did not remove this offending post.

So, I removed that post as he requested (well, his actual word was “demand”) and am replacing it with this one.

I have no desire or intention to say anything that is not true but I will not be intimidated from speaking truthfully about something that I find deeply disturbing in its disingenuousness and in the threat it poses to the future well-being of animals. The Humane Society for Shelter Pets is attempting to drive a wedge between organizations that are dedicated to protecting animals by attacking the Humane Society of the United States on grounds that are without basis. Berman acknowledges that a “managed non-profit” of his own firm protects agribusiness corporations (which he calls “farmers” as if they are Mr. Green Jeans). The HSUS is very effective in its work to protect farm animals and to pressure these corporations to agree to progressive changes.

The main focus of HSSP seems to be making the claim that the public is being misled into believing that local humane organizations are all under the umbrella of the HSUS and so the HSUS is getting contributions from this supposedly hoodwinked public that it should be turning over to local humane groups. Never mind that the HSUS has never once claimed to be a parent organization for local humane groups. Never mind that the donors, to whom I give credit for some intelligence, gave their own money quite intentionally to the HSUS. Never mind that the HSUS provides crucially important services that local organizations for the most part do not and cannot provide. The HSSP website does a lot of talking about how many people with local humane groups believe that the public mistakenly thinks that the HSUS is a parent organization. But there is not one shred of empirical data provided on the HSSP site indicating that donors to the HSUS are actually confused in their giving intentions. It is unlikely that they are.

Local humane organizations like ours do wonderful and essential work for animals and I know that HSUS understands and appreciates that. The HSUS gives substantial help and support to local organizations and does great things for companion animals through programs such as the effort to stop puppy mills. But, the HSUS also does vitally important work for other categories of animals that are generally not the focus of the work of local humane organizations. I care deeply for all animals and I believe they suffer great deprivations at the hands of large corporations and human abusers. I want to see farm animals and exotic animals protected but I recognize that what any of us in local humane organizations can do for these animals is pretty limited.

This new entity HSSP is supposed to be an organization intended to look out for the interests of local humane organizations such as ours. I find it telling, but not surprising, that instead of being helped or supported, we are being threatened with a law suit. I have never had the HSUS do that to me.

Robin Robertson Starr is the chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA. To read her biography or that of our other bloggers, please click here. Before posting a comment, please review our comment guidelines. Please note that our comment policy requires a first and last name to be used as your screen name. 

Opportunity to Help Others Month: A call to extend kindness to all creatures

This afternoon the Richmond SPCA was honored to be among eight Virginia charitable organizations and six faith based leaders invited to participate in a news conference with Governor Bob McDonnell. The cause that brought together the diverse group is the governor’s proclamation and call for observance of December as Opportunity to Help Others Month.

Governor McDonnell recognized that organizations such as ours need ongoing support in order to fulfill our missions, not just during the holidays but throughout the year. Each of the nine community leaders was asked to convey the one thing Virginians can do to help their cause. Our Chief Executive Officer Robin Robertson Starr shared the following words:

I am very grateful to Governor McDonnell for the opportunity to be a part of this lovely and generous event. I was asked to tell you one thing that Virginians can do to help the Richmond SPCA and all of the other private humane societies across the state in the month of December. I thought about that long and hard and concluded that it was just this simple – be kind, truly kind in your treatment not just of other people but of other animals with whom we share this earth. Understand that they are no different from us in their ability to feel pain or fear or joy or love and they treasure their lives just as we do our own. At the Richmond SPCA we don’t talk about animal rights but about human responsibilities – responsibilities to be kind and merciful. This holiday season is the best possible time for us to realize that the dominion that humans have over other animals by virtue of our intelligence does not give us a license to disregard their suffering or the value of their lives but a responsibility and a sacred trust to be kind in our treatment of other species. Stephen de Grellet, a 19th century Quaker missionary said “I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

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