• Introduction
• Adoption Figures
• Individual Donations
• Finances
• News Update
  • Director Cat Brandell Departure: Seeking new Directors
  • Jaycee Koo Named New Dog Foster Care Director
  • SCAA Opposes Dog Matchmaking Event
  • Re-homing Policy and Australia Quarantine Regulations - New Additions to SCAA Website After Unpleasant Encounter
  • Animal Cruelty Not Limited To China
  • Animal Behavior Article
• Project Updates
  • Baoshan Project Terminated
  • Mr. Wong 100+ Cat Project
• Upcoming Fundraising Events
  • Bachelor Auction, 10 Septembe
  • Cat & Dog Gala Ball, Oct. or Nov.
  • Christmas Party, Dec.
• Upcoming SCAA Community Events
  • 26 August: Garden Book Store Flea Market
• Media/Website News
  • Garden Bookstore Donating New Brochure and printing along with Calendar Design
  • Alex Chua Donates New SCAA Poster
  • That’s Shanghai To Sponsor SCAA Page on New Advertising Website
  • New Ad/Marketing Campaign In The Works
  • Record Number of Hits Yet Again On SCAA Website
  • Monthly Video Clip Award
• Products
  • Buy a SCAA T-Shirt
  • 2007 Calendar Soon to be Published
• Animal Thought for the Month

Introduction:

(A note: I must love this organization, as earlier today I just finished the 15-page newsletter and was erasing last month’s “animal thought for the month” when I accidentally deleted the entire document and hit the “save” button. This will teach me to write shorter newsletters. So here we go again…you might find a lot more bullet points as I don’t have the energy to rewrite everything!)

1. Profuse thanks to Directors Cat Brandell, Lee-Anne Armstrong and Jaycee Koo for handling the overwhelming numbers of foster animals and all SCAA operations without a hiccup while I traveled this past month. Makes me realize I can disappear for months now (just kidding ladies: even with four of us on the ground, we all give 12-16 hours of each day, between and during our own lives, to SCAA.) Thanks also to all of our dedicated foster parents and volunteers through these horrific kitten/puppy-bearing summer months. It’s been exhausting for everyone donating their time, energy and love to our SCAA animals.
2. It is with great sadness that we soon say farewell to Cat and Jack Brandell who are relocating to the U.S. at the end of August. Cat has been the backbone of SCAA since she enthusiastically attacked the role of SCAA’s first director about a year ago. It is going to take many pieces of spine to replace her, and we are now looking for several directors to take the place of one Cat Brandell. Happily, Cat will continue to assist us from the U.S. and be our ambassador abroad. Please be sure to join us for our August meeting to give Cat a joyous send off! If you are interested in becoming more involved with SCAA, please contact Cat directly in the next month at email director2@scaashanghai.org)
3. It is with great frustration that we announce the end of our support for the Baoshan project. We have written an explanation about our decision to end our relationship with Baoshan which is on the SCAA website (see link under Projects). We all feel extremely upset about some of the animals we have left behind, but we have already taken out about 99% of the adoptable animals to date. On the upside, as we are no longer supporting Baoshan, in the future we will have more resources to focus on assisting those who call us finding abandoned animals that they would like to assist but cannot provide a home for themselves. It’s all a matter of logistics…we may not be able to save any more Baoshan animals, but there are over a million strays on the streets which we can help, one at a time.
4. We are now working on expanding our SCAA footprint: improving our ads and marketing campaigns, coming out with a new brochure and 2007 calendar, and preparing for our autumn fundraisers, which will include a bachelor auction on 10 September (if you have any ideas for venues or bachelors, please let us know!), a gala cat & dog ball in October or November, and our annual Christmas fundraiser! If you’d like to volunteer to assist with any of these, please contact me at 138-1781-1443 or email director@scaashanghai.org.
5. Alex Chua and his company Newport Realty have donated the design and printing of a new SCAA poster. Please feel free to copy this poster and distribute everywhere you can think of (grocery stores, community boards, beauty centers, athletic centers, yoga class, nail salons, restaurants/bars, etc.!) Thanks so much Alex and company!
   New SCAA Poster
6. Two more requests to our readers:
   1. Expat Residence Adoption Day: We would like to add one more adoption day each month at an expat residential complex where we can provide opportunities for more families to adopt our animals. If you live in any of the major expat complexes, and are willing to approach the management to see if they will host an adoption day, please let us know.
   2. Pet Supply Stores: We would like to be able to provide information to our members about good pet supply stores, but they must not sell animals, only products. If you know of any, please contact us.
7. Our last adoption day was fantastic with 9 animals (6 cats, 3 dogs) adopted out. And, our monthly meeting at Zapata’s was extremely successful with 51 people attending, including many new faces! We plead that all of you come again to our August meeting (15 August) and if everyone could bring just one person with them…wow!)

Wishing you all a wonderful August. Most of us working with SCAA as directors, volunteers and foster parents are exhausted due to the high numbers of kittens and puppies born recently and dumped at Baoshan (and therefore, rescued by SCAA). We’ve had several kitten deaths as many of these tiny ones were just too young to survive on their own, but every single foster parent who had to endure this pain stepped right back up and took on more foster animals. Bravo to all our foster parents for your ongoing dedication, commitment, effort, sleepless nights of bottle-feeding and your love for the tiny ones you save; you are amazing people.

With warmest regards,
Carol A. Wolfson
Founder/Executive Director, SCAA.

• Angela Mok: RMB 900
• Petra Huke: RMB 5,000 (selling wristbands at a World Cup Event! Thank you so much Petra!)

• Paul Bartell: US$ 700 (matched the amount raised at the Ultimate Frisbee Tournament in June)
• Marvin Manalac: US$ 90
• Carrie Madero: US$ 20
• Karen Nielsen: US$ 100

New Sponsors

• No new sponsors this month…

Finances

Incoming: RMB 25,790 (a new record: thank you all!)
Expenses: RMB 22,438 including:
PAW check-ups RMB 14,938
July website and maintenance fee 7,500

• Director Can Brandell Departure: Seeking new Directors
  As mentioned in the introduction, Cat will be leaving us at the end of August. We have decided in the future to split her role into the position of overall Director and a Director for Administration who will also oversee several volunteers who would like to take on various management responsibilities. For anyone who would like more information, please contact Cat as soon as possible at email director2@scaashangai.org.
  
  
• Jaycee Koo Named New Dog Foster Care Director
  Jaycee has been volunteering full-time but has always preferred to remain in the shadows…no more! In order to relieve some of the overwhelming burden of Foster Care Director Lee-Anne Armstrong, Jaycee (who along with Cat are our SCAA “dog people,” myself and Lee-Anne being the “cat people”), has agreed to take on the position of Dog Foster Care Director. Woof and thank you Jaycee!
  
  
• SCAA Opposes Dog Matchmaking Event
  The Shanghai Daily recently wrote an article about a Dog Matchmaking event being hosted in Shanghai. SCAA adamantly opposes such an event which promotes breeding (and a lot of inbreeding as well) and irresponsible pet ownership (i.e. what happens when there are suddenly 50 litters of pet poodles, Pomeranians, etc. and so many puppies that no one wants them…SCAA will just end up getting more calls about abandoned animals or people begging us to take the animals they can’t find homes for…). We wrote a rebuttal to this article but it has not been published by The Shanghai Daily. Fortunately, SCAA member and adopter Dan Washburn, creator of his website the “Shanghaiist,” has published the article and our rebuttal. You can see his article on Shanghaiist.com.
  
  
• Re-homing Policy and Australia Quarantine Regulations - New Additions to SCAA Website After Unpleasant Encounters
  We have recently added two new sections on the SCAA website due to highly unpleasant encounters by our directors with people enquiring about SCAA’s adoption/re-homing services who have not bothered to read the website or learn about what SCAA does before approaching us.
  
  Encounter One: SCAA post-adoption policies
  At our last adoption day, an Australian family approached Foster Care Director Lee-Anne Armstrong about adopting a kitten. Knowing the family is from Australia, Lee-Anne mentioned the fact that importing animals directly to Australia is forbidden and must reside in an accepted country for six months prior to import into Australia with additional quarantine. With this in mind, Lee-Anne mentioned that fostering might be a better option or adoption if they were not going back to Australia right away or if they could not guarantee the re-homing of the cat with another family. The woman immediately became irate, said she had no crystal ball to see the future and that once adopted, it’s none of SCAA’s business what she does with the animal. Au contraire. The future welfare of the animals we adopt out is our ONLY concern. Lee-Anne politely continued to say we want to ensure that our animals are not abandoned and are considered lifelong commitments. The woman replied that she is a responsible pet owner and that she only wanted a straight answer from us, yes or no, about whether she could adopt a pet from SCAA. Not knowing what this woman’s plans for any cat she adopted from us would be, we said that the answer was no. We actually felt that this would be a fine family to adopt to, but with this kind of attitude toward an organization that protects animal welfare, we felt our answer was the correct one. We have now decided to include a section on the website about import regulations to Australia and providing information so that Australia adopters know there are hard decisions to make.
  Australia Pet Import Requirements
  
  Encounter Two: Re-homing a Pet URGENTLY!!!
  Poor Lee-Anne was also the recipient of a phone call on 24 July from an American woman who originally planned to take back her “China” cat to the U.S. on 28 July, but now had too much luggage and decided she would only take her “American” cat home and wanted SCAA to take her cat to re-home. Lee-Anne patiently explained that we are not a pet re-homing service and are overwhelmed already re-homing abandoned animals. Furthermore, she was giving us only four days notice before her departure which is too sudden for us to do much on her behalf, especially as we have no foster parents available! Lee-Anne suggested that the woman and her husband ship some luggage and take the cat. Her reply was that they were broke and her husband wanted to put the cat out on the street. They both agreed this would mean likely death for the cat, so Lee-Anne said we could do our best to find a foster care parent urgently but then went on to explain that as this is a service, urgently requested, and that it could take many months to re-home an adult cat plus lose one of our own foster cats an opportunity should her cat be adopted instead of one of ours, that we would require a donation of RMB 1,000 (as who knows if her cat was really healthy….once SCAA takes the cat, all medical responsibilities are ours…!). She became furious and said that SCAA obviously only cares about money, that she would be willing to give RMB 50 or 100, and that SCAA should pay HER for giving us such a nice cat to re-home (what are we, a pet store?!). Lee-Anne again tried to explain what SCAA is and how we are all volunteers, depend on donations to survive, and that our mandate is to save abandoned and abused animals, not re-home pets. The lady again cursed us for only caring about money and hung up. We have now put up a section on our policy for re-homing animals, as well as for third party adoptions.
  
  SCAA Tips for Re-homing Your Pet if You are Leaving Shanghai
  SCAA Third Party Adoptions.
  
  Our directors often get calls of this nature (at least in an email we can usually explain in detail and people are forced to read before replying without thought…more or less!) and it is emotionally upsetting to us to be accused of not caring about animals (as opposed to these people not wanting to take responsibility, trying to foist animals upon us and walking away feeling like THEY “saved” an animal), about making profits, about SCAA not doing enough to save animals or being angry that we do not have enough foster parents, and angry that SCAA is not a shelter. By putting up more information on our website, we are able to tell callers to look at the website to better understand what we do, thereby not wasting our time, efforts and emotional energy!
  We also plan to put up a new section on the website outlining some of the incidents, with our replies, so that when certain issues (or abusive callers) come up that we can tell them to look at the website under a specific heading. We welcome any suggestions on what to call this section (ones we can print please!).
  
  
• Animal Cruelty Not Limited To China
  We often get calls/emails asking SCAA to stop/intervene on larger animal cruelty issues in China, such as the fur/food trade, zoo’s, safari parks, circuses, pet markets, pet stores, etc. We have a reply to this on the SCAA website under the FAQ Question # 3. Dr. James Holder, our SCAA veterinarian and board director, sent on an article to share with our readers which once again simply confirm that animal cruelty exists throughout the world, and it’s easy to point fingers in China, but one doesn’t have to look farther than our home countries for terrible animal cruelty crimes. At SCAA, we are however continuing to focus on education and using our influence for the introduction of animal welfare protection laws in China. All this takes time.
  Dumped pets sickens Humane Society workers
  
  
• Animal Behavior Article
  James also discussed animal behavior modification at our 25 July monthly meeting. Much like every child is different, every animal we bring into our home is different and needs to be treated as an individual with its own personality and behavior. He shared an article with us which can be found on the SCAA website:
  Every Animal is different
  
  

• Baoshan: Please see the article written by SCAA directors explaining our decision to terminate the Baoshan project. We will continue to seek new projects (see below) and focus on expanding our foster care work (as well as education).
  About Terminating the Baoshan Project
  
  
• Mr Wong 100+ Cats Project: One of our SCAA members (who is from Shanghai but lives in Boston) has offered to donate RMB 8,000 to spay/neuter whatever remaining cats need this operation among the 100+ cats that belong to a hoarder she has been supporting for several years. She believes he is a good, honest man who let collecting cats become an addiction (like all hoarders) and it is now beyond his means to support so many animals. He has stated he is willing to listen to our guidelines (which include spay/neuter of all animals, euthanizing those that cannot be healed, separation of adults from kittens, isolation of sick animals, and no addition of animals). We have investigated 6 hoarders and have supported none of them because although they say they are willing to adhere to our policies, ultimately it seems they just want the funds to keep doing what they do. However, we have promised to take a look at this project with the guidance of Dr. James, so please stay tuned. Further, the termination of Baoshan and the need for hoarders to understand our policies have led to our decision to create a new section on the website called “Project Terms & Conditions” which will also be translated into Chinese to present to any person/project manager that wants SCAA to consider supporting them.

• No fundraising events planned for August.
  
  
• Four Autumn Fundraising events:
  1. Bachelor Auction 10 September: We want to make this a fantastic fundraiser either on the Sunday afternoon or evening. We would like to attract over 200 people, with 20 bachelors to be auctioned, and dinners donated from various restaurants. If you have any ideas for the venue, bachelors and/or restaurants to supply vouchers, please let us know ASAP!
  2. Cat & Dog Gala: Sometime in October or November. We hope this to be a huge fundraiser, wild and fun…details pending. If you’d like to volunteer to assist, contact Carol at 138-1781-1443 or director@scaashanghai.org
  3. Annual Christmas Party: Last year’s event was a huge success with over 120 members attending! We want to do an even larger party this year with at least 50-100 great prizes so get your thinking caps on about who to approach for the raffle prizes!
     

• 26 August: Garden Book Store Flea Market:
  SCAA is now a featured participant to this festive event with our adoption day! On every last Saturday of the month from 2-5pm, tables will be sold for RMB 100 and you can sell anything you want! We are happy to recommend our SCAA members to buy tables, and the management of the event is donating one table free to SCAA! Come and join the fun!
  
  
  
  www.ShanghaiFleaMarket.com

• Garden Bookstore Donating New Brochure and printing along with Calendar Design: We are very grateful to Garden Bookstore for donating the printing of our new brochure (coming out before the end of September) and to Marianne Kaulima for designing the brochure and our 2007 calendar!
  
• Alex Chua Donates New SCAA Poster: Alex Chua and his company Newport Realty have designed and printed a fantastic new poster to advertise SCAA. As mentioned in the introduction, please feel free to download, print and distribute everywhere you can think of! Link to Poster
  
  
• That’s Shanghai To Sponsor SCAA Page on New Advertising Website: Many thanks in advance to Leanne Zhao and Joe Zhou for approaching SCAA to act as their main adviser and sponsor for a new advertising website. Unlike many websites that don’t monitor their content, That’s Shanghai is taking a responsible approach and wants to make sure the content on their pet page is responsible and about protecting animals, not only profiting from them. We will have more information for our members soon, but we applaud That’s Shanghai for being the first advertising website here that we know of that is taking a pro-active approach to ensuring that the pet stores they advertise for and individual postings will reflect a true concern for the animals themselves.
  
• New Ad/Marketing Campaign in The Works: A team of SCAA directors is now working on updating and expanding SCAA’s footprint by creating a new look/ad/marketing concept for the print media and for our magazine and calendar. Stay tuned for progress reports!
  
  
• Record Number of Hits Yet Again on SCAA Website: SCAA has had an amazing 16,500 unique visits to our website in July …this is incredible for such a small, local-oriented organization! Now if they would all only hit the PayPal donation button.
  
  
• Monthly Video Clip Award: As the projector was not working at our June meeting, we have both a June (Christine Hsieh) and July (Sue Ferry) winner. Please see the links below for the video and photographs, and be sure to send in your own clips for next month’s meeting to director@scaashanghai.org .
  
  Dog Boardskating Video
  Tiger w/piggies photos

• Buy a SCAA T-shirt, please!
  All SCAA members PROMISED to buy at least one t-shirt. Admittedly, it’s a bit hot to be wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but think about the fact that winter is coming soon, and SCAA needs the funds!! Pet me, love me, take a t-shirt home!
• 2007 Calendar Soon to be Published!
  The SCAA 2007 calendar will be ready soon…be sure to think of venues we can sell the calendar to, including school projects, coffee mornings, etc. We expect the calendar out by the end of August to start sales in September! Remember to take some for your next event (no payment needed in advance).

Thought for the Month:

These  Parents Never Have To Worry About Anyone Messing With Their  Kid...
 



 

if he survives  the love!

 


 



 




?  




 

Until one has  Loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.  

 

~Anatole  France~