Saving Animals and Creating Change with Anna Neubauer

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Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE:
Welcome back, and thanks for listening to the Team Lally Real Estate Show, home of the guaranteed sold program, we’ll buy it. I’m Adrienne and I’m Attilio have any questions, just give us call at 7999596, or check us out online at Team lally.com

ATTILIO:
Our guest today is the president and CEO of the Hawaiian Humane Society, a seasoned leader in animal welfare with 25 years of experience, she oversees 120 staff, 1000 volunteers, achieving a 70% reduction in euthanasia and enhancing community involvement in animal care on Oahu

ADRIENNE:
Previously, she was the Vice President of operations at a leading Denver animal shelter and co founded a Colorado rescue clinic. She teaches shelter leadership and hold certifications in nonprofit and animal welfare management. Please welcome. Anna Neubauer,

ATTILIO:
Hi, Anna,

ADRIENNE:
welcome to the

ATTILIO:
show. Hi. How are you always great? So yeah, we had a opportunity to meet you at the, I think it was a Kapolei Chamber of Commerce. They did little event, mixer, networking thing, and it was, like, my favorite part was in the cat room. Yes, that’s great, yeah, so you can go in there and interact with the cats. And it’s like a cat cafe, but for a good cause, yeah? But go ahead, yeah, yeah. So,

ADRIENNE:
so Anna, the Hawaiian Humane Society, has a long, 141 year history here on Oahu. Oh, yeah. Can you share a brief history of the organization and its mission? Yeah?

ANNA NEUBAUER:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me today as well. Really appreciate this opportunity. So as you said, We’ve been around for 141 years, so long standing in this community. And then you know, my pleasure to be able to have been a brief part of that of five the last five years. But our mission here at the Hawaiian Humane Society to promote the human animal bond and the humane treatment of all animals. And we and it’s not just focus on Oahu, but we partner with organizations across the state as well. But we were established in 1883 and we’re the largest animal welfare organization, helping local pets and people in need and in support of our mission. And work as an animal welfare organization, we embrace some some guiding principles that allow us to do the work that we do. A lot of our history we were first founded was to support not only animal welfare, but people welfare as well. And so part of our initial founding history was for women and children, including animals. So that was a really lovely component. And then as we continue to grow over the years, we decided to focus our work on animal welfare and turned over the human component to Child and Family Service. So they have a long, long history in our community as well, and have been great, great partners for this work.

ADRIENNE:
I didn’t know that about like how it was all lumped together. You know,

ATTILIO:
you gotta realize, if you guys were still together, there would be like a teenager interaction Center, where they have to not have their phones on and make eye contact, and so that would be the teenager enclosure. But maybe it’s good that you guys separated,

ADRIENNE:
yeah, just focus on the fur babies.

ANNA NEUBAUER:
Absolutely absolutely. So,

ADRIENNE:
so Anna, can you share a bit about your scope of work and the impact that you’re making in the community? Yes,

ANNA NEUBAUER:
yeah, happy to thank you. So over this last fiscal year, we offered more than 30 life saving programs and services. It supports many different things that we do here. So for our two shelters, we have two shelter locations. We took in more than 13,000 animals into our shelters. Wow, is quite a bit, yeah, and that, you know that breakdown is fairly evenly split between dogs and cats, but we do see small animals, some wildlife. And some small livestock that comes in to our shelters for care, we were able to reunite pets and families so lost pets. So you know, a lot of times folks, you know, dog may get out, or a cat may get out, and we are able to successfully reunite those animals with their families. And we do a lot of work within the shelters for the animals that come in. So a lot of that includes veterinary care. A lot of the animals we see have never been to a veterinarian before, and so we start with a basic exam, make sure they all have their basic vaccination, deworming, flea and tick medication, and then we go from there, if they have any injuries or illness, we’re going to treat those if they need some more advanced procedures, we may partner with our outside veterinary hospitals to provide that care as well. So we really want to take a holistic approach to take care of the whole population, but also look at each individual animal in need.

ADRIENNE:
Yeah, so Anna with the animals that might need a little extra care because of their, you know, medical needs, or, you know, I know that you guys have a foster program, maybe if we could touch a little bit on that. I know you guys are always looking for volunteers within the community to just help with that extra, extra care.

ANNA NEUBAUER:
Yeah, that’s a great question. Thank you so much for for asking that. Love talking about our foster program. So our foster program really saves lives and allows us to do more for the animals that really need us. And so what our foster program does, it’s you know, our community members, they are able to sign up and be a volunteer, and they take animals into their homes and provide care for them on a temporary basis. And so it may be an animal just needs a couple days to recover from a medical procedure. It may be a young animal that needs time just to grow up and get a little bit bigger and everything in between. And so we provide all of the resources to help care for that animal. So all of the medical we provide you food, all the vaccinations, toys, litter boxes, if it’s a cab, we’ll provide you a leash and collar or a harness. If it’s a dog, get you a crate if you need that, and really provide support on the back end to help you take care of that animal while they’re with you.

ADRIENNE:
Now, I was able to participate in this, this foster program, I think I did like three different litters of kittens.

ATTILIO:
That was fun, because everybody wanted to go and check out Adrienne’s bathroom and walk in closet, because the kittens when everybody wanted kitten kitten time. Yes,

ADRIENNE:
yeah, it was a lot of fun. And actually, I ended up adopting the mom cat, the latest one, so she has now claimed that closet as your own. So yeah,

ATTILIO:
I was in the foster program too. And I was taking care of a narwhal, but the community members didn’t like it in the pool, in the pool, you know, messing with the kitten all, but the Foster, the foster program is cool. And then, and then, Adrienne, you also were, you were a cat transporter. Oh,

ADRIENNE:
yeah, that’s a different nonprofit. But, you know, I was able to transport a cat off Island too, because I know that there’s, believe it or not, there’s other areas of the United States where there’s shortages of cats and kittens, and I know that we’ve got a lot of them here, so it’s good to bring them to where they’re needed. And

ATTILIO:
it’s important that you guys are helping out. Because on a serious note, I mean, there’s a huge, huge cat colony at Kapolei, Costco, and I know you guys are helping with that. You know, talk to people when you know you’re you’re in, this is the, this is the what you’re involved with is, is our, is our pet community? What are ways that you guys are helping out, or can help out with these cat colonies, cat colonies, especially the lonzare, Costco, Kapolei, yeah,

ANNA NEUBAUER:
so we work with a lot of different individuals as well as partner organizations that can do the trapping of those cats, and they bring them to our spay neuter center, and others. Others on island also provide spay neuter for those animals. So when they come to our shelter, we’re able to get them spayed or neutered, provide a set of vaccinations and a microchip, back to the colony caretaker, and then they’re able to go back to their colony. And then the numbers reduce over time through that humane management method. And if there are friendly cats within those colonies, then working with the colony caretakers and others to find permanent homes for some of those cats is a great option. Too. Nice.

ADRIENNE: 
Yeah? Well, that’s, like, that’s, that’s a great thing that you’re doing to reduce those, those numbers. And then, if you’re, they’re able to, you know, get that those cats to be adopted, because I know some of them are pretty friendly and others are not. And so, you know, you get them into a home. Yeah, yeah. So what like, what other ways can people get involved with the Humane Society?

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
There’s lots of different ways we have job openings. So if somebody’s interested in working with us, we would love that we have a tremendous number of volunteer opportunities that people could participate in, anything from like you did Adrienne with fostering kittens, but all. Also working special events or coming and having a laundry shift, or walking dogs or taking care of the cats at some of the off site adoption locations that we have, and a variety of things in between. So we really rely heavily on our volunteers to help us do the work we do for the community, and are so grateful to have them. So would love to see more volunteers. Other Other ways. We have several events throughout the year. People are you know, if you want to come, check us out, we encourage everybody to come and be a part of our events. We actually have one coming up this Friday, pints for pups at Aloha beer company, so dog a dog friendly Hana and people are able to register for upcoming pet walk at the end of October, and when they register on site that evening, which is just in two days, they’re able to get a Hawaiian human society and aloha beer shirt, the commemorative t shirt for the event, which is fantastic. So some fun collab swag for people if they come to the event on Friday.

ADRIENNE: 
Yeah, pet lock. Is this like, does the owner and the pet they both get dressed up for this event. It’s like, you can you

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
want, yeah? So we have, it’s around Halloween, so we always have a pet costume contest, but part of that is the owner dressing up as well, which is super fun. And so it is Oahu, largest pet friendly outdoor gathering. So we encourage everyone to come sign up and raise critical funds to help us do the work that we do for the animals on island. But again, we do have a costume contest. We see so many creative ideas out there, and people dressing up alongside their pets, or people just dressing up their pets, or people joining with their friends. It’s really a great time for everybody.

ATTILIO: 
All right, so you know, we’ve got this in the notes, news coverage of the overcrowding in the shelters, share with us your perspective and what’s causing this influx,

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
absolutely. So there’s a lot of different things. I mean, we all know our community’s been hurting since, during and since covid and pet friendly housing and just affordable housing in our island is really challenging for a lot of people, and so with that, we are losing, you know, people to the mainland, and oftentimes they can’t bring their animals with them, which is really unfortunate. And even just moving here locally, if it’s not a pet friendly housing complex that they’re able to move into, they have to make the tough decision to bring their animal to us and and what you know, we’re here for the community. We’re here for lost pets. We’re here for people that are in hard times as well. But this is something that’s happening across the country. We’re not unique in this that we’re seeing an influx of animals kind of compared to where things used to be, and it’s harder and harder to find placement for animals because of some of the housing concerns that exist within all the communities across the country. Yeah, well,

ADRIENNE: 
then I would say the solution to that is more home ownership. People we’ve got to, like, purchase your own home so that you make the rules about what kind of pets that you can have in your home. You don’t listen to a landlord telling you no pets. Yeah, exactly.

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
But any landlords please consider being pet friendly.

ADRIENNE: 
And you know, like, we had Duke Kimhan of Hawaii Pacific Property Management on earlier, early on in the show, and I know he always does talk to the owners and landlords about the benefits of being pet friendly, of allowing the pets and like, there’s definitely some things that can be done, as far as, like, a pet deposit and like addendums to the rental greet agreements to, you know, to protect the home. Yeah, right, so we support it too well.

ATTILIO: 
We used to rent our office, and then we ended up buying in our own space and building it out. And one of the key things for us buying in that location was they allow pets. So now team Lally has a pet friendly office. Yes, yeah,

ADRIENNE: 
before we would get in so much trouble with our landlord, yeah, and we would always be getting like, scolded about having pets on property and yeah. So now, where the our own landlord and no one. No rules about these pets,

ATTILIO: 
family team, Lally office. So if you want to come visit with us, you can bring your pet no no questions about it, except for your narwhal. You got to leave the narwhal at home. You know, tell us about your own pets and how you you you’ve come to be, you know, loving pets. And what are the pets you have? What are their names?

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
Absolutely so I currently have four I have two dogs and two cats. My cats are Romeo and Atticus, and my dogs are Carl and Douglas. They’re all rescue pets in some way. So the my two cats and Douglas, all came from the shelter I work at in Colorado. They I fostered all of them for for either medical reasons. So Romeo, my oldest, he was he had been transferred from another shelter to the shelter I worked at for more advanced medical. Care. He had been hit by a car, and so we were able to fix him up. I fostered him and fell in love, of course, and then Atticus, he’s a little bit more of a behavior case, and so I fostered him, and my daughter fell in love with him, of course, couldn’t say no to that. And Douglas was he was a young puppy. He had come in just a couple days old to the shelter and needed fostering, and so we we fostered him, and all fell in love with him. He’s a english bulldog, and he’s a lot of work, but he is pretty precious. And then our most recent addition is Carl, who’s our yellow Labrador, and we adopted him from the Hawaiian Humane Society almost two, almost two years ago now, he had come in and really rough condition and need a lot of medical care and a lot of foster care, and then we ended up adopting him, and he’s just a wonderful dog.

ATTILIO: 
I think people, I think the big challenge that people, maybe, maybe you’ve seen this, is that everybody loves getting, you know, the pet initially, we’re in that puppy stage or kitten stage, and then I think we need to make, make really seriously. Think about it. If you’re going to be taking on a pet, it’s a 1015, 1820, year commitment. So, yeah, don’t be thinking. Don’t be just enamored of the honeymoon period of it all. Adrienne’s got away. We have a pocket bully named mochi.

ADRIENNE: 
Yeah, she’s about 13 years old. And then you have a, oh my goodness, yeah. And then snuggle buddy he I adopted him from, like, I guess this lady found this litter of kittens. So I got him from a, like, a base housing, same thing. He was a rescue kitty, like, some lady found him in Makaha, yeah. And then I’ve got the mama kitty who was the foster mom, the foster mom.

ATTILIO: 
What about mama cat? Yeah, that’s actually the cast name is mama cat, black cat. Yeah,

ADRIENNE: 
she’s really sweet. Yeah.

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
I used to have a black cat named mama cat because she was a mama kitty.

ATTILIO: 
So yeah, in my office have three pets, stapler, Paper Dispenser, tape dispenser and paperweight. No, I don’t have any pets. Adrienne, pets are my pets, yes.

ADRIENNE: 
So, so, so. Anna, I have noticed, I mean, I’ve been following your guys social media, and, of course, like reposting and resharing, I noticed there’s a big push for the adoptions. So you guys are running some adoption specials. Let’s talk about that.

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
Yeah, yeah. So we want to, you know, we want to get animals into homes as quickly as possible, and sometimes running adoption specials can help with that. And so people will often see us running different specials and maybe showcasing animals that have been here the longest, or animals that have some special needs, or some of the older animals, or sometimes we’re just running a special for everybody. So just depends, right? We have kind of an overcrowding, as we mentioned earlier, within the shelter, and we really want to get animals into homes as quickly as possible. And so we want to put those specials out there and try to, you know, really encourage people to adopt, not shop, and you may find your your best friend with us, and we’re always looking to do more. And we have our next adoption special coming up, I think will be October 1, and that’s in partnership with with Bissell Pet Foundation. And so they’re they’re supporting some of those adoption fees that we’re going to be waiving, which is fantastic.

ADRIENNE: 
I also love how creative you guys are on your social media with the stories and the names. So whoever’s doing that, good job.

ATTILIO: 
Good job.

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
Yeah, we have the rock star team with that. I really, really appreciate all their hard work. Yeah,

ADRIENNE: 
yeah, I see that you even have a dog named Ben Affleck. I

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
Our teams are very creative with the name. Sometimes it’s a lot of fun,

ATTILIO: 
yeah. And the the thing that people got to realize too, if you grouchy, pets help you not be so grouchy. This is true, and then if you less grouchy, you live longer,

ADRIENNE: 
exactly. So pets help you live longer. Pets help you live longer and be less crouching. You

ATTILIO: 
know, because the Dalai Lama all said it best, pets are the ultimate demonstration of unconditional love. No, I don’t know if the Dalai Lama said that, but it, you know, when you say the Dalai Lama said it, it just No. I mean, it’s still true. And if he was here and I asked him, is, is that true? Dalai Lama, he would say yes. He would, he would agree that is true. Yes, pets are the ultimate demonstration of unconditional love, because no matter how every day you come home, they’re happy to see you, they’re always excited to see you, and they’re never like pets. Don’t get grouchy. Well,

ADRIENNE: 
I would see like that. Dogs are like that, I think. But cats, you know, they’re a little bit different with their cats. They have cats attitude,

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
but just in their own way. They

ADRIENNE: 
love you in their own way. I

ATTILIO: 
don’t like even like snuggle buddy. You pet him and then, after her surplus, like, he bites you. Yes,

ADRIENNE: 
when he’s had enough petting, he bites you,

ATTILIO: 
or like a nibble. He. Nimbles you,

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
yeah,

ATTILIO: 
just to let you know, right? Yeah. But so Adrienne, she pets me too much sometimes that I bite her too stop petting me already. Yeah. Anyway, thanks so much for being on the show is really fun.

ADRIENNE: 
Was there anything, yeah? Was there anything that we did not cover that you wanted our listeners to know about before we wrap it up? Yeah,

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
I just would love to encourage listeners to come check us out. If you’ve never been to either one of our campuses, please, please come check us out. There’s a lot of different ways you can get involved. Through volunteerism. Working with us, we have corporate sponsorship opportunities, all kinds of events coming up. So we really would love to see a lot more community involved, and encourage everyone to come check us out.

ATTILIO: 
And for everybody on the west side, no more excuses. Oh, I don’t like drive to town and, you know, get that real turn that you guys are the one in the town. It’s right down the

ADRIENNE: 
street. Yes,

ATTILIO: 
in the beginning of Ewa Beach, the beginning of Fort Weaver.

ADRIENNE: 
Great location. Trying to make it easy for everybody, right? Yeah. And

ATTILIO: 
I like you have that double doors. You open one door and so you knucklehead and you don’t let all the pets out. Then you got to go to the second door. Then when you have the second door, the first door closes. So it’s really cool. Yeah, with

ADRIENNE: 
the cats, the beautiful location. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you, Anna, for being on the show. Yes, thank

ATTILIO: 
you so much. Absolutely, it’s my

ANNA NEUBAUER: 
pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

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