Tangipahoa Parish Animal Services Partners With Brandywine Valley SPCA To Increase Dogs And Cats Saved In Louisiana

Brandywine Valley SPCA and Best Friends Animal Society Invest in Partnership with Tangipahoa Parish Animal Services to Increase Dogs and Cats Saved in Louisiana

Project includes staff, programs and resources to reach 90% lifesaving in 2021.

WEST CHESTER, PA (JANURY 21, 2021) – The Brandywine Valley SPCA (BVSPCA) and Tangipahoa Parish Animal Services in Hammond, Louisiana, have begun a year-long “embed” program supported by Best Friends Animal Society. The program aims to develop programs, infrastructure and long-term revenue sources to reach 90% lifesaving rates by the end of 2021 and sustain those levels long-term.

Tangipahoa Parish Animal Services faces challenges similar to other Southern shelters — limited resources, low spay/neuter in the community, and more animals than adopters – all with higher animal intake than most shelters in their area. The shelter takes in more than 5,000 dogs and cats annually, which could be dozens on any given day.

“Best Friends Animal Society selected us for a very generous mentoring grant,” said Adam Lamb, BVSPCA CEO, “We chose our friends at Tangipahoa as our partner based on the energy, appetite and influence they have for change.”

"This program literally changes who we are,” said Chip Fitz, Director at Tangipahoa Parish Animal Services. This will give us an opportunity to be proactive in changing the quality of life for animals in our community. It will allow us to offer some low cost spay/neuter to families that normally cannot afford it and to offer alternatives to simply turning in an animal to us, which will keep animals at home and in better conditions. This will also help to relieve some of the pressures on our local veterinarians that work with us doing our spay/neuters. Not to mention the lifesaving flights not only for us but for some of the surrounding parishes."

"Best Friends has set a goal of helping every shelter in the nation reach a 90% save rate benchmark by 2025," said Brent Toellner, Sr. Director of National Programs for Best Friends Animal Society. "Brandywine Valley SPCA has a proven track record of successful lifesaving programing and in helping others. In order to reach our goal, we want to continue to partner with great partner organizations like BVSPCA in order to provide help and support to shelters who need and want it. We are excited to partner with them in supporting these important changes at Tangipahoa Animal Services.”

The first program steps include embedding BVSPCA staff, completing an empty shelter on the Tangipahoa Animal Services property, and increasing transports to relocate at-risk animals to areas where they’re highly adoptable. Subsequent steps include building an on-site spay/neuter clinic to manage the homeless pet population; implementing intake intervention programs to help families care for their pets, reunite lost pets, and reduce intake; and building cat lifesaving programs like TNR (trap-neuter-return).

Three BVSPCA employees moved to Louisiana in late December and are working alongside the Tangi staff. The roles includes a program manager with extensive shelter management experience, an intake intervention specialist, and an animal care expert.

Earlier this month the team celebrated completion of the shelter building. The building had sat vacant due to lack of local funding to complete it. It will be used as a transport hub for Tangi and surrounding rural shelters. The BVSPCA funded sealing the floors and adding an HVAC system, and Best Friends donated nearly 100 kennels. The 76-kennel building went into use immediately as the teams prepared for the first transport.

This weekend, the first transport will leave the Tangi transport hub. Approximately 90 dogs will be flown to New Castle, Delaware, on a flight funded by the ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) and operated by Wings of Rescue, an expert in relocating shelter animals via air transport. The dogs will be taken to the BVSPCA campuses in Delaware and Pennsylvania to find families.

Press is invited to attend the flight loading in Hammond and unloading in New Castle:

Sunday, January 24, 2021

7:00am CST load in Hammond, LA, at Top Gun Aviation (405 Industrial Park Rd, Hammond, LA 70401)

8:15am CST depart Hammond, LA

12:45pm EST arrive in New Castle, DE at Dassault Falcon Jet (191 N Dupont Hwy, New Castle, DE 19720); track arrival time at www.flightaware.com with tail number BYA862

The ASPCA has generously committed to funding this Hammond/New Castle flight route bi-weekly through 2021 as part of the multi-organization collaboration. The BVSPCA has been part of the ASPCA’s national Animal Relocation Program since 2017, saving nearly 5,000 dogs and cats together in that time. The ASPCA also funded the addition of a 17-kennel building to Brandywine’s Animal Rescue Center in Georgetown.

“The ASPCA is proud to be part of the collaborative effort to help move shelter pets from the Tangipahoa Parish Animal Services community to Brandywine Valley SPCA, where they will find loving homes more quickly,” said Karen Walsh, Senior Director, Animal Relocation Program, ASPCA. “Brandywine Valley SPCA is a valued partner shelter in our Animal Relocation Program, and we’re thrilled to expand our work together to save more animals.”

The flights are operated by Wings of Rescue. The BVSPCA has partnered with Wings on more than 30 flights in the four years of their partnership. “It’s a privilege to partner with Brandywine Valley SPCA, the ASPCA, Best Friends and Tangipahoa Parish to not just transport pets – but through spay/neuter and education programs – that will solve the pet overpopulation problem in the parish,” said, Ric Browde, president & CEO of Wings of Rescue.

On the medical side of the project, work has begun on the spay/neuter clinic building, which will be located on the Tangi shelter property, and the BVSPCA hired additional veterinary staff. The team has already begun increasing spay/neuter for shelter animals and family pets. “Having the veterinary team on-site will also save animals formerly not medically treatable while maintaining shelter animal health,” said Adam Lamb.

The community can follow progress and support this year-long multi-organization collaboration at: www.bvspca.org/tangi

About the Brandywine Valley SPCA

Founded in 1929, the Brandywine Valley SPCA is the first open admission no-kill shelter in Pennsylvania and Delaware. In 2020, the BVSPCA cared for more than 16,000 lost, stray, owner-surrendered, and abused and neglected animals while achieving a 96% live release rate. The BVSPCA provides animal protective services for Chester County and much of Delaware County in Pennsylvania, and it holds a five-year contract with the Delaware Office of Animal Welfare to provide state-wide animal services. Animals are placed through four adoption centers: Dover Campus, Georgetown Campus, New Castle Campus, and West Chester Campus. In addition, the BVSPCA provides families with safety net and low-cost veterinary services at its four clinic locations: the Malvern Animal Health Center, the New Castle Animal Health Center, and the Georgetown Animal Health Center. The BVSPCA also operates the Animal Rescue Center (ARC), a facility dedicated to helping animals with additional needs prior to being ready for adoption, such as cruelty cases, disaster victims, and infants. bvspca.org.

About Best Friends Animal Society

Best Friends Animal Society is a leading national animal welfare organization dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America's shelters. Best Friends runs lifesaving programs across the country, in partnership with more than 3,100 animal welfare groups. In addition, it has operations in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Salt Lake City and Northwest Arkansas, and operates the nation's largest no-kill animal sanctuary. Founded in 1984, Best Friends has helped reduce the number of animals killed in shelters nationwide from an estimated 17 million per year to around 625,000. Determined to bring the country to no-kill by the year 2025, Best Friends and its nationwide network of members and partners are working to Save Them All®. To check out the pet lifesaving dashboard and for more information, visit bestfriends.org.

Join the conversation on Facebook.com/bestfriendsanimalsociety, Twitter (@BestFriends) and Instagram (@BestFriendsAnimalSociety).

View Press Release Document HERE.

For more information contact:
BVSPCA: Linda Torelli, 484-678-7465 (cell), ltorelli@bvspca.org
Tangipahoa: Chip Fitz, Director, (985) 543-0215, cfitz@tangipahoa.org