animal
My Furry Valentine Volunteer Has Heart For Pets
For hundreds of Greater Cincinnati families and individuals each year, Valentine’s Day has become a holiday to treasure…as it represents the day their lives joined with a life of a furry (and even feathered) looking for a forever home. It happens because of what has grown to be the largest mega adoption event in the region, My Furry Valentine, that attracts over 1400 visitors and has more than 700 animals (dogs, cats, birds and some other species) from dozens of rescues. If you are looking to add a non-human friend to your household, you just may find your new companion Valentine’s Day weekend!
(More information on My Furry Valentine is below.)
Each year I like to profile a volunteer who helps make the event possible. This year I spoke with Melanie Corwin, My Furry Valentine’s rescue shelter coordinator.
Hers is a very important role that includes writing the application and vaccine requirements, communicating with the rescues, helping them set up on Friday, and coordinating the team of veterinarians and vet techs who check in every animal before opening the doors to the public.
The role is a perfect fit for Melanie, who, as executive director of UCAN (nonprofit spay and neuter clinic), already has a relationship with many area shelter and rescues. AND the heart for this cause. She herself shares a home with her son and five rescues – two dogs (Peanut and Blackie) and three cats (Katniss, Grayson and Calypso).
Melanie came into this line of work because it is her passion. Prior to joining the staff team at UCAN, she was a private practice attorney for 25 years working with nonprofit organizations. She and her son began volunteering at a no-kill shelter as a way of her teaching him the importance of giving back. It was a fateful activity that would change the course of her career – and he life.
“It got to be so depressing,” she told me. “We’d see the animals all get adopted and then the next week, all of the cages would be full again.”
She saw spay/neuter as a solution and began supporting UCAN financially. Then she joined the Board, having served as director, then vice-chair, and then chair of the Board before ultimately joining UCAN’s staff as executive director in 2012.
“People love their pets. Some say you should not adopt one if you can not afford the care but I don’t believe it. There should be community resources to allow them to have that animal,” she said. “There are so many benefits. Everyone deserves the love of a pet.
“Almost every day someone comes in and I have never had to say no. I enjoy getting grants to enable us to do free spay/neuter to help people who can not afford it,” she said.
UCAN was founded in 2001, to stop the endless cycle of unwanted births and euthanasia. The two main reasons people do not sterilize their pets are cost and lack of access to spay/neuter services. UCAN solves both of these issues. It provides low-cost spay/neuter services and free transports to its Colerain Ave clinic from several locations in Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana. The nonprofit clinic performs over 13,000 surgeries each year and this past year began offering low cost vaccinations also.
Melanie and the rest of the My Furry Valentine team will be very busy February 10 and 11, doing their part to help hundreds of animals find their forever homes.
Looking for a dog or cat (or other small animal)? Plan on being there!
My Furry Valentine Facts:
Where: Sharonville Convention Center (11355 Chester Road; 45246)
When (and cost):
Early Bird Entry Saturday, February 10th 10am – 12pm: $25
Saturday, February 10th 12pm – 5pm: $5 ages 5 & up
Sunday, February 11th 10am – 5pm: $5 ages 5 & up
For a list of participating rescues and to see pictures of many of the adoptable animals, please visit www.myfurryvalentine.org.
This Cincinnati Pilot Transports Dogs
Derek Hassenpflug (left) and Jack Finke (right)
Derek Hassenpflug, CFP®, ChFC® is a certified financial planner and branch manager for the Kenwood Ameriprise office, but on weekends, you may very likely see him if you look to the sky. Derek earned his private pilot certificate in May of this year and these days thinks of himself as a ‘general aviation weekend warrior’ ….who also happens to have a big heart for dogs and giving of his time.
For those who know him and his volunteer work, it was probably of no surprise that as soon as he got his pilot certification he registered for Pilot N Paws, a nonprofit organization that, through private pilots willing to offer free transportation, connects people and organizations to save the lives of thousands of animals. Derek’s first route first came when he saw a notice of a black lab needing to be taken from a kill shelter in Campbellsville, Kentucky to the Cincinnati Lab Rescue. He brought his friend, Jack Finke along for the ride. Together they had a flight they will never forget. The dog had been abandoned in central Kentucky and ended up in an SPCA for awhile and was on path to being euthanized.
In Derek’s words…
“If I didn’t already have two dogs, he would have gone home with me. He slept the whole way back to Cincinnati. He is such a nice dog.
I don’t understand how people can just abandon dogs. We have a small black lab mix that we found wondering around Newport Aquarium eight years ago. She was chipped so we called the shelter and found her adoptive parents who told us she had run away. They said they had two dogs and asked if we wanted her. We love her so much.
Doing this is not inexpensive. I reserve and rent the airplane and pay all of my own expenses but it is great to be doing two of my passions. That trip to Campbellsville was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.”
If You Were Touched By The Movie Dolphin Tale, You’ll Like This
Another Side of Cincinnati Zoo’s Thane Maynard
Thane Maynard is our Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens’ director. He is also an ambassador for animals and a fun personality seen on many television shows. Tricia Macke from FOX19 sat down with him for a behind-the-scenes look at Thane’s life.
FOX19.com-Cincinnati News, Weather
Animals Lovers Unite For SPCA Fur Ball
Funny how fate works sometimes. It was a night like so many before it for Barbara Lichtenstein. At least that’s how it started off. She was in her car, having just turned onto the busy intersection at Springfield Pike heading toward choir practice when she saw him…a four-legged homeless dog who clearly hadn’t eaten a homemade meal in quite some time. He had bristly fur, rotted teeth, and lumps that Barbara later learned were cancerous.
Barbara, being the animal lover that she is, pulled over, put him in her car and went on to her practice – bringing him inside with her. That night, she learned, he was also a classical lover. As soon as they began to sing, all of his fear of the unknown magically disappeared. “To this day, when he gets fussy in the car, I turn on classical music,” she told me.
Several surgeries, good food, and a houseful of love have seen little Ajax blossom into an affectionate companion who seeks out his family just to know they are there. That family also includes Charlotte, a feminine (as Barbara describes her) and sweet little girl who was also found abandoned and who tolerates sharing favorite humans with Ajax.
Barbara Finds The SPCA
It was a number of years back. Barbara was studying architecture and decided not to continue. She has another, more important reason to work. “I’ve always been a dog lover. I grew up with dogs and I thought it was time to step up and do something for them,” she said.
She and her husband, Phil, gave the SPCA a donation when they were building the new shelter and that very quickly evolved into volunteer work. Three years ago she got involved with the organization’s big fundraiser – the Fur Ball. One year she chaired it and this is her second year serving as co-chair (with Holly Mott).
The Fur Ball
Held at the Cintas 
Center, April 28, the dinner/dance Fur Ball will be an evening of dinner, dancing to the music of Airwave, a silent auction, and a ‘Best in Show’ dog show with animals from the shelter. There will also be dogs and cats there available for adoption. For animal lovers, it is a fun event for a great cause.
The SPCA Cincinnati serves Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati covering over 500 square miles and is the oldest humane society in Ohio. Last year, it handled around 18,000 animals. Good homes with concerned, qualified families were found for thousands of these animals.
Efforts are continually being made to improve its adoption rates. Barbara told me the adoption fee is just $20 and that includes spay and neuter. Proceeds from the Fur Ball will help the SPCA keeps those adoption fees down so that more people and more animals in need of love can find each other.
A few seats are still available for the Fur Ball. Cost is $150 per person. To register, please visit www.spcacincinnati.org.
