(logo whooshing) (lively music) Welcome to "At Issue," I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you so much for joining us.

There are some 70 million pet dogs in America and 74 million pet cats in the United States.

Unfortunately, some of those dogs and cats and other pets are abused.

For the next half hour, we're going to find out what some solutions are to try to minimize the amount of abuse to pets in our homes.

Let me introduce to you first, Jane Kahman.

Jane is the manager of the Humane Society of Central Illinois, which is Normal based, thank you for being with us.

- Thank you.

- [Wayne] And also with us is Kitty Yanko.

Kitty is the director of the Peoria Humane Society.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you.

- And of course, the first question has to be, can we define abuse?

And I know we'll talk about the types of abuse, but in general, is there a definition for animal abuse or animal cruelty?

Or is it so broad that it's difficult to say in two sentences what it is?

Kitty, you wanna tackle that?

- That's a good question, I think it's got a lengthy answer.

Abuse can be anything from neglect or, you know, outright violence to an animal.

It can include more someone doesn't have the skills or the knowledge or the education to take care of their pet, so they're not intentional when they do things harmful.

- That's an interesting concept.

I wanna talk about that in just a second, but why don't we identify some of the forms of abuse?

Because I think some people may not equate certain activities with the term abuse of pets.

Abandonment would be one, and I don't know how common some of these are, but abandonment could be a form of abuse.

- Yes, if they go and dump 'em out in the country, they abandon 'em, or we've, at our shelter, we've come in the next day and there's carriers with cats in 'em outside our front doors.

We've had dogs put out in our giant pens in the back so there is definitely that type of abuse.

- And Kitty, you mentioned the neglect.

And neglect could be coming in several different forms, lack of food, lack of water.

- Right, so I think we typically define neglect as lack of resources, so the animal doesn't have proper shelter.

You know, that's defined as, you know, four walls so they have a roof and floor and they're off the ground.

It could include lack of water, food.

So being out in extreme temperatures, whether that's hot or cold, so there's a variety of ways we can look at neglect.

- And I think the type of abuse that we most commonly think of is physical abuse.

- [Jane] Physical.

- And unfortunately those are the ones that make the news sometimes.

And that can take any number of forms, and we probably should talk about the fact that it is not just a misdemeanor necessarily in Illinois.

You could be charged with a felony for physical abuse.

- Yes, and a lot of that is deemed based on repeat offenses.

You know, they get a warning the first time, then they get a misdemeanor, maybe $250 fine for something, but then if it continues and continues, then that's a felony and then you're in the courts.

- And especially if it resulted, even in the first time, if it resulted in the death of a pet.

- Yes, absolutely.

It's based on the nature of the act of the violence or what was actually done with the pet.

And it is county by county.

You know, you can look at the state and there's laws on the state level, but generally speaking, counties are more restrictive than the state laws.

So I know in Peoria County, we have pretty good laws to protect animals.

And so it, you know, a lot of that depends on how the report comes in, what the investigation looks like, and then your state's attorney's office and how they're gonna prosecute it.

- And I find this difficult to understand, but poisoning can be a form of abuse, and why someone would poison an animal is beyond me.

- Right, if it's intentional, I mean, anything that's intentional, if it's an act that was known to cause harm on purpose, then that that's always gonna be a stricter fine, a stricter penalty, and can involve, you know, a hefty fine or can involve jail time.

Class four felonies I think can result in that.

- And hoarding is another form of abuse, where do we see hoarding most commonly?

- Most commonly, it's in the senior tier of people.

They just, they see every little stray cat and they think they have to save 'em so they bring them in.

I know one of the ways we try and prevent that through the Humane Society is by the application process, and how many animals do you have and, you know, what the city ordinance is as far as the number of animals that you can safely have.

But a lot of times, we'll get the phone call from the relatives that say, "Grandma's got 25 cats.

Can you help us?"

And so we'll try and work with this family to get these animals the help that they can.

- Jane mentioned that, you know, a relative or a neighbor might call and they may be noticing any number of these.

But the one that strikes me as being most common is that they're not appropriately groomed.

The dog might be in the backyard and the neighbor sees the dog and says, "Well, that dog is really scrawny."

So what should a neighbor, a relative, someone who becomes aware of abuse.

We tend to say, "I'm gonna, a blind eye, I didn't see that."

What would you tell a neighbor or a relative that notices these kinds of things?

- I would make sure that people understand that when you call a complaint in or a concern in about an animal, you're possibly saving a human life.

The reality is that there is a thing called the connection between animal abuse and human violence.

And so when you're concerned about the wellbeing of an animal, many times, the people in that home, whether it's children, women, elderly, some of the more common victims, they could be at risk as well.

And there's a high, high correlation of those running together, animal abuse, cruelty, neglect, and human violence or human neglect.

- So domestic violence may be an indicator.

- Absolutely, and you know, not everybody that hurts animals hurts people.

And not everybody that hurts people hurts animals, but there is a strong connection there.

And I think it's worth looking into and checking on.

- And even if it's a minor, you know, well, that dog looks awfully thin, and maybe it turns out to be nothing, but they should make that phone call.

- They should make the call.

And, you know, you just don't know.

It's better to make the call than to worry about it.

And, you know, with violent offenders, people who are incarcerated for very violent crimes, I'm talking murders, you know, serial killers, that sort of thing.

Oftentimes someone didn't make the call early on.

Someone had a thought, "That person's, you know, I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with what they're doing," or "that person might be a little bit off" or something and they didn't make the call.

And then years later, we find out that they started off abusing animals and progressed to people.

- We've been talking about cruelty to dogs primarily, but there's cruelty to cats and to other pets.

- Right, it's not providing the proper vet care, trimming nails is a form of neglect too.

People don't just realize that, you know?

We have to be on top of everything when we have people come in trying to adopt, we explain all the different things that's needed.

It's not just, oh, I'm taking home an animal, but they have needs beyond food and water.

There's their coats, they could get matted and then they get too bad and then, you know?

- Let's talk about the adoption process then.

And I do want to come back to one form of abuse later on, that's dog fighting and cock fighting.

But I think that's, is that less now - It is less in our community, but again, it's community by community.

And some places are still seeing a high number of dog fights.

- The adoption process.

What do you go through to make sure that there's a proper match between future pet and that family?

- Yes, I have a team of adoption counselors and when a person comes in and they saw one of our animals on the website, we have them fill out the application.

We go through, see how many pets are in the household, the ages, if there's kids, those type of things.

And say they wanted Duke and Duke is this big 70, 80 pound Mastiff mix.

You know, he's not the best match.

He's a good looking dog, but for small kids, he's not.

So we use the opportunity to counsel people and kinda gear them and steer them towards what animal would be appropriate for their household.

So that's part of our adoption process that we do.

- Is that similar in Peoria for the Peoria Humane Society?

- So in our county, we're fortunate to have two different agencies working together.

We kind of partner, I guess, in a sense.

So Peoria County Animal Protection Services, or PCAPS, used to be PAWS, and Peoria Humane Society work together, but we don't actually do the adoptions.

They handle all the adoptions through the shelter and you know, we're on the same property and work together, but, yes, so to answer your question, they have a process similar where they're really looking to find a forever home for the pets.

And so there's no point in making a quick adoption match and not have it work out.

So they're gonna be talking to the owners and finding out what they want.

- Is there a fostering component that's possible?

- There is, and so in Peoria County at our shelter, they started a foster program many years ago, and it's proved to work out really well.

Sometimes people will start off saying I'm fostering, but many times, we call it the foster failure, but that's a good thing.

If the pet gets comfortable in a home and they're doing well, and the person really has the intention of keeping them, then we turn it into an adoption.

- No fostering in McLean County?

- No, we used to, and guilty, foster fail (laughs), but no, we have enough kennels in our facility that we actually house the animals right there in our building so everything takes place right there.

You know, the adoption and animal care is all together.

- So how many animals do you have currently?

- Well, right now, I have about 110 animals.

And I just wrote down a couple little things.

So far this year, from January to today's date, we have taken in 751 animals into our facility, 551 of those are from animal controls throughout the state.

You know, we use McLean County, we pull from PCAPS.

You know, I've also had some transports coming in from Southern Illinois, especially when those tornadoes went through Southern Illinois, we did take in some of the animals in need.

- So are strays the most common way that you receive an animal?

- We do not personally take in the strays.

McLean County Animal Control takes in the strays.

And then once they've done their time and nobody has reclaimed them, then I'll pull them in to find them forever homes.

- Do you have any idea of how many animals, and I understand you work in conjunction with PCAPS, but how, I hate to use the word serious, but how serious of a problem is animal abuse and trying to find homes for them?

- It's definitely a serious problem.

And I think in any community that's large, you know, well, I say large, but Peoria-sized, you're gonna have a lot of pets and you're gonna have people who are not doing a good job.

I know currently the shelter sees a little over 4,000 animals, the Peoria shelter.

And so that's, you know, more than half of that is cats.

They have a little bit more of a higher population of cats coming in 'cause they're running at large and reproducing.

But I have to say that, even though those numbers are staggering, when I started in 1992, the shelter was getting in 8,500 animals.

So to go from 8,500 to 4,000 for me in my time is pretty exciting.

- Can you attribute that to anything in particular?

- You know, that's a question that we get asked a lot and over the years, I feel like, you know, I'm an educator at heart so I have a strong desire for it to be better now because we've been educating people about problems with pets.

But honestly, I don't know the answer for sure.

I think people are more likely to spay and neuter.

I think there are more resources available now than there were.

And from my experience, by and large, people tend to keep their dogs at home.

They are spaying and neutering them more than they used to.

You know, the litters of puppies are just not as common for us at our shelter, but cats continue to be a problem.

People are still letting cats run loose.

They're still not seeing the benefit to having them, you know, get that spay neuter surgery or stay at home.

And so that's one thing for me that's frustrating.

30 years later, I feel like we've still got that problem going on.

And you know, pet overpopulation is still an issue in most communities.

- [Wayne] Especially for cats.

- Yes, and it's better than it was, but it's still a problem.

- On the situation for abused animals, approximately two thirds of abused animals are dogs.

Two thirds of all of abused animals are dogs.

One quarter of them are pit bulls.

These are national statistics.

Does that surprise you?

- It doesn't surprise me at all.

And again, it's community by community, but in our community here in the Peoria area, we have a large number of pit bulls.

So anytime a pet is common and there's a lot of them, there's gonna be a surplus of them and they're gonna end up at shelters.

And we're just known to have neighborhoods that that's what people have is pit bulls.

And so they're the ones that are neglected, running at large, not spayed and neutered.

And so hence they end up at the shelter.

- Do you have particular breeds that are either that you find that are abused or strays?

- Oh, we've been taking in a lot of pit mixes, lab mixes.

You know, we see a wide variety.

Not too many small dogs.

It's mainly your medium size to large dog.

You know, my shepherd Mastiff mix and dogs like that that are coming into the shelter.

And it's just a lot of these are just coming from homes, you know, where we're moving, we can't take our dog with, you know, oh, we had a new baby, I can't take this dog.

You know?

So it's a variety of reasons.

And quite frankly, during COVID and subsequently trying to come out of COVID, a lot of people are going back to work so they no longer have the time to take care of these dogs.

So that's the main neglect that we've been seeing, where people are saying, we just can't take care of 'em anymore.

We need to put food on the table for our families versus the dogs.

So in a way, those people are smart.

They recognize they can't do it so they come to us for help and we help 'em.

- Let's talk about solutions.

You mentioned spay and neuter, and that seems to be working more for dogs than cats.

- In our community, that's what I've seen over the last 30 years.

Do I have an answer for why that is?

Not exactly, except for that I think that it's less acceptable to let your dog run at large.

You know, when a dog's running loose in a neighborhood, the shelter's gonna get a call.

Somebody's gonna be concerned.

When cats run loose, I think there's still a little bit of a mentality that, you know, that they should be outside, you know, they're free roaming, there's nothing wrong with that.

And I know there are a lot of communities that have embraced the trap, neuter, and release idea.

And a lot of communities are accepting cats running at large.

It's still difficult, sometimes I think when cats are loose, because those issues just keep coming up.

They're going into people's yards and going to the bathroom.

There's people that are concerned about cats running at large, and any warm blooded animal mammal can carry rabies.

So if it's running at large and it comes in contact with a wild animal, it is more likely to get rabies and possibly bite or scratch a human and transmit it that way.

- What about the education component in terms of a solution?

We've talked about, domestic violence may lead to animal cruelty.

So is there the opportunity to educate, not just those that are prone to that, but educate young people who live in a household with that environment?

- What we've done at the Humane Society is we've had education programs.

COVID kind of stopped that for a while.

I'm bringing it back again, where we will have groups of school kids come in and we talk about the proper way to greet an animal and pulling tails is not one of the suggested things.

And so we just try and tell these young kids, "Okay, this is how you treat an animal.

This is how you walk a dog.

You don't drag 'em or pull 'em up by the leash."

So we're trying to get back into the education phase with teaching people.

- And, you know, we have felt that as a priority as well in Peoria.

And I take it personally because I am an educator at heart again, but for 30 years in my time at the Humane Society, a big portion of that is working with groups in the community, schools, adult groups, whatever.

But we have had an education program which I'm very proud of.

We've worked a lot with the schools through the Adopt a School program, through Peoria Public Schools.

And last year, and several years prior to that, we did a Kind Hearted Kids program where we went in and taught the children about how to care for pets and the responsibilities, safety's been a big one.

But our goal is to try to work with young people and hopefully change the future for them.

If they've had abuse in their home with their pets or themselves, we want them to know that there is another option.

And so, educating them, giving them hope, you know, just that creating that environment, that kindness does count and we wanna promote it as much as possible and reward them when they are kind to animals and people.

- Both of you head up Humane Society chapters, if I may use that term.

In terms of funding, where do you get your income?

- Our income is solely based on donations.

We don't get any government money.

So whatever people choose to give us.

We have very generous donors that do the monthly donations, or we'll have our special events and the donation jars will bring in some money, but ours is strictly based on our wonderful donors.

We couldn't do it without 'em.

- And in Peoria County?

- Well, yes, in Peoria County, Peoria Humane Society is a nonprofit group.

And so we have, over 80 years, have been basically being supported by people who care about animals in our community.

So it's been heartwarming to see the support we've had over the years.

And that's primarily through, like you said, monthly donations and donors and then grants and any other support that the community can give.

We do have a couple big fundraisers.

Bark in the Park actually is coming up here October 1st and that's our fall fundraiser.

And then we have Wine and Whiskers in the spring, and a variety of other events.

But without people giving and caring about animals to nonprofits like us, we couldn't survive really.

And it's really all about those donations.

And when times are tough for people, they're tough for animals as well.

- And there's a fee for adoption?

- We have a nominal adoption fee.

It ranges, typically 225 for a dog, but that includes all their services.

They're spayed and neutered, microchipped, vaccinated.

And for our cats, it's only 100.

And again, they're completely fixed, microchip, spayed, you know, all that stuff we do.

- So humane societies, depending on county or region, may operate a little bit differently, and you're not necessarily affiliated with the National Humane Society.

- We're definitely not, and that's a good point.

I'm glad you brought that up because it's been a confusing thing along the years.

People believe that if they give to, you know, a large group like Humane Society United States or the ASPCA that it's gonna trickle down to the local people, and it doesn't.

So, you know, everybody's on their own raising money and just people have to understand if you make a donation, you wanna it to stay in your community, helping a local agency like ours is really valuable.

- What's your final take on animal cruelty in terms of, are we making progress?

- I think as far as educating the public, the country, you know, the dog fighting is down.

It does happen in certain areas.

It's more or less, the abuse is neglect.

And a lot of times people just don't know.

They think just bringing home an animal and giving it water and food is enough.

So it's just basically education.

- So neglect is the big issue.

- I think it is, you know, the outright cruelty that you see, the horrible stories that make the news, that's not as common as the day to day neglect that we see with animals.

- And with that, we have run out of time.

I appreciate the conversation from Jane Kahman of the McLean County Humane Society, and the Peoria County Humane Society, Kitty Yanko.

Thank you both for being on "At Issue."

- [Both] Thank you.

- And we'll be back next time with another edition of "At Issue."

We're going to be talking about water quantity because in the Southwest, we have problems with water.

Well, what about Central Illinois?

And we're gonna be talking about water quantity and quality on the next "At Issue."

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