Ep232 - Gavin Ehringer, Author of Leaving the Wild: The Unnatural History of Dogs, Cats, Cows and Horses

01/20/18 • 16 min

Interview! Gavin Ehringer, Author of Leaving the Wild: The Unnatural History of Dogs, Cats, Cows and Horses

“It’s not enough to take care of animals after they’re born, we have to think about their circumstances before the act of breeding even takes place."

Gavin takes a critical look at breeding and how our values shape our animals for good and bad in his new book, Wild. The book actually began about 5 years ago when he got the idea about writing about how animals came to be domesticated. He decided to put his entire life into the book and went out on the road in an RV and did research all over the United States for the book.

He looks at the history of dogs, cats, cows and horses and how they willingly left the wild in exchange for our care, along with how that relates to what they deal with now in modern times. He digs into what the consequences have been to them becoming domesticated.

For instance, with cats, the invention of kitty litter I the 1940’s really changed the game for them becoming an indoor pet. A man was using a similar material to absorb oil on the floor of his garage when a neighbor came over and asked to use it for her cat. Voila, and industry was born! It completely changed the game for cats on becoming indoor pets.

Gavin also found interesting research around the millennial and their cat ownership rates. Cats have only recently surpassed dogs as America’s most popular pet, and more than likely we can than the millennials for that! Because cats are easy to care for and fit into their urban lifestyles very well, adoption rates have skyrocketed with this generation. It also gives them social credibility by adopting through shelters and off the streets.

Believe it or not, Gavin didn’t have a very positive view of community cats before he wrote the book. He viewed them as destroyers of wildlife. But after his research, he learned how TNR can be so effective and can be the long-term solution. He believes the whole community needs to get involved in these issues and there needs to be long-term discussions if they hope to decrease the amount of animals living and suffering on the streets.

To grab Gavin’s book, head over to www.leavingthewild.com.

Interview! Gavin Ehringer, Author of Leaving the Wild: The Unnatural History of Dogs, Cats, Cows and Horses

“It’s not enough to take care of animals after they’re born, we have to think about their circumstances before the act of breeding even takes place."

To grab Gavin’s book, head over to www.leavingthewild.com.

Previous Episode

Interview! Nell Thompson - Coordinator of National Getting To Zero Program

“I’m passionate for improving outcomes for community cats. I believe TNR would work great with cooperation and collaboration to achieve community change."

Nell has worked for over 25 years in the industry and her background is exceptional, due to her veterinary technician experience and knowledge that has heavily influenced her work every since. Her journey was heavily influenced by her parents, who volunteered in shelters when she was a kid and fostered cats and dogs as a family when she was young. The National Getting to Zero Program is in Australia and primarily focuses on homeless cats and dogs and they work to implement change in a respectful way. They work to increase responsibility for companion animals so that every community and municipality can achieve zero euthanasia of all healthy and treatable cats and dogs. Because they are in Australia, they take many methodologies and philosophies that we use here in the United Stated, and work to implement them there, since our cultures are fairly similar. However, the government been difficult to work with when it comes to community cats. For a variety of reasons, community cats are very maligned in Australia. While being aware of the environmental factors, all options for population management need to be looked at and best applied, but the government is more on board with killing the overpopulation numbers that are homeless. Community cats are persecuted in the country based on government standards. In most states in Australia, TNR is illegal. A lot of work has been done by locals to try to change the culture and work in more positive collaboration with the government, but so far, it has been a difficult road. In 2015, the government passed legislation to kill 1,000,000 cats, so the Getting to Zero program has been working in overdrive to get TNR up and running and to manage the population in a better way. What can you do to help? One of the biggest drivers of this program is communication. Just by talking to people it can help to alert them to what is happening in Australia and what the problems are. It can be hard to push through change, but sometimes you need to accept the discomfort that comes with this and push through it. For more information, head over to www.g2z.org.au.

Next Episode

Ep233 - Ann Dunn

Interview! Ann Dunn, Founder of Cat Town, Oakland, CA

"Nobody wanted to be standing in a cafe making coffee, they wanted to be helping the cats. But now, we’re seeing how helpful it has been to forgotten kittens and see how successful it has been."

Ann Dunn founded Cat Town, which is a cat rescue organization focusing on helping the most vulnerable cats in local shelters. Cats that are too scared in that environment have a hard time showing their best selves and soon tend to be overlooked by potential adopters. After realizing this, she wanted to work with these cats that needed the most intervention and save them from being euthanized. She opened the first Cat Cafe in conjunction with Cat Town in 2014 and just opened an adoption center for the hardest to place cats.

She worked for over 20 years in public housing redevelopment in managing, funding and planning. While she didn’t grow up with cats, she did end up adopting 2 cats after college. It was in their memory that she started volunteering at the local animal shelter. She never imagined it would lead her to open her own rescue shelter and she soon became obsessed with helping cats. In this new venture, she saw opportunity to apply her professional skills to address the high euthanasia rate she saw with the higher risk cats who weren’t having luck find homes. In 2011, Oakland had a 42% euthanasia rate, but by focusing on cats most likely to be euthanized, she has helped place around 1,800 cats and reduced the euthanasia rate to 14%!

Ann brought a different perspective to the problem when looking at the variables that were in play at an animal shelter. She saw obstacles that were in place that prevented some cats from feeling safe enough to be confident, which in turn, led them to not be adopted and often times, euthanized. Instead, she wanted to find a way to help by finding a way to place these cats in something other than a cage, where people could get to see them open up more. She originally was thinking this would happen in the form of a quasi sanctuary/adoption center/ cat cafe, so people would be able to spend time with these types of cats in an easier environment for the animals. She wanted to see these troubled cats find a “safe place” where they would transform into confident cats that people would want to adopt.

She now works on the Forgotten Kitten Project, as well. She uses a different approach with kittens that come in who may not be socialized because they are a little older. She brings them in and lets them become desensitized to an active environment, where they are amazingly resilient. It helps boost their confidence and gives them the skills they need to become more adoptable cats. She received a grant from Maddie’s Fund for this, where she documents her findings in order to hopefully inspire other organizations to do the same thing and replicate this approach elsewhere.

Ann also participates in an apprenticeship program through Maddie’s Fun, where she shares innovative ideas with other organizations. Cat Town is a host organization, where they have different organizations come in and shadow them, to see how they are doing things and what they can do to implement their ideas and success in their own organizations.

Find out Ann’s thoughts on the Cat Cafe and what she would do differently if she had to do it again. Would she even open a cat cafe if she was starting all over?

Learn more at www.cattownoakland.org