Ear on Chicago; A Dog's Life: Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society

This is the story of the anti -cruelty society. The organization in the city of Chicago which takes care of stray animals and does a wonderful job of it. We're going to talk to Jay Jay Schaefer who is the managing director of the anti -cruelty society, but first of all he happens to be at the moment at the desk receiving some of the complaints that come in and talking to some of the people who come here to the desk located at 157 West Grand on Chicago's near North Side. Now Mr. Schaefer is about prepared to talk to a lady that just brought in a box and a sack containing some food. So we're going to listen in on that conversation. Yes ma 'am, in regard to this kitten, is this your kitten? I mean is it one that you have had for a while or a phone? For three months I found him in an alley when he before his eyes were open and I raised him on a baby bottle. Well that's certainly interesting and you are unable to keep the kitten now. I have a small apartment on the fourth floor and it will be impossible for me to keep him. I see. Well now incidentally that sounds like a very interesting story. Was this

kitten in your own neighborhood? I mean were you living where you are at the time? Yes I found him under my porch or under a porch on the first floor that was boarded up about seven feet high and there were three of them. Two of them had died from hunger and exposure and he was alive and I'd heard him cry for two days and I went down there and found these cats or these three kittens. Yes ma 'am, there's one question I'd like to ask you. I'm having a kennelman come up to take the kitten down. Stairs, is this cat seem to adjust itself to your apartment and you think it would make a good pet for someone else? There are no one else so very much so. Well we'll do our very best to find a new home for it. I'd find homes for lots of animals and of course we're always happy when we see one like this that's been taken out of what you'd call desperation and well apparently so if the other two did you'd be surprised how many thousands of kittens do die and suffer in Chicago every year simply because there aren't people like you to help take care of them. The alleys are full of them. Just one minute Nick would you take this kitten down to the cattery and we'll try to find a home for it.

Well there was a very touching story indeed about how a lady found a kitten in the alley to care of it for three months, fed it on a baby bottle and finally has brought it here to the anti -cruelty society because she can't keep it in her apartment. This lady brought the kitten down in a cardboard box which had some holes punched in it for air and a large paper sack in which she can put some food for the kitten and so now the kitten will be taken care of by the anti -cruelty society and probably a home will be found for it. Well Mr. Schaefer there's just a typical case that happens here. It happens not once but 50 or 100 times a day here. We take in over a period of a year between 45 and 55 ,000 animals and behind virtually every one of those animals there's a story there's a human being as well as an animal. I think a lot of people when they think of an organization like the anti -cruelty society think only of animals but believe me

we deal just as much with people and help just as many people as we do animals. Of course our emphasis is on the welfare and care of the animal. We have come into another office right now and there's a lady here on the telephone talking to somebody that's just called in a complaint. What goes on in here Mr. Schaefer? Well Mr. Hill this is Mrs. Krueger's office. This is Lewis Krueger. She's our office manager and certainly one of our key employees here she has been in charge of the office and our investigation service and ambulance service here for more than 25 years. I feel she's one of the most skilled human workers in the country today. She is really the nerve center of the anti -cruelty society because all complaints regarding cruelty are filtered through her office, all calls for animals that is our ambulance service come through her and in general she's on the hop 24 hours a day if she were working 24 of course but she sure puts in eight awfully tough hours here every day of the week. I wonder if she looks like she's about ready to finish that phone

conversation. I wonder if we get talked to her just a minute. And this Krueger almost grew. Yes sir. Mrs. Krueger, I notice you just received a complaint over the telephone, could you tell us about it? Yes. This person called, she's a neighbor of the people who's at 4851 North Harlem Avenue and the children found a black dog on their way from school a day or two ago and they brought it home and tied it on the porch and nobody seems to have any interest in it or it isn't being fed or getting any attention at all. So I'm going to send our investigator out there and see what it's all about. Perhaps they, the mother doesn't even want the dog but the children just have it there and play with it and then go in and forget about it you know how children are. Well good maybe we can check back with you a little later and find out what happened to this case. Incidentally Mr. Hill I think that's an interesting one because we have these things happen all the time you know kids they find a dog and they want it they bring it home and they they or their parents fail to realize that in just tucking a dog away

that's lost on their back porch even if they feed it and care for it they're depriving the rightful owner of a chance to get it back and that's what organizations like the anti -cruelty society and other animal shelters are for to take in these lost animals and try to get them back to their owners. Is this a typical example of some of the complaints you get Mrs. Krueger? Yes quite and after investigator visits here then he'll he'll see the mother of course or whoever was in charge of the home there and tell them that we have a service here that we'd like to return the dog to the owner and in case they needed a dog or or wanted this one back after we've looked for the owner why we would give it to them if they're able to take care of it and it's welcome there. Mrs. Krueger I noticed a phone out there that looked like a fax telephone to the police department do you have one of those? Yes we do. How is that how is that used when a person finds a dog on the street and brings it in they can put it in our kennel our name is on it and the police just call a 457 all they do is dial on their 457 on their packs you know and it gets us here and we take the order and go out and get the dogs

and we restore them to the owners if possible you know some have licenses and rabies tags on and we check on all those if they don't have anything on their capture six days and people get out and look for them in in a place like this because we're quite well known and they go to the dog pound and of course the dog pound tells them be sure and and check at the end I cruelly we we return many many dogs to owners we've been talking about dogs and there was one cat at the beginning of the program but I assume that you care for practically any kind of animal dog certainly we have a skunk I believe downstairs now lost one and we're getting in a possum from the 33rd district today what about that parrot in the cage out there I saw a parrot in another office in a very huge cage I guess that's a parrot isn't it oh well that's Mike he's pretty well known you know around town he gets on television and non -radio is that like the famous Mike that's the famous Mike is that the one that you couldn't tell the the sex of the the bird there once was near a story on that not long ago yes and he laid two eggs this summer you know so now we know he's

Michelle you're still calling him he yes I know but we're we've had him for so many years of almost 15 and we can't get over that part of it so you're gonna at least you have changed his name from Mike to Michelle that's right well I'm glad you find out that you found out just what he is or what she is well that's an interesting story we want to thank you very much for talking to us Mrs. Krueger and we might check back with you a little bit later to find out what happened to this particular case about the children yes yes you may we've come into the clinic now where dogs are treated dogs and other animals and Mr. Schaeffer what goes on in here well Mr. Hill this is our charity clinic it's the only one of its kind in the entire Chicago area where people who have no money perhaps people on relief who own a pet and love it very much it gets sick and they just don't have the money to go to one of the fine private veterinary hospitals that we have here can bring it expert treatment veterinary treatment at little or no cost

Dr. Schmidt Dr. Joanne Schmidt is our veterinarian in charge here and I'd like to have you meet her well Dr. Schmidt first of all may I ask you about a case that we discussed just a few moments ago there was a young lady who brought a dog in that she thought was sick and she turned it into the society and it was brought in here to the clinic by one of the men out there so what happened to that case well we examined it and the dog has a very active case of distemper distemper is a virus infection of dogs it's very common it goes around all the time and dogs that haven't been vaccinated against it we usually get it sometime in their life that dog is apparently had it the disease for some time possibly it hasn't been treated and now it has been banned and by its owner and we looked at it and it's still running of severe infection it has generalized symptoms and there are apparently nervous symptoms too that are affecting those hind legs do you think you'll be able to save it will try but I'm very dubious it's gone too long that dog has been sick at least three

weeks and there comes a time when that virus affects the nervous symptom the nervous system you can't do too much about it will try well now Dr. Schmidt looking around your clinic here I see that you have what it looks like at doctor's office really and of course that's exactly what it is you have a lot of medicine and here's a young lady here cleaning some instruments and over here well here are two cats over here playing around the laboratory and one of the largest cats I've ever seen down here eating some cat food who's that well that's our pet in here that's Mr. Cat we've had him for over four years since he was a little kitten some people brought him in and he had a bad case of ringworm they couldn't keep him and I'm a particular lover of Persian cats and he was awfully cute so we cured him up and we had him about six weeks and by that time we no one wanted to get rid of him or give him to a new home so he's been here he's in the clinic all day long and observes everything that happens well now I mentioned some of the equipment and medicine that you have in here suppose you tell us about some of it for example this little stand over here what do you have on that well on that we have of course syringes and hypodermic needles

dogs get a lot of injections just as people do this room this small room that we're standing in now is where we do most of our examining of the dogs that are going out for adoption every dog that comes up from the kennels and goes out for adoption is examined here and we take their temperatures you can see thermometers there and we look them over in general and the young dogs get a temporary distemperous shot that gives them a reasonably good immunity for about 10 days against this temper there's a room over here to our left is that your operating room it looks as if it is because there's a large table in there yes that's the room we use most that's our operating room in our most used examining room we have our fluids in there you see hanging on the walls those bottles are the same thing they use for intervenous feedings in humans we do that in dogs underneath the skin instead of into the veins what are those fluids dextrose and saline solution and amino acid solution and normal saline solution the things that you commonly find in humans in intervenous feedings and then here in this room there are all our

injectables on that first and second shelf their vitamin injections and anesthetics and numerous other things that you of course antibiotics we use a great deal of those in dogs of penicillin and then the tablets are also our antibiotic tablets that we dispense to people and they give their dogs at home over here to our right is another room this is the x -ray room and I'd like to take a walk in there because this is extremely interesting to me to find that the anti -cruelty society has an x -ray room well we've had this room for many many years I've forgotten the exact date but it was one of the first to x -ray for animals in the city of Chicago we some people generously gave us the money for it and this is an old x -ray machine it's not the latest thing but it works beautifully and we're getting good pictures and it's used a great deal on small animal medicine in the first place of course broken bones dogs hit by cars of the primary reason various other accidents and broken bones this will tell you the story we fluoroscope a great deal because it's faster we don't have to stop and develop the picture and it gives us a good running picture over the whole dog then if there's doubt

we'll change this setup over to the x -ray and take a permanent picture then we use it a great deal dogs and sometimes cats offer ever swallowing things that they shouldn't for one thing they'll chew up bones sometimes you'll get an infection due to bones or due to chewing up toy that's very common we use barium meals very frequently to check that progress of the barium through the intestine and see if there's any blockage there all the things that you do in human x -ray not it's advanced and some of the techniques but the same general principles what if you had a dog with a broken leg would you apply a split the same as you went on a human oh yes very definitely not quite the same as a human dogs heal much more rapidly and of course you have to take into the fact that you have to have a walking split on a dog you cannot put a dog in bed for two to three weeks that's one of the common things over over here in the wall in back of you you see some of our splints that have been made up those are what are called modified Thomas splint it's a very good walking splintage for the

hind leg of a dog that you see it's almost like a crutch that ring at the top comes up underneath their hip and gives them a crutch to walk on and meanwhile you put your leg down between those two side bars and tape it in position put traction on it and that holds it and allows it to heal splints are made out of a very strong wire and then some sort of canvas strap on the bottom of it what about amputations do you conduct amputations here we do when it's necessary and it's frequently necessary we just looked at a dog this morning that might eventually end up that way I hope not but in his case he had a badly damaged nerve in one of the front legs can an animal wear an artificial limb an animal has four legs and they get along very nicely if without one of those four usually an artificial limb is more inconvenience and convenience you'll see if you've ever seen a three -legged dog on the street they get along very very nicely they run almost as fast as a normal dog and you're hardly conscious of it so we don't usually use artificial limbs and animals yes I've seen that in fact I can remember very well a pet that the group of fellas had down at school one time

and it was a three -legged dog and we call it tripod so I suppose all dogs all dogs that have only three legs are called tripod that's a very good name I'm afraid most dogs end up with three legs after they've already got a name of their own but that's I like that name well Dr. Schmidt it's certainly been a pleasure to talk to you in here and very interesting indeed to see the clinic of the anti -cruelty society it's something that I think people who care for animals and love animals should see to see how strange animals are taken care of here in the city of Chicago well thank you very much it was a pleasure to have you and I'm glad you enjoyed seeing our clinic we do a lot of interesting we think work here I think you do too this is the education department mr. Schaefer tell us something about this well mr. Hill this is certainly one of the really happy parts of our work here as you know of course our big job is with animals but it so happens that wherever you find animals you find people and especially kids who love them and our education department here is devoted to presenting programs in the elementary

schools throughout the Chicago area programs that are designed to teach the proper care of animals to youngsters and to teach them why it's necessary and why it's right to be kind to animals and right here is one of our educational folks business Jessica Keller well I'd like to talk to Mrs. Keller and also to the beautiful black French brutal that she has sitting right next to her Mrs. Keller is this your dog yes she belongs to me what do you do with well first of all it's her name her name is lady Bolrev me too all in she is a pedigree yes she has a pedigree she's registered with the American Kennel Club now what is lady do here at the anti -cruelty society what do you use lady for lady goes into the elementary schools with me and I use her so that children can learn sort of a do it yourself program on how to train your dog and obedience because we believe that no matter how good a dog is it's much better if it's obedience trained what are some of the things you do with lady to show the children how to train dogs first of all I show them how to put on a

collar if they're going to train their dog they should have this type of collar for their training period what type you call that well a lot of people mistakenly call it a choke chain it's only a choke chain if it's put on upside down it's really a slip chain or a training collar and I show them how to put that on I show them the importance of getting a good leash with a good snap and I also stress the laws in Chicago tell them that their dog must not be out on the street unless it is on a leash and then we teach to show them how to teach their dog to sit to stand to heel come stay and down we feel that if a dog knows that much basically it's a pretty well -behaved dog now this I said lady is a French poodle is this dog have more intelligence than say a boxer or are just a mutt I don't think so I don't think it makes any difference what kind of a dog a person has if they spend 10 minutes a day with them and if they love them and really are kind to them I think they can teach them almost anything they want to I think you're very rarely see a really dumb dog it's usually the person the dog lives with doesn't take the time to

take care of it is there any difference in training the male and a female not that I know of I do believe for my own personal pets I'd rather have a female I think they stay at home a little bit better than the male dog does but as far as intelligence is concerned of course I'd like to say that I think the females are smarter I thought you were going to I would I'm afraid that I'd be criticized and probably I get an argument on my hands right away well I always thought that male dogs were a little bit harder to train not so not because of their intelligence so much but because they or they just didn't like to be trained it's because of their it's just simply male tendency to want to run a little bit more female is more have to be affectionate and better with children I think and like to stay around home they just don't have the urge to run as much as the male dog does well Mrs. Keller it's certainly been very interesting talking to you and uh watching lady as she goes through her commands thank you very much we've come back to Mrs. Kruger's office now she had received a complaint over the telephone from a mother whose children found a stray animal and brought it home they

kept the animal tied up on the porch and now we want to find out what the outcome of that investigation was because Mrs. Kruger sent an investigator of the anti -cruelty society after that home to find out about it what happened yes well I was fortunate to get our investigator in the afternoon and very near that address so I sent him over there and the mother happened to be home that day and she said that she had no use for a dog that she had the children to take care of and an older her mother taken care of them and and she had to work beside so she just felt that she should let us have the dog so our investigator sent our truck for the dog and we were able to restart to the owner it had no identification but we kept it long enough and the owner finally showed up well that's fine I'm certainly glad to hear that so the mother was was very pleased that we were looking after things like that and and we're able to help her out of this situation because she didn't know where to turn yes well once again Mrs. Kruger me I thank you very much for talking to us thank you now mr.

Shea for there's one place that we haven't gone of course I'd like to go and see I'm not sure that we'll be able to do much talking down there but at least we can hear the dog it'll be rather noisy but I'd like to go down to the kennels if you got your ear plugs ready Mr. Hill yes I'll take them with me let's go well as you can hear we are now down in the kennels actually we're standing in a little office just outside of some of the kennels and we're going to talk to mr. Shea for about what goes on on the outside we didn't go out there because it is a little noisy even from here it's a little bit noisy it's a third way is uh Mr. Hill I think you probably noticed out there that our kennels are classified actually in just two ways for adoption and not for adoption now before adoption means that these animals are available to people who want to come in and adopt them as house pets the not for adoption means that they are lost dogs and we're trying to find the owners we take in approximately 50 ,000

animals a year here and of course our big job when we get a lost dog in is to try to get it back to its rightful owner when we fail in that then we try to find a home for it a large percentage of our dogs also come from people who have to give them up because of some family reason or because maybe they're moving and can't take it with them how many kennels do you have we have uh well an in actual number uh Mr. Hill we have about 60 uh in capacity we can very comfortably handle 175 to 225 animals here and in an emergency we can take care of a lot more than that Mr. Schaefer what are some of the dogs that you have out here uh let's speak specifically about the dogs that are for adoption now let's look down at this in you can tell me about a few yes well just looking on down there I see a very nice beagle I see a real nice little Boston terrier uh a boxer pop and of course uh as always predominates into animal shelter dozens and dozens of those level mixed breed dogs uh certainly we feel here that

breed isn't half as important as whether the dog is going to make a good pet and everybody here understands and knows that a mixed breed dog can make just as good a pet as a pure pet dog well Mr. Schaefer it's about time for us to leave and I certainly have enjoyed taking a trip through the anti -cruelty society we want to thank you very much for allowing us to come over and do the story thank you mr. Hill we've enjoyed having you here that's the story of the Chicago anti -cruelty society and this is Hugh Hill speaking