Few animals displaced by Thomas Fire still in shelters
Covered in ash and emaciated, the white horse wandered around Santa Paula alone after the Thomas Fire raged through Ventura County on Dec. 4.
He ended up at the Humane Society of Ventura County in Ojai, where, appropriately enough, workers named him Tommy. They soon determined he was between 15 and 20 years old, and a mix of Percheron and Arab.
“He came to us on Dec. 13 — his name was inspired by the fire,” said Greg Cooper, director of community outreach at the Humane Society. “A couple of citizens found him wandering around Foothill and Briggs in Santa Paula. He had no identification, no halter. So they got a horse trailer and brought him to us.”
Only a few animals are still unclaimed after being dropped off at animal shelters throughout Ventura County after the Thomas Fire, and Tommy is one of them. Workers at these shelters are trying to reunite these last few pets with their owners or find loving homes through adoption.
The Humane Society took in about 300 animals, and 50 are still on site, Cooper said. In most of those cases, he explained, owners are "still trying to find a permanent solution for them at their homes.”
At Ventura County Animal Services in Camarillo, 994 animals came into the shelter for “safe keeping,” including cats, dogs, horses, chickens, hens, roosters and peacocks, said Randy Friedman, marketing manager.
“They have all been returned to their owners” or adopted, he said.
The Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center took in 29 animals, and three dogs remain unclaimed, said Nicky Gore-Jones, executive director of SPARC.
Friedman attributes the huge number of successful reunions to staff and volunteers who worked around-the-clock.
“Historically, it was the worst brush fire in California’s modern history," he said. "For us, it was the worst disaster we’ve ever had to take part in."
At the county's animal shelter in Camarillo, "people were working multiple shifts, our volunteers put in 1,876 hours, and the staff worked 3,763 hours during the Thomas Fire.”
He also credits social media.
Read more:
Crowded shelters open to displaced animals
“We did a really good job of getting the word out,” Friedman said. “We did a video that went viral and reached over 600,000 people and we didn’t even sponsor it. Yes, there’s a certain amount of luck. Had we not done that, we would have had a lot of animals here in our care.”
When Tommy arrived at the Humane Society, “he was in pretty bad shape,” Cooper said.
Workers there gave him a bath and had him checked by a veterinarian. They put him on a special diet to get his weight back up.
“We’ve kept him in our care this entire time,” Cooper said. “We would very much love the owners to come forward because we don’t know who he is. Or if anyone can help identify him, we’d certainly like to reunite him. If that’s not going to happen, we’ll put him up for adoption.”
Today, Tommy is doing well.
“He’s in very good spirits now — he’s actually very playful and having a good time,” Cooper said. “When he first got here he was nothing but hungry so all he wanted to do was eat. That’s changed. He’s very playful. His temperament has changed quite a bit.”
Of the 29 animals that came to SPARC within 10 days of the fire, three dogs remain: Santa and Paula, a brother and sister that are German shepherd mixes, and Spark, another German shepherd mix.
It would be ideal if Santa and Paula, who were named at SPARC upon their arrival, were adopted together, Gore-Jones said.
She added that Paula has a bit of a quirky personality that might have been caused by the fire.
“There’s nothing mean about her — it may be PTSD, she might be traumatized,” Gore-Jones said. “Maybe she was hit by a car when she was on the road. So it’s all a big mystery to us.”
For more information on animal adoptions, call the Humane Society of Ventura County at 805-646-6505 or visit www.hsvc.org. To reach the Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center, call 805-525-8609 or visit www.santapaulaarc.org. To reach Ventura County Animal Services, call 805-388-4341 or visit www.vcas.us/.