FROM THE DESK OF DAWN TODD

When most of us talk to our dogs, we tend to forget they're not people.

                                                                                                                  Julia Glass

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          December 6, 2024

Dear Friends,

Have I got a story for you! It’s a bit of a long “tail” but indulge me if you will.

Incredibly, this year marks the twentieth year that I’m writing a year end letter to our supporters. It’s traditionally been the way I wrap up each year. I reflect on our accomplishments and dream up big goals for the coming year. Goals that our tiny grassroots organization, Noah’s Ark Humane Society (NAHS), will work hard to achieve. But this year’s letter will be very different, because this year everything abruptly changed.

But before I get to that, allow me to wind back the clock twenty years. Context will help the story I’m about to tell, and this saga begins in 2003.

2003: While living in Raleigh, Dr. Todd and I founded Noah’s Ark Humane Society, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The original mission was to rescue dogs and cats from shelters with high euthanasia rates and place those pets in loving homes.

2004: We relocated to Franklin after purchasing the business formerly known as “The Animal Clinic”. We renamed the new business Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital. Our non-profit organization, Noah’s Ark Humane Society (NAHS), operated under the roof of Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital.

We quickly realized that the community faced big challenges. Without animal control services, we found animals abandoned at our front door on a near daily basis. There were simply not enough available homes for all the pets who needed them. We responded by expanding the mission of NAHS, partnering with Humane Alliance in Asheville. We began to advocate for sterilization of pets “before the first litter” as the only humane solution to the pet over-population crisis.

During our partnership with Humane Alliance, we were coordinating over 2,000 sterilization surgeries each year. At that point we were optimistic that when the county did finally open an animal shelter, it would not be flooded with homeless pets.

2008: The Great Recession walloped Macon County, but NAHS continued to stay active. During those recession years there were times we thought the “Ark” might not stay afloat. We struggled to pay all the bills. We “robbed Peter to pay Paul” as the saying goes. Unemployment in Macon County approached 10%. Those recession years were the genesis of our Angel Fund. As families struggled to pay basic bills, they needed help more than ever with lifesaving and routine medical care for their pets. Thankfully, Macon County finally opened an animal shelter and NAHS expanded its mission to help families with financial constraints afford lifesaving vet care.

2012: Although officially over, the Great Recession was still being felt in Macon County. Nevertheless, we agreed to participate in a pilot program with Humane Alliance. They wanted to study whether veterinarians in private practice could be trained to operate high volume spay /neuter services at a profit, or at least without losing money. (Spoiler alert: they can’t.)

Humane Alliance brought us all the extra equipment we needed and came on site to train our doctors. We began offering high volume spay/neuter clinics at Noah’s Ark and continued those until this summer. We discovered that we couldn’t cover all the expenses of low-cost surgeries in a full-service animal hospital. However, we continued with the program as a vital community service.

2016: It took until 2016 for Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital to recover from the Great Recession. After eight long years, we were finally growing again. NAHS had attracted increasing community support for our Angel Fund, and low cost spay / neuter services. Because there was no funding in the county budget, we also began offering medical support for animals who came into the county’s animal shelter as trauma or cruelty cases.

2020: Once Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital had survived the recession our thoughts turned to expansion. After opening Noah’s Playground in 2015, we opened Noah’s Play & Train. The grand opening for Noah’s Play & Train was on Valentine’s Day 2020…. and the very next month the pandemic changed everything. Through it all, our Angel donors allowed us to keep offering hope and care for pets and families in need.

2021: We had enough business for four doctors, and we’d been recruiting a vet we really liked for two-years. She had planned to join us, but at the last minute was made an offer she could not refuse by the corporate employer she was leaving. Then Dr. Thomas resigned to move back to Atlanta to be closer to family. Suddenly Dr. Todd and I faced 2022 with just two doctors rather than the four we had been hoping for. At the same time, the pandemic caused a dramatic spike in demand for veterinary services. We engaged two professional recruiters to help us attract a veterinarian to join our team.

2022: Our recruiters sent several good vet candidates to visit Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital. Each time they expressed interest in joining us, each time we lost them to corporate employers offering six figure signing bonuses. The veterinary job market got tighter as the pandemic pushed many baby boomers into early retirement. With the profession now dominated by female veterinarians, many younger vets were forced to take leaves of absence as schools remained closed.

Throughout the year, Dr. Todd and Dr. Brytz did their best to keep up with demand, but exhaustion crept in. Fall 2022, Dr. Brytz shared that she was pregnant with her first child. We were thrilled for her but knew that would leave us with just one veterinarian the summer of 2023. We took our first vacation in six years and discussed our options. Dr. Todd turned 68 years old during that vacation. The business seemed vulnerable. With only two vets, what would happen if either doctor was injured or needed extended time off? We made the fateful decision to seek out a business partner to help us recruit another veterinarian. We believed the ongoing vet shortage left Noah’s Ark too vulnerable, we didn’t want to take that risk for the community.

 2023: January 2nd, Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital went onto the market in search of a business partner. When talking to potential partners, we rejected partners who wanted to buy us outright. We wanted to remain very involved in managing our business. Our first and most important criteria was to find a partner who wouldn’t run us out of our own business. Our worst fear was that after a four-year contract, we’d find working for a partner challenging enough that we’d want to leave.

Throughout the process we were completely transparent about our management structure and the fact that Noah’s Ark Humane Society operated within our for-profit hospital. We received only assurances that our management structure would not change, and that the non-profit could continue to operate as it always had, within the hospital.

After months of meetings and negotiations we picked the partner who appeared to be our best choice. To minimize the riskiness of this decision, we had enlisted the guidance of the most respected broker in the industry. We entered a partnership the end of June 2023 retaining 40% of the business.  From the very first week, nothing unfolded as it had been “sold” to us. I struggled with being the intermediary for the new partners. Dr. Brytz was on maternity leave throughout July and August that year, creating an extreme challenge for Dr. Todd alone to care for all our clients and their pets. On top of it all, I had a complete identity breach that July.

It was….. A LOT.

2024: Despite the initial road bumps, Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital remained healthy and profitable even with the additional layer of bureaucracy. Noah’s Ark Humane Society remained strongly supported, our biggest challenge being the veterinary shortage in our community. Our new partners did not find us more veterinary support. They never brought us a single candidate the first year of our partnership. Things were not going the way we had hoped they would.

Then in early April we got the distressing news that my nephew Corey’s cancer, two years in remission, had returned and he needed to undergo major surgery. Many of you know Corey. He’s worked part-time at Noah’s most of his life. He is technically my nephew, but we adopted him at 2 months old.

The surgery to remove Corey’s cancer was significant enough that we were told to plan for a full week in the hospital. That week turned into a month as life threatening complications arose. Dr. Todd kept working, visiting after hours and weekends. I remained at the hospital for four weeks and spent two more weeks at home caring for him once we were finally discharged. He lost 25 pounds, but his test results all looked great. The cancer had been completely removed.

While I was attending to this family emergency a rumor began circulating among staff that there was going to be a “big shake up” and I was going to be terminated. Dr. Todd confronted our partners with this rumor and received lukewarm assurances that those were just rumors.

Then, four weeks later, we had an abrupt visit from corporate representatives. They did indeed terminate my employment with Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital, the business I “birthed”, the business that I described myself as the symphony conductor of, the business that had consumed me 365 days a year for two decades. In an inexplicable grand gesture, they also banned me from the buildings Dr. Todd and I own but the corporation leases. Then they escorted me from the building, seeming to forget that my husband still works there.

Jennifer Brown left the same day in protest, and in the ensuing two weeks, ten more full and part-time employees left Noah’s Ark. Dr. Todd found himself in an untenable situation. For twenty-five years he had not worked without me.  But not only was he under contract, he also absolutely did not want to leave so many of the clients he cares about without access to care. So, for now he stays put. Contractually obligated to a company who disrespects us both.

Our corporate partners did not anticipate many things when they decided I was expendable. They seemed unaware that I coordinated 100% of the activities of Noah’s Ark Humane Society. When they banned me from the buildings, it had the unintentional consequence of removing the non-profit organization as well. In the short run, that has been terribly difficult for the low-income families who have counted on us.

I feel tremendous sadness and empathy for the families who, without notice, lost services they’d come to depend on, but I’ve never been the kind of person who spends precious energy stewing about things I can’t control. My nature is to stay completely focused on what’s possible, what I can do.

Which brings us to today…

If you’ve hung in there with me for the past 1800 words, I want to sincerely thank you. It’s an excruciating story, but the context is necessary to get to the primary point of this letter, to update you Angels on what we envision for our collective future now.

The truth is, and what our corporate “partners” couldn’t imagine, is that you’ve all been very good to us for a long time. We feel a great debt of gratitude to those of you who have supported both our business and our philanthropic efforts to help low-income families care for their pets. Your generosity has allowed us to step in and offer hope to injured and abused animals when no one else could. Since we arrived in 2004, it’s always been our goal to help create a more humane and compassionate community.

It would be dishonest if I didn’t admit that it’s been terribly stressful to watch decades of hard work unravel.  But in this upheaval, there’s not only loss. I cope by acknowledging the loss, but then moving straight to focusing on the opportunities the loss presents.

For years I’ve considered the legacy of Noah’s Ark Humane Society. I’ve contemplated the ways the organization could become self-sustaining. I’ve imagined a structure that would survive without me. (Not that I’m planning to go anywhere anytime soon!) This sudden opportunity gives us the time to pursue that planning, and that’s what I’ve been doing, full time, since the first day of my involuntary separation from our business.

Those who know me well have heard me say this a thousand times, and it will seem counter intuitive after everything I just shared with you, but… I really have always believed myself to be the luckiest person in the world. I’m certainly the luckiest person I’ve ever known. And that’s why it came as no surprise to me when two days after my termination in July, I found the land I had been searching for. I mean literally searching years for. Acres of flat pasture near town. I bought it that day.

Those lovely meadows will be the future home of NAHS, although there’s a consensus that we will likely not carry forward with the Noah’s Ark name. Sadly, there’s just a bit too much heartbreak and PTSD associated with that name now. Despite Noah’s place in our hearts as our first, and much beloved Great Dane, we’re now in search of a name that will carry us into the future. Same mission, but with bigger, longer-range goals for the community.

What’s in that future?

An upscale thrift store. Our small but mighty grassroots organization needs to be more consistently funded now that we no longer have Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital to operate out of. To accomplish our ambitious goals for increasing access to veterinary care for low-income families, we need funding beyond our annual year-end appeal.

Following the model of many other animal welfare organizations, we’ve decided to open a boutique thrift store to help fund our efforts. We’re happy to announce that we have found a location for that store. You’ll receive more information about the types of donations we’d like to have. We’re hoping to have our store open late spring 2025.   

A non-profit veterinary clinic. Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Hospital abruptly ceased subsidized service to low-income families this year. Dr. Lenzo is retiring May 2025. That will leave a gaping hole in the support net that once existed for low-income families in the community. We’ve got retired veterinarians ready to do this type of work, we primarily need a space to work out of. We’re in negotiations currently and hope to have some exciting announcements this spring on these plans as well.

A high volume spay/neuter surgery suite. The Humane Alliance partnership between 2005-2008 allowed us to offer the highest number of spay/neuter surgery appointments at about 2,000 per year. Since then, Noah’s Ark had been performing about 900 low-cost surgeries per year. In 2024 that number dipped to just shy of 600 surgeries. At the same time, the over-population problem has come roaring back. Our county needs a space where specialty surgeons can do high volume spays and neuters. It’s literally the only humane solution to control pet over-population. We need 200 surgical appointments per month. To get close to number we’ll need to continue to transport pets to Tri-State Spay/Neuter, and we intend to offer low-cost surgeries locally. More information will be forthcoming soon.

A quarantine space. This year nearly 40% of the stray and unwanted pets coming into the county’s shelter were transported out of Macon County to other adoption programs. To remain in good standing with partner groups it is imperative that transported pets be healthy and behaviorally sound. We have a small, temporary quarantine location to assist our local rescue partners. We’re designing and building a new space to evaluate stray and abandoned pets at our new location.

An adoption center. Macon County could really benefit from low stress, pleasant place to view and visit pets who need a home. These pets would ideally be vetted and screened for temperament before being offered for adoption to families. Our new facility will have that space for families who want to bring a new pet into their family by rescuing.

What did Noah’s Ark Humane Society accomplish in 2024?

Despite the “speed bumps” we encountered this year, we adjusted, adapted, and managed to make a difference for hundreds of pets and families.

Help for families in need: Thanks to the generosity of our Angel donors, hundreds of families received help with veterinary emergencies and routine care in 2024. This year we spent just over $30,000 on this type of work. This fall we launched a new program called “Waggin’ Wheels”. We came up with the idea after Hurricane Helene rolled through WNC and national agencies donated tons of supplies. We were able to distribute those donations of pet food, preventatives, and vaccines directly to families identified by Animal Services as indigent. The response to this type of assistance has been heartwarming and the visits help us identify families who need assistance with spaying and neutering pets. It’s a program we’d like to expand next year with your help.

Macon County Animal Services: Much of our activity throughout 2024 ended up being driven by the sheer number of pets abandoned at our county shelter. Pet intakes at the county shelter were up 50% over 2020 numbers. Nearly 1,600 animals will end up in the county shelter this year. For much of 2024 there were 100-150 dogs and cats housed at the shelter, a building built in 2008 to hold no more than 50 pets.

I spent a lot of time at the county shelter this summer. I became so concerned about the welfare of the shelter staff that we pulled and quarantined 50 kittens to prepare them for transport north. It was a naive effort, and an insane amount of work, but I wanted to do something to relieve the pressure that the meager staff were experiencing. Sadly, within two weeks, there were again just as many kittens demanding attention. The same is true of puppies…. there are just soooo many. It’s overwhelming.

Ultimately, we coordinated medical and surgical services for over 100 shelter pets.  We took on several who had complex life-threatening medical conditions. NAHS spent approximately $30,000 on subsidizing medical, surgical care, and preventatives for Macon County’s shelter pets.

Affordable Spay/Neuter Services: The day my employment was terminated there were 90 surgery appointments booked for our upcoming spay/neuter clinics at Noah’s Ark.  There was an exodus of staff, including the surgeon who does those surgeries. We had to quickly offer folks who had paid for an appointment an alternative.

Lucky once again, we partnered with Tri-State Spay /Neuter Clinic in Murphy. That group had access to “The Snippet Bus”, a mobile surgical suite. The Snippet Bus arrived just in time to help clear our backlog of appointments, and they’ve been our salvation since. We’ve been transporting large dogs to Murphy for surgeries and using the Snippet bus for cats and small dogs.

Our “We Like Big Mutts” campaign has brought in many large dogs for sterilization, an important focus since big mutts have BIG litters. It’s not unusual for a hound dog to pop out 14 puppies, but dogs under ten pounds typically have 2-4 puppies. Our critical problem is not tiny dogs, it’s large dogs, especially pit bulls and hound dogs who are very slow to get adopted, if they ever find a home. During 2025 we will continue aggressive campaigning to get large female dogs spayed before they have a single litter.

We’re very grateful for the Tri-State alliance, but we need to offer more surgical appointments. To begin to get a handle on the overpopulation WNC is experiencing, we have a goal of 200 surgery appointments each month. To reach that level, we’ll need a local space and transport options. We’re actively negotiating for surgery space in town, but we have a problem with the transport van. NAHS lacks a transport vehicle large enough to do spay/neuter transports. We’ve survived this year by borrowing vehicles, but that’s not a long-term solution. We’re investigating renting vehicles until we can raise enough money to purchase our own transport van.

Throughout 2024, we spent nearly $30,000 coordinating and subsidizing spay and neuter surgeries for family pets.

Transporting Pets North: Transporting dogs and cats north provided relief to the overcrowded shelter this year, but it can’t be the whole solution. It’s terribly time consuming and expensive to transport homeless pets out of the county. It’s much more efficient to decrease the number of pets coming into the shelter through early spay/neuter efforts. But, until we have enough access and funding for much higher sterilization rates, transport is the only option to euthanasia. So, until we bring down shelter intakes, we need to transport out of the county.

There’s another important reason that transporting homeless pets north cannot be relied on as a long-term solution to our shelter overcrowding. Shelters across the entire US are experiencing families relinquishing pets at higher rates citing inability to afford their care. There are also reports of longer stays for pets in shelters, and fewer overall adopters. Can you guess the prime reason cited by people as an obstacle to getting one or more pets, or keeping pets they have? Unsurprisingly, it’s the ever-increasing cost of pet ownership. Costs that have risen much faster than inflation.

We’d like to help more families keep their pets happy and healthy at home.

Here’s what your generous donations help us achieve:  

Spay/neuter surgeries: Grants for spaying and neutering pets have dwindled in the past twenty years. We require families seeking assistance to contribute as much as they can, but many need help with even low-cost fees. Because it’s so critical to population control to spay before even one unwanted litter is born, we do not encourage waiting long periods to “save up” for surgery. That’s when accidental litters get dropped off at the county shelter. Our average client contributes $50, or about 40% of the cost, towards a surgery that costs $100-$250 for us. Every contribution of $50-$100 subsidizes one community surgery. We’re allocating $30,000 for this purpose in 2025.

The Nearly New Boutique: Our new thrift store, once up and running, is projected to double our operating budget. However, first we’ll need to invest in making the space operational. We need donations for location improvements, and we’ll depend on donations of unwanted items from our Angels to make the store a success. We estimate preparing this space will cost $30,000, but that investment will yield years of returns.

A Transportation Van: A used van, large enough to do transports to Murphy and Asheville, will cost $40,000. A dedicated transport van will also help us increase the reach of our Waggin’ Wheels community outreach program. Resources invested to reduce unwanted litters, and the incidence of parvo is not only an efficient use of donations, but also the humane solution.

Angel Fund: Noah’s Ark Humane Society is most widely known for our Angel Fund, literally the only one of its kind in Western North Carolina. Our requirements help us get the maximum impact out of donations. After 20 years in this community, I can attest that while our vaccination and spay/neuter programs tackle big problems, the gratitude expressed by families, who get thrown a lifeline when they need it most, is its own reward.

Today I’m working to help a lovely, super hard-working family with young children who absolutely adore their four-year-old mixed breed dog. They relocated to our area for work this year. The problem is that their furry family member has cancer on one foot that must be contained by removing at least part of his leg, there are no other practical options. We’re going to give them some piece of mind for Christmas and help them get this surgery.  We’d like to dedicate $30,000 for this type of work next year as well.

The work we do would simply not be possible without the donations we receive from those of you we call Noah’s Angels. Only together can we make Macon County an even more beautiful and humane place to live. I hope this year you’ll be an Angel – bringing happiness and hope to others in this season of goodwill.

As you plan year-end giving, will you be an Angel to someone who needs you?

We invite you to join our small but mighty army of angels at one of these levels:

$5,000 - Top Dogs

$2,500 - Best Buddies

$1,000 - Faithful Friends

$500 - Paw Protectors

$250 - Kitten Companions

$150 - Puppy Pals 

PS: If a monthly donation is easier, you can save postage and donate online by visiting https://www.noahs-cares.org/donate-1

Dr. Todd and I remain deeply grateful for the support we’ve received over the decades we’ve lived in this community. We can’t hide that we’re 20 years older than when we first started coming to you for support, but the passage of time has not made us care less. We still believe your household income doesn’t change how much you love your companion pets. Pets make our stressful, uncertain world better…. whether you’re rich or poor. I often argue that the inability to get a pet help, simply because you don’t have the money, creates a level of stress that makes people sick.

After a stressful and turbulent 2024, let’s consider offering our neighbors with or without pets, rich or poor, from the red or blue team, crazy or sane, naughty or nice, something we can all afford to give …. Grace.

If you’d like to join our effort to bring compassion, kindness, and hope to those who struggle, we humbly ask for your support. Thank you for taking the time to read this very long letter and thank you for caring about the most vulnerable people and pets in our wonderful and diverse community.

We appreciate you,

Dawn Todd, Director Noah’s Ark Humane Society

When we see suffering, we have a choice: to turn away, or to step forward. Let’s step forward together.