Bill Bruce and Jane Hoffman have a few things in common. Bruce is from Calgary, Canada, and Hoffman is from New York City.
It is, indeed, a tail of two cities -- and a successful tale at that.
"They're both large cities with one common purpose," Bruce says, "and that's the goal of No More Homeless Pets."
Jane is with the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals, a coalition of nonprofit animal rescue groups, while Bruce is director of animal and bylaw services for the City of Calgary.
"If Calgary were in the U.S., we'd be the 11th largest," Bruce says. And that means large numbers of animals.
In New York City in 2002, 74 percent of cats and dogs in city shelters were euthanized. Out of those dire straits, the alliance was formed.
Conversely, in Bruce's part of the world, "twenty-five years ago, Calgary had shameful numbers of animals who were being put down. We had high dog-fight rates. It was the bottom of the barrel," Bruce says.
But that was then, and this is now. The two shared their respective successes at the No More Homess Pets Conference workshop titled, appropriately, "A Tail of Two Cities."
To change the tide, Bruce focused on building a community of responsible pet people, while Hoffman, as president of the alliance, has built partnerships and brought animal welfare groups together to help the problem of animal overpopulation.
"In my mind," Bruce told a packed auditorium, "pets are part of the community. The fair and humane treatment of animals is where it starts."
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