PCSing? Find your pet a home, if you can't take him with you Published June 13, 2006 By Maggie Cotner 100th Air Refueling Wing Community Relations RAF MILDENHALL, England -- Every year there are families who find themselves unable to take their pet with them when they go on to their new posting. If you want your pet to find a English home, Sal Davidson, my counterpart at RAF Lakenheath, and I will do our best to help you. We have an e-mail network of local British families looking for companion animals, usually dogs. We monitor their requests carefully, and will be glad to pass on names and telephone numbers so that you can arrange to visit the families in their homes and have them visit you. You know your own pet, and can best evaluate the situation into which he might be going. He can’t select his new home –– he has to rely on you to get it right for him. We also keep copies of the Kennel Club’s rescue directory, giving details of rescue groups in each area that will help rehome dogs of specific breeds, and we’ve found them to be both understanding and helpful. Another option is to put your pet into a local rehoming sanctuary. It may be, however, that the only animal shelter you’ve come across in the states is the city pound. The sanctuaries our two bases use are not run in anything like the same way. All of them guarantee they will never put a healthy animal down, unless its behaviour is so savage or disturbing that the likelihood of finding it a permanent haven is slim. Such cases are rare, and in every case the long-term wellbeing of the animal is the first consideration. The best sanctuaries are always full, and have a waiting list of animals in need of new homes, so if this is the route you want to take, contact us as early as possible. The more notice we have, the more likely we are to be able to help. Don’t let a short-notice emergency stop you from contacting us, though. We’ll give it our very best shot. We have fewer British families waiting to adopt cats, so we rehome them through three of the United Kingdom’s most prominent animal charities, Wood Green Animal Shelter, Cats Protection League, and the Blue Cross. You can find details of all of them on the Web, and you’ve probably seen animal rescue programs that feature them on British television. Their accommodation is roomy and comfortable, each cat having an individual pen. At the back there’s a separate sleeping area to which they can retire when they’re tired of people. Inside there’s a blanket-lined bed on a raised shelf. The animals are kept warm either by a heated metal plate under their bedding that’s permanently switched on and is activated by the weight of the cat’s body, or there’s a heating lamp in the ceiling that turns itself on during the night, and when the weather is chilly. They’re fed high-quality food every morning and evening, and there’s enough room in the front part of the pen for them to play, climb and jump. That’s where their toys and litter tray are. The standards of hygiene and care are high, their litter being changed every day and the tray scrubbed with disinfectant. Their bedding is incinerated when they’re re-homed, and their pens hosed down. If you want to go and look at the sanctuaries before you decide, we can e-mail directions to you. Because some pets have to wait for admission to a re-homing sanctuary, we have a small group of people on both bases willing to foster animals in their home, in emergency situations, but we do need more. Anyone offering to foster a dog would need a family member who was home most of the day, plus a home with a fenced or walled yard. They must also be prepared to take the dog for walks, and allow it normal access to the house, especially overnight. Cat fosterers ideally need a spare room in which the cat can be kept, preferably with a windowsill on which it can sit and watch the world go by. Families giving up their cats for fostering will normally bring a litter tray, litter, food bowls and a supply of food, when they deliver their pet. It’s wiser to keep cats indoors during their period of fostering, so that they don’t run off to try to find their family. To volunteer as a fosterer, or to ask for help, contact myself at RAF Mildenhall on DSN 238-2254, or e-mail maggie.cotner@mildenhall.af.mil.