Animal Care & Control’s Education Department is pleased to partner once again with Student Focus on Health, a Midwest Alliance for Health Education, in an effort to keep children safe.  The community affairs project targets elementary through high school age students with presentations traditionally offered in the fall.

The ultimate goal is to encourage healthy lifestyles beginning in early childhood in hopes of promoting a long productive life.  With age-appropriate topics, students are made aware of the impact of unhealthy habits, and are taught alternative choices to improve their health and well being.

Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control’s emphasis is to teach students safe and respectful behaviors when they interact with animals, and, more specifically, how children can avoid being bitten or scratched by an animal.  Through pictures of dogs in various stances, students better understand potential threats when they see stiffness or staring, a lip curl, or various signals that indicate a stressed animal.  The education department’s goal is to teach students what to do, what not to do, and to assess a dog’s body language in time to remove themselves before it elevates to a bite.

In addition to Student Focus on Health, the shelter’s education department has adopted 514 area classrooms this school year and will provide them with monthly education information that promotes responsible pet care and fosters respectful and caring attitudes along with bite prevention and animal safety.

Here a a couple of links that are examples of what these students are learning:

Dog Safety

Stray Dogs

Contributed by Peggy Bender, Public Community Relations & education Specialist, Animal Care & Control

Photo by: Dave Herr, USDA Forest Service

Imagine the scare of hearing something creeping around your home in the early morning hours.  That’s precisely what happened with Pam Messman, a city resident who discovered she had a posse of raccoons throwing a small party in her kitchen.  The raccoons were smart to choose a great food source, but Pam didn’t toss down a welcome mat for the three wild critters that had entered from a hole beneath her kitchen sink.  Fortunately she knew to call Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control for service.  In a case like this, even if our officers have gone home for the night, we will dispatch an officer to run the call.  Our officers who are on call have take-home vehicles so they can respond quickly to what is considered a public safety emergency.

Some types of wildlife inside your home put family members at risk.  The normal course of action is to see if the animals can be lured outside.  In this case the raccoons went into hiding, so a live trap was the next best option.  As soon as the raccoons went inside the trap to eat the bait, Pam called us to return and remove the animals from her city residence.

We know that raccoons rarely exhibit a fear of people since they are born and raised in neighborhoods.  They have replaced their former nesting places with attics, crawlspaces, chimney dampers, hot tubs, decks, tool sheds and storm drains.  Dog and cat water bowls, swimming pools and ponds have replaced water sources such as creeks and springs. Raccoons are nocturnal animals that roam neighborhoods at night looking for food.  They are opportunistic feeders, dining on insects, fruits, vegetables, acorns, seeds, fish and small mammals, as well as dog and cat food and garbage left out overnight.  Litters are usually born in April or May and range in size from one to nine, although the average is four.  By mid-June, most young raccoons accompany their mother on food searches and begin to learn survival skills.

If you are a city resident and a wild animal is inside your home, Animal Care & Control can provide you with a live trap to catch and remove the animal.  Wild animals that are creating a nuisance outside your home are not considered a threat to public safety.  They can be handled by calling a nuisance wildlife removal company or simply removing the conditions that are attracting them to your home.

Keep your chimney capped and secure your trash can lid with a thick rubber strap with hooks on the end.  Look for holes that may give wildlife easy access to your home.  For additional information, visit our website at www.fwacc.org and click the link on wildlife or visit www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/2351.htm.  To request a trap, call our business office at 427-1244 (option 7).

Local Companies Licensed by the DNR for Wildlife Removal

Critter Control:                       (260) 625-3099

Naylor and Sons:                     (260)436-2792

Sly Fox Wildlife Control:       (260) 637-8861

Contributed by Peggy Bender, Community Relations & Education Specialist, Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control