Advocating for Animals: Katherine Lacefield's Passionate Mission in Pet Welfare

Julie Marty-Pearson 0:00

Hello, my friends and fellow animal lovers. I am very happy to bring to you a brand new episode of the Story of my PET podcast, and I am welcoming today to the podcast, Katherine Lacefield. Thank you for coming and being here.

Katherine Lacefield 0:15

My pleasure. Always a great opportunity to talk about my pets.

Julie Marty-Pearson 0:18

Absolutely. We were just talking about, we could talk about 'em for hours if you let us. So I always love to, get to know the person that is on the podcast and get a little history of your life with animals. So have you always been a animal lover? Did you grow up with pets?

Katherine Lacefield 0:40

So that's an interesting question. I've always loved animals, but I would say we, we were always like failed pet parents. When I was a kid, it was always we would adopt or, get an animal and then it wouldn't work out. So I didn't have a good. Like history, if I could say, of having pets myself. I remember had a rabbit, his name was Patch. I had him for a while. But we never were in the right, like responsible situation for parenting a pet. So that kind of was a bad example if I could say. However, I was involved in the environmental movement from a very young age, and that kind of made the connection between. Connecting with animals, protecting the environment, and just got me really involved in animal welfare, animal rights from a very young age. Like I was 15 when I started really getting involved in those movements and that just one thing led to another. And before I knew it, I was working in an animal shelter. And obviously once you work there, you end up with way too many animals at your house because you're having to foster all the ones that wouldn't have made it if no one took them in.

Julie Marty-Pearson 1:43

Oh my gosh, that is so true. And I started volunteering and then I worked part-time in a shelter, and while I was doing that, I fostered Yeah. It's like a domino effect. Yes. Once you're in the world it's just

Katherine Lacefield 1:57

one more, just one more. But this one. Oh, but this one is, no one else can take him. Only I can take him. And I

Julie Marty-Pearson 2:03

also think it's important for people to understand that because I think a lot of times shelter employees get a back wrap. Like it's not their fault what's happening. They're doing everything they can. And most shelter employees not only work full-time there, but they take them home as fosters. They try to network them, they transport, they do all the things and yep. They're literally living it 24 7. So it sounds like you had that experience too. Yes.

Katherine Lacefield 2:29

I remember the worst the worst, the most animals I had. At one point we were in a three bedroom apartment. So we had, we were three, we were four roommates actually. And we had two rabbits. Two rats. We had a litter of five kitchens, and then two other random ones that we like plugged in that didn't have any brothers or sisters. A fake mama cat. Do Argentino like that was the, in an apartment in like a city. It was insanity, but it was so worth it. And like you said, like I'll, oftentimes people are like, oh, it's just the crazy cat lady or the crazy, pet person, but. A lot of these animals, like only shelter employees that had experience doing certain types of treatments or with certain behavior problems like a death dog, like that's more of a sensitive case. They would only usually trust their employees to bring home those animals. So it's either we bring them home or they get euthanized. So it was a, it's a tough decision when you're faced with that on a daily basis.

Julie Marty-Pearson 3:29

Absolutely. And that's what a lot of the shelter workers see. They see the ones coming in at 4:00 PM they're only open for another hour. They know there's no way they're gonna find a foster in time. They have to take them home or, so many, especially neonatal kittens and puppies get saved by staff because. There's so few fosters already, but even less that are able to care for, really young animals. Yeah. That's a really important thing to like people be nice to your shelter workers 'cause they are doing the hard stuff. Yes. And they burn out and, it was hard for me when I was in the shelter and seeing, the euthanasia list every day. And it's just heartbreaking. So they deserve all the love, right? It's tough. It's tough for sure. So tell the listeners about your current fur family. What does that include? So I have both of them sitting at my feet

Katherine Lacefield 4:20

right now. I had been pushing off having a pet for a very long time because my husband and I are very nomadic. We've moved. I don't even know how many times in the last eight years, like I've lost count 15 times. Like we're just constantly changing. We've been to 12 countries in the past 12 months, so getting pets was for me, just, I didn't wanna put the animals through that and constantly be looking for pet sitter. And it's expensive, let's be honest. So we had been pushing it off for a long time, but I definitely. Missed having animals in my life. And so another dog that's behind me, Pugsley, you don't see him, but he's over there on the bed. So my husband's ex, which we have a very good relationship, we moved to Mexico, all four of us together. Her with her husband, and my husband with myself. They have a pug. We ended up living in their house for year, and the pug basically adopted me and I was taking care of him and walking him, and I just missed having a dog. So when we ended up moving out on our own, and my husband's dream dog is a Frenchie, and I know everyone's gonna say, oh, Frenchy is, as I know all of the history of the yes, I get it. But this one is special. Of course. He has no health problems. He's, he is a great dog. He's amazing. So we got our first Frenchie fell in love. His name is Chaco. Sitting on my feet now. Then that was what we were gonna say. Okay, now we're good. Ha. Then I started volunteering at an, a local animal shelter in Mexico, and if stray dogs isn't as much a problem in the US and in Canada, in most places. We deal with stray cats, not so much stray dogs. In Mexico, there's a huge problem with a lot of stray dogs and they're often in, in pretty bad shape. So one day. I was I was about to go do a photo shoot for some of the dogs at the animal shelter, and we got a volunteer who wrote in our volunteer WhatsApp group that I had started two months earlier saying, I just found a dog and I have two dog aggressive dogs at home and I can't keep him. The shelter was full, of course surprise, they couldn't take him in. And of course we didn't know if he had diseases or anything, so we would've had to be isolated. They didn't have the capacity. And no one else was standing, taking up the offer. When I saw the video of the dog, I couldn't. I just, I couldn't I, and I'm usually, I put up barriers. I'm become much less sensitive to those issues after years of working shelter work. But there was something about this dog that I was like, okay, fine. I'll take him for a few days. And we can all guess what happened with that.

Julie Marty-Pearson 6:54

Yes. Few days turns into a lifetime. Basically.

Katherine Lacefield 6:59

That was the story. So he was a very bad case. Like he was basically skin and bones. He had no more fur from just bad situation of not feet eating enough, being outside in the sun. He had heartworm he was battling an infection. So of course those first three days he couldn't go to the shelter. They had to finish the treatment and he wouldn't have been able to be adopted. 'cause they only did international adoptions. 'cause he had to finish three weeks of antibiotics, then do his two months treatment for heartworm before he could travel. 'cause he couldn't get castrated until all that was done. So it was like okay. And then we went on a trip to Guatemala. I got both of my dogs, babysat by someone and. They wrote to me the shelter saying, Hey, we have a potential home for, we called them Mr. Pickles so we have a potential home for Mr. Pickles. And I just started crying of I couldn't imagine sending Mr. Pickles off to someone else. It was just like, no. So my husband and I decided to just, let's just deal with the reality of this guy's not going anywhere. And so Mr. Pickles is now with us every day.

Julie Marty-Pearson 8:07

I love that. I always say the pets were meant to have find us. And it sounds like that's exactly what happened. Exactly. And I think also a lot of what you said is important for people to realize is that animals going between countries is very difficult. I had on the podcast previously someone who works for. SBCA, international, and she talked a little bit about that as people don't realize the red tape and the process, and like you said, quarantine or certain things have to be done before. And there are specifically rescues that work with getting dogs outta Mexico into the us but now the US is even more overpopulated. So there's not always a good place for any of it, but it's very complicated.

Katherine Lacefield 8:48

It's very complicated. We went to Columbia, we brought both of our dogs and. Like the process is you have to basically import your animal through like agriculture. So you have to get them, like all these, this paperwork done and vaccines up to date and every country has different rules and different regulations, so it's really complicated even for some vets. So for example though, if something silly about like in Columbia. The vaccine date and the microchip date had the vaccine had to be done like after the microchip or something like that. Something that has nothing, doesn't change anything. But then in Europe, if we were to bring them to Europe, it'd be the opposite. And so it's just there's so much rules around this and it actually is very difficult for people who are, let's say, leaving difficult situations if they have to leave. Let's say if there're there's a war, for example, what's happening in Ukraine then? Unfortunately. They sometimes can't even bring their pets. It's very difficult.

Julie Marty-Pearson 9:45

Yeah. So much of that people don't realize or see the, day-to-day of what the animals are being put through and what it takes to get them out of certain countries and into others. And even like in the US I've had friends who've moved to Hawaii and there's like a six month quarantine to take any pets there, and it's I can't imagine putting my pet in quarantine for that long and not being able to see them. So I know. Yeah, so much of that attacks, islands are the worst. Yeah.

Katherine Lacefield 10:11

No islands in general, like we were thinking of moving to Mauritius. And Mauritius also has a whole bunch of red tape around importing animals because they can have more control from a disease perspective around overpopulation. By not having just, bringing in their pets. So I understand from a public health perspective and but. Like the tests they wanted us to do were just ridiculous. So yeah, it's complicated. Yeah.

Julie Marty-Pearson 10:38

Yes. So your love of animals also transcends into the work that you do with your, just because consulting, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Katherine Lacefield 10:49

So if any of you listeners have ever been in a shelter, worked in a shelter, done anything with a shelter. If you ask anyone do you like fundraising? I'm sure the answer you would've gotten from anyone is hell no. I don't wanna ask anyone for money. So I was the weird one that really liked fundraising. So even when I was working at the reception at Montreal, SBCA, when I was working at the animal shelter I would be the weirdo that didn't feel uncomfortable asking people who are bringing in a stray animal that they found of Hey, would you like to donate to help support this animal's placement to the new home? I've gotten many people that donated. And so that kind of inspired me to be like, Hey, I could do this. This could be something that I could do. So I ended up working in another animal organization just doing fundraising and 10 years later I am still doing fundraising. But now I felt that what I would, what I could do to have the most impact in the animal welfare world would be to support many nonprofits. Into supporting their fundraising and growing their capacity around fundraising because no one likes doing it. So if I can help them and inspire them to do that, then I'll have much more impact if I was just one fundraiser in one nonprofit organization.

Julie Marty-Pearson 12:02

And definitely a lot of people who work in shelters and rescues don't necessarily have education around nonprofit work or how to do grant writing or fundraising. It's all very. Complicated. And you have to know what you're doing too, let alone so many people at the shelters, they just don't even have time to focus on it. 'cause they're doing all the day-to-day stuff.

Katherine Lacefield 12:21

Exactly. Exactly. And like in the states, there are training platforms, if you are a fund like looking that. To start a nonprofit, first of all, don't do it. There's so many. Try to work with an existing one. But if you do have a nonprofit already that exists, my one suggestion would be to equip yourself with knowledge, build up your network of people that can support you and teach you things. There are lots of courses like on Coursera or Udemi, or you can take university classes on fundraising, on philanthropy and just start learning because. Those tools and that toolbox that you're gonna build up for yourself is gonna be super helpful. And of course, i'm slightly biased as a consultant myself, but sometimes if you're not an expert, having an a, an expert follow you and work with you for a few months as you're building up your programs can be really helpful in setting the stage and then you can go out on your own. So sometimes it's, you don't have to hire a super expensive employee that has experience. You can just have someone come in, help you set up the systems and then leave. And that's what I really try to focus on is building up the capacity of nonprofits, especially in the animal space.

Julie Marty-Pearson 13:28

Yeah. It's so important. Consultants can help in a lot in a big way. 'cause they can come in and give the processes and the structures, like you said, without having to stay there to do all the work down the line. So very important. So you actually started a podcast yourself about that. Can you talk about what you talk about on that?

Katherine Lacefield 13:46

Definitely. So once again I'll share a fundraising story that kind of explains a lot of the negative perceptions people have about the animal welfare world. I don't know if this is something that you have. Lived or someone listening has lived this, but I was doing fundraising. There's annoying people on the street that go Hey, do you have two minutes to talk about Greenpeace or Amnesty International, or whatever it is. Red Cross. Yeah. I was one of those pe one of those people for many years. And I remember very clearly this one day where I was doing fundraising, you were trying to close down puppy mills. Like I believe that Puppy Mills is a very. Everyone is against puppy males. Like it's not a it's not like veganism or that can be very controversial, or this is, it's a universal thing we can all be against. Voila. Exactly. So we were signing petitions against puppy males and this man came up and literally stood in front of me, spat on me, literally spat on me. And then said, how dare you be here defending animals when there are children dying in Syria because of the war. So this was back in when Syria was the big war that we were talking about, and I was just like, how is that connected? Does that mean that every nonprofit has to put down their work and just focus on this current emergency of today? Right now, this is the sense of competition of if we're supporting this cause it means we don't support this cause is a fallacy. Like it's just wrong. You don't know. Maybe our company, which we weren't, we were the nonprofit themselves, but maybe our company does have support of, whatever's happening in other countries you don't know. So there's a lot of this blame and judgment. And I felt that a lot where people feel like there's this competition between those who protect animals and those who protect people and that they don't like each other. So the whole podcast was to really build up the intersectionalities between a lot of these causes and show how. By helping animals, we're actually helping people as well, or we're defending the environment or protecting human health. There's so much connection to be had there. So that was where I wanted to start this podcast, to not only obviously share information about fundraising tips and, put myself out there as a consultant, but also try to change the narrative that we have that, people that like animals hate people. That is, that's not true. They might seem like it sometimes. And I would, I remember hearing very often at the animal shelter, oh, I hate people. I hate people. We don't hate people. We hate people that abuse animals. Yeah. We don't we hate that situation. We don't hate people themselves. And I really wanted to change that. But going really well, we've had some amazing stories of how, just con inter so just how interconnected a lot of these causes are.

Julie Marty-Pearson 16:20

No. So when I worked at one of my shelters part-time for a while I was. Helping to run the offsite dog adoption events. And in so doing that acted a lot with the public and I too realized the lack of understanding and awareness that causes people to be negative about things. Like they would fight with me about what happens to them when they get taken off the street into the shelter. I'm like, we don't euthanize them right away. We're not allowed to do that. That doesn't happen. And even just. The simple, no kill versus kill shelter that people do not really all understand. They don't get it. What that means. They don't get it. And so I get what you're saying 'cause that's really why I keep this podcast going is education is key to any kind of movement, any kind of advocacy. And people don't know what they don't know, right? We don't know if we haven't experienced it ourselves, but I've also seen that competition within nonprofits. Even within the animal world, I've seen rescues fight over funding. And so it's, it is crazy. And so I really, I'm glad you have this podcast 'cause it's needed. It's needed for people to understand that we can have a, cause that's important to us. That doesn't mean we don't have empathy for all the other 50,000 causes that are going on that need help too. We all pick our focus and what really means something to us.

Katherine Lacefield 17:35

Exactly. We can't all be experts in everything. And I think we all need to choose. What motivates us? 'cause yes, I could and that's why I specialize in animal and environmental fundraising 'cause that's where my heart is. That's where I'll have the most impact and most motivation. If I don't care about the cause that I'm working for, I will not be the best person suited to actually advance this organization. So there's a lot of these things where people have to realize that we can't all be experts in everything. We can't be defending every single cause out there and Right. That's beautiful because that means that so many people can defend so many causes. Because we're not in competition, we're working together towards similar goal. We're just taking different approaches to it.

Julie Marty-Pearson 18:16

Absolutely. So true. That's why I started. I always say when I started this podcast, I thought I was an animal advocate, but I realized I knew about that much of the actual reality of animal welfare, animal rescue, all the different complications and different aspects that all change depending on where you live and who runs the shelter and all of those things. So yeah, I think this is such a great conversation for people to listen and just realize that. A part of advocacy is listening and understanding and hearing different perspectives and not, it's not about competition. It's about especially how organizations can work together, because that's where the power is for

Katherine Lacefield 18:55

each.

Julie Marty-Pearson 18:56

Yes.

Katherine Lacefield 18:57

We really need to start seeing that and I'll give just a quick example before we move on. There's this amazing organization that's, it's happening more and more everywhere that I'm seeing it in Canada and the US and elsewhere. They're called Pause For Hope. They're in British Columbia, Canada. And what they do is they actually have a foster network specifically for women or men leaving domestic abuse for people dealing with addiction or. They need to go through rehab. They will take the person's animal into a safe place where they can, make sure that they're safe, but that the human can also find the safe place that they need to heal themselves. So when we're talking about how does an animal shelter help people, this is a perfect example. If this woman or this man is not leaving their domestic abusive partner because they're scared of what's gonna happen to their pet, or they can't bring their pet to a shelter. They would either wanna abandon that animal, which does lead to the animal needing to be placed, which causes pressure on the shelter. And this animal has a home, a loving home, that wants to keep it with, that wants to keep him. So you're helping both the animal and the person that is going through a tough time. And we have to start understanding that. And people don't think about that. They make this judgment of. You should have thought about that. What I should have thought about the possibility of my partner being abusive. Like you can't predict these things. This judgment needs to stop

Julie Marty-Pearson 20:20

without getting super political. Unfortunately, I see that a lot right now in California around the immigration issues. Oh goodness. You are having, our shelters are being impacted by animals being abandoned because their families are being taken off the street or what may happen. And people are saying they shouldn't have gotten a pet. It's what? Okay I don't see you getting in line. They were, they had a good home. These animals were cared for and taken care of and loved, and now they don't understand what happened and we're, they're being put into a shelter that's already overcrowded. So yeah, people don't see the impact of. People issues that impact the animals. And I have seen so much research out there about domestic violence where people won't leave because they can't take their animals. Yes. And people don't realize in a domestic violence situation, sometimes that pet is the only person they have. For comfort, for support, and they know if they leave them that pet could be impacted by the abuse because they've left, let alone Yes. Being put in a shelter and a lot of shelters don't allow pets. And that impacts homelessness in general too. With the economy, people are losing their homes and they can't take their pets with them. So yeah, it. Such a bigger, complicated issue than a lot of people realize. So that was such a great example to use because it's really important to understand how the shelter plays a role in that process, but it's also being more overcrowded because of all of that happening in the world.

Katherine Lacefield 21:44

You can't, we can't. Start separating things. We can't separate physical health from mental health. We can't separate child's wellbeing in school with how he's doing at home. Like we, we have to stop creating these boxes and silos and start seeing how, animals are part of our family in Canada. I know what the sta, I don't know what the stats are in the states, but there are more people with pets than with children. People like their pets, and we have to understand that this is part of our society now. They are a very active part of our society, and we need to take them into consideration. And it's not about better or worse than humans, it's just they're an equal part of our families and we need to consider that. Absolutely.

Julie Marty-Pearson 22:25

So if someone is listening right now and is passionate about any topic, but something around animal welfare and rescue, what would be something you would say, here are the first things you could do to start supporting people in your community in this way. So many, but

Katherine Lacefield 22:42

definitely as you said. Just first of all, start thanking and appreciating the people that are working in the sector. And we need to stop thinking that everyone that's working in animal welfare should be a volunteer. They're all giving so much of their time and effort. This is a job, like any other job is out there. They are offering a public service by taking care of these animals. 'cause look what's happening in Mexico and India is even more insane. If we didn't have people taking care of the stray animal population, we would have a public health issue as well. So first of all, appreciate gratitude if you can support your local animal shelter. The best way of doing that is through a small monthly donation, even if it's $10 a month. The more people that support on a regular recurring basis, the more any shelter or any organization can really invest in long-term solutions to, to actually changing the situation. If you can foster, please do most shelters Fostering is the solution of. Combating overcrowding, making sure that these animals don't get sick, that they don't become neurotic from being in a cage for so long. So if you can open up your home temporarily to an animal, those are two things that you can do. Donate. Foster as much as you can, and of course, adopt. Let's not you, let's not forget that.

Julie Marty-Pearson 23:56

Obviously that's even better. But you know, fostering is a great way to give back because most rescues and shelters are gonna give you all the supplies. You're just giving your time and the space in your home for those animals, especially the younger animals that. Could be euthanized just because there's no one to care for them because they legally can't be left overnight in shelters. And I know myself, I haven't fostered for a while, but when I did, we have an awesome Calico cat that runs this house now from that litter that we fostered for six weeks. And I. Back and it would've been easy for me to say no, or just be like, I can't take six. It was a full-time job bottle feeding those guys. I can imagine. But it was also at a time where it brought me a lot of joy, and it gave me a lot by watching them grow and flourish and become these amazing little beings. And then I get to look at pumpkin every day and be like, wow, if I hadn't said yes, she wouldn't be a part of our family. So you never know what could happen. But yeah, an hour of your time at the shelter. Donating supplies or money or just follow and share and like on social, because all of that helps in different ways, but and if you wanna learn more about fundraising per se, you can check out Katherine's podcast just. Because I like that. And I'll have all the links in the show notes of this episode for you to check that out. So as we wrap up our conversation, is there any last thing you would like to share or tell our listeners about

Katherine Lacefield 25:27

so much, but obviously I think the number one is we really need to stop the judgment and infighting in the animal welfare space. That is something that I cannot repeat enough. Everyone is trying their best and we are all in it together. If we can start supporting each other instead of judging that person who can't afford vet care, you don't know when you might be in that exact same situation. Let's raise each other up as a sector instead of constantly judging and putting other people down. No one's perfect. You're not perfect. I'm not perfect. Like we all need to stop this judgment of people within our community and start supporting each other more. If that's one thing I can do, just think about it twice of what would you do in their shoes? How would you wanna be supported? Obviously there's a difference between abuse and people that are going through a tough time. So that's my last little reminder of guys, there's so much hate in the world. Can we just love each other a bit more? As cheesy as that sounds, can we just support each other?

Julie Marty-Pearson 26:22

Absolutely. We all need a little more empathy in the world. It would be a much better place. Thank you Katherine, so much for being here and sharing your experience and what you do and I'm sure everyone learned something and we'll definitely check out your podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Story of My Pet podcast. I appreciate you listening and supporting the podcast. And if you haven't already, wherever you are listening to this episode, make sure you hit follow or subscribe and leave us a rating or review. All of that helps the podcast grow and get to even more listeners, and help us educate and advocate for animals in need around the world. If you haven't done so already, make sure to check out our new YouTube channel, Story of My Pet podcast. Again, hit the subscribe button, give us some likes and comments on our videos, and that will help the podcast grow thank you so much for being here, and much love to you and your pet