Pet Abuse and Domestic Violence-Need Input

Hi everyone,
I work as a domestic violence and sexual assault victim advocate for the US Army in Savannah, GA. As many of you probably know, pet abuse is often linked to domestic violence. While there are shelters that domestic violence victims and there children may flee to for safety, most of these shelters do not accept pets. The issue of having nowhere to take their pets often causes victims to stay with their abusers, even in the most dangerous of situations (obviously, none of us would want to leave our cat or dog with an abusive person!).
Well, I am starting a program for my military clients where they may house their pets with foster families while they are getting help in the domestic violence shelter. If the program is successful, I may be able to spread to program to the civilian sector. I am still in the information-gathering stage while I write my proposal to give to local vets and animal rescue groups.
My questions to you all are these:
-Does your community have a place that houses pets while their owners seek safe shelter to leave domestic violence?
-If such programs exist in your communities, are they well-publicized?
-Do you know how successful these programs have been?
-Do you know of persons who would benefit from this type of program?/Do you know anyone who has stayed in an abusive relationship because of their pets?
Any input that you guys could provide would be very useful to my program. Hopefully, we will be able to help more abused spouses and their fur babies!
You can either reply to me on this site or send an email to me at work:
[email protected].
Thanks everyone!
Amy (Eponine has approved this message!)

First of all, thank you for thinking up this project. I adopted a cat that was a victim. The local police rescued them all, the CA Victim/Witness program paid for the mom & children to got to her folks, but the dog & cat wound up at the local shelter. I often wished that I could have contacted the family to let them know that their "Maxie" was with us. When my girls were young, our pets were sometimes the only family nearby. I will contact our local animal rescue group and see if anyone has any helpful info. for you. Meanwhile, my thoughts and wishes are for much success in your endeavor. Sincerely,Susan








I work as a domestic violence and sexual assault victim advocate for the US Army in Savannah, GA. As many of you probably know, pet abuse is often linked to domestic violence. While there are shelters that domestic violence victims and there children may flee to for safety, most of these shelters do not accept pets. The issue of having nowhere to take their pets often causes victims to stay with their abusers, even in the most dangerous of situations (obviously, none of us would want to leave our cat or dog with an abusive person!).
Well, I am starting a program for my military clients where they may house their pets with foster families while they are getting help in the domestic violence shelter. If the program is successful, I may be able to spread to program to the civilian sector. I am still in the information-gathering stage while I write my proposal to give to local vets and animal rescue groups.
My questions to you all are these:
-Does your community have a place that houses pets while their owners seek safe shelter to leave domestic violence?
-If such programs exist in your communities, are they well-publicized?
-Do you know how successful these programs have been?
-Do you know of persons who would benefit from this type of program?/Do you know anyone who has stayed in an abusive relationship because of their pets?
Any input that you guys could provide would be very useful to my program. Hopefully, we will be able to help more abused spouses and their fur babies!
You can either reply to me on this site or send an email to me at work:
[email protected].
Thanks everyone!
Amy (Eponine has approved this message!)[/quote]

Amy, what an excellent, excellent idea! I commend you for not only the difficult job you do but beginning this project.

Here in Australia, victims often don't leave their abusive partners because it would mean leaving a beloved pet. I believe it is around 38% of women who have experienced domestic vioence, say they have remained in a violent or abusive relationship because they are unable to take their pets with them to a place of safety. It is often the case that victims who have experienced violence towards themselves and their children, rightly assume that the perpetrator may transfer this violence to animals left in the home. A program such as yours will certainly mean that more victims and their children are able to leave dangerous situations.

The problem is similar for the homeless. They are able to find temporary or permanent accomodation, as long as they are willing to give up their pet, often the only 'person' they trust and love. As you can imagine, many people choose to remain homeless, so that they can keep their beloved companion.

I am fairly sure I have heard of accounts of abused women who would not leave their spouse due to having pets also. It is a terrible thing to be abused and feel you can not leave, it is even worse to finally get up enough courage to want to leave and start to do something about it and find out that your beloved pets can not join you if you do it. I applaude your efforts and I wish you all the best of luck in getting this sort of program going. It is refreshing to see people doing something not just wishing others would make the changes necessary or lend the help that we all know others need. Thank you.

Hello all,
I just want to send a sincere thank-you to everyone that has sent me feedback regarding the pet sheltering program. Please continue to send me as much relevant feedback as you can, as the more I learn, the better this program will be.
Again, bless you all for your assistance and words of encouragement!
Amy

Our local SPCA has a Humane Boarding program where they will board dogs (and I believe cats too) for women leaving abusive situations. Our local HS will also foster cats for women entering the Transition House. It is not that well publicized, I have only just become aware of it as some of these animals have needed veterinary care. The Transition house workers and shelter staff all know abou it though. I live in a very small town so I think keeping the program on the "hush hush" is necessary for the womens and animals safety.

Hi all,
I've added a small poll to this original posting. Your feedback would be very helpful in developing my program. Thank you very much to everyone who has already responded and thank you in advance to anyone who may provide me with more feedback!

Amy, you probably already have this information, but I was peeking around at the HSUS website's First Strike page (that has many articles on the connection between animal cruelty and abuse of humans), and found their Safe Haven for Pets program page. On this page are links to some helpful documents, including Starting a Safe Haven for Pets Program, Animal Cruelty/Domestic Violence Factsheet, and an online directory of programs in existence.

http://www.hsus.org/hsus_field/first..._for_animals_/

Hope this helps!

I don't know if my city has any such programs, unfortunately.

I can say, though, that several years ago I was in an abusive relationship myself, and remained in it much longer than I would have otherwise because I had difficulty finding other housing that would allow me to keep my pets. I simply could not even imagine leaving them behind. And yes, he did also threaten to kill my cats if I left him, knowing that he could make use of them as an emotional hold

Thank you for taking on this project, and I wish you success with it!

Let me just say this is an awsome idea. I've got experience in both animal rescue & domestic violence work. When I was in college the first time (I'm in school AGAIN) my major was Behavioral Science. I did my intership at a shelter for abused women & I can't tell you how many times women would ask about a place for their cats. I vaguely remember one of the local shelters offering to board animals for people, but it's been around 9 years so I'm not positive on any details. Basicly my guess would be that unless your directly involved in that type of work you're not going to know about it, but it should be known so that maybe more people would leave. Unfortuantely Yes I do know someone who won't leave for fear of what would happen to her animals.

I voted I don't know as well - But what a great idea!