Happy animals at the Willow Park Zoo

The management and volunteers of Willow Park Zoo are currently implementing enrichment to improve the well-being of their animals. The animals are becoming happier and more healthy as the staff of the zoo improves the quality of life for the animals.

“We want the physical, emotional and mental well-being of all the animals,” said Troy Cooper, the zoo director. “So we have to have enrichment. That’s something that we’ve implemented.”

Cooper said enrichment gives the animals opportunities to be active and experience new surroundings, foods, and games. For instance, the zoos large tortoise was temporarily set loose in the education building to give it a change of scenery. Cooper said, sometimes the monkeys are given new foods. He said they tried feeding the monkeys cockroaches and kidney beans -- neither was well received.  

“Enrichment is giving animals stimulation,” Cooper said. “It varies from letting them walk around the room, to complex toys.”

Cooper said they have made a lot of progress in helping the animals being happy at the zoo.

“Our animals were very depressed when I first started,” Cooper said. “Particularly, the main building birds --we had a lot of self-plucking and behavioral issues. They’re still not completely normal, but, they’re better. Our one Yellow-Headed Amazon, he didn’t have any feathers on the top of his head. Now, he’s growing feathers back. So, it’s coming. You can see the difference.”

Barbara Tew, the education director, said she has seen an improvement in the animals since the staff began implementing enrichment. Even the most simple of ideas can help stimulate the animals.

“We just put a pile of leaves in with the foxes,” Tew said. “And once they realized it wasn’t going to hurt them, they were jumping around in it -- and loving it.”

Tew said that enrichment helps the animals stay healthy and keeps their minds active. However, enrichment also keeps the minds of the volunteers active. Coming up with new ideas for enrichment can be challenging. She said one student at Utah State University has been making paper mache boxes filled with food for the animals. She said it gives the animals something to think and work through.

“With all change and growth comes new challenges,” Cooper said.  “And we’ll take them as they come. The animals are happier and are more active. The staff has done a great job going in there and working with them.”

Cache Humane Society volunteer numbers on the rise

In the last six months, the Cache Humane Society has more than tripled the number of volunteers working at the shelter. The shelter now has more than 70 active volunteers that help at the shelter every week.

In order to make this possible, Cath Manrique, the volunteer coordinator, said she is using social media more effectively to publicize open volunteer positions at Cache Humane.

“I have completely revamped our Facebook and volunteer page online,” Manrique said.  

Manrique said having so many volunteers helps the shelter run smoothly. She said with so many of the volunteers having other responsibilities outside of the shelter, having a large number makes it easier to keep positions filled.

“Our volunteers are amazing,” Manrique said. “They fit their time in at the shelter around school, family and their jobs. We couldn’t function without our volunteers.”

Janet Miller has been a volunteer for only a few months, and when she began, she worked just one day a week. But, she said that she loved it so much, that she began to volunteer two days a week – and many of those days, she spends four or five hours helping at the shelter.

“My landlord doesn’t allow cats,” Miller said. “I volunteer at the Cache Humane Society to be around them and help them.”

Willow Park Zoo working to be part of AZA

The management of Willow Park Zoo is currently updating and revitalizing the zoo in order to become AZA certified. Becoming AZA certified would make the Willow Park Zoo part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and would provide more opportunities for the zoo to expand and grow.

“Really what becoming AZA certified means,” said Troy Cooper, the zoo director. “Is that it opens more doors for us, and makes it easier to do more things.”

For instance, Cooper said that it will be easier for the zoo to get more animals. He said a lot of accredited zoos won’t deal with non-accredited zoos. They see the AZA certification as a stamp of approval. He said it shows that the zoo can safely take care of the animals.

Barbara Tew, the education director, said becoming AZA certified would also benefit the customers.

“If you buy a family pass you get to come to our zoo for free,” Tew said. “But you can also use that pass to go to other zoos for free. Once we’re AZA certified we can get you into all of the great zoos for our little tiny price. So then it becomes a real benefit for the people in the valley."

Tew said this would be a big change -- because, as of now, many zoos won’t reciprocate or work with Willow Park Zoo because it isn't AZA certified.

Tew and Cooper both agree that there is still a lot of work to do.

Cooper said there is still about 100 feet of fence that needs to go up and old exhibits to renovate. However, he said that he can feel the energy and excitement growing.

“We’re making progress towards it,” Cooper said. “It’s going to take us a lot of work and a few more years. But now, any time we make a new addition to the zoo, we try to make it compliant with AZA standards.”

Cooper said the new gift shop that will open on Saturday will help the zoo get closer to the goal of becoming AZA certified. He said this will provide a source of revenue to continue updating the zoo.

**To see a full list of benefits of AZA accreditation go to: https://www.aza.org/what-is-accreditation/

Four Paws Rescue adjusts to social media and internet to help animals

In the last six months, Four Paws Rescue has changed and updated its Facebook and website. As a result, the volunteers have witnessed the internet help bring pet owners and pets together.

Shannon Syrstad, the volunteer that manages one of the Facebook pages and webpage of the shelter, said she has completely revamped them in order to provide more clear and updated information about the shelter. Having an active Facebook, the shelter has seen, what Shannon calls, “Facebook miracles.”

“Someone will post a picture of a dog they found on Facebook,” Syrstad said. “And I will see it in my newsfeed, or on another Facebook page. Then, someone will email us saying they’ve lost their dog and I’m able to make the connection. I’ve made this connection probably twenty times this year.”

Syrstad talked about one German Sheppard in particular that went missing from Trenton. The owners posted a picture of their dog on the Four Paws Page -- Syrstad was then notified that someone had found a German Sheppard in Mink Creek, Idaho, 30 miles away. She said that, through the internet and social media, she was able to help the dog return to its family.

Lisa Shaw, the director and owner of Four Paws Rescue, said she has noticed the change the internet has made when people adopt an animal. Shaw said it’s not as common for people to come in and look for animals. She said  people usually see them on the webpage and then come in to look at a specific animal.

“More people come in after having looked at the pictures of the animals we have online,” Shaw said. “80 percent of the adoptions come from people that see them on the internet first.”

Be kind!

I saw this in the Sunday comic Red and Rover: by Brian Basset

Willow Park Zoo to host Reindeer Trek

On Saturday, the Willow Park Zoo will be hosting its second annual Reindeer Trek event. The zoo will allow patrons to come and take pictures with the reindeer -- along with special guest star Santa Clause. The event will begin at 12 p.m. and end at 8 p.m.

Education director Barbara Tew said, she is excited about the Reindeer Trek after the success of the Boo in the Zoo event in October, which brought in a record number of 1500 people to the zoo.

“The nice thing about this is you come here and get pictures and you’re in a zoo with reindeer,” Tew said. “We’ll have games, hot chocolate and cookies.”

Tew said it’s a great opportunity to enjoy the holiday atmosphere, see the reindeer and meet Santa Clause.

“It’s only the second year that we’ve done it,” said Troy Cooper, the zoo director. “Last year we got the reindeer and we thought, ‘well we’ve got the reindeer why don’t we incorporate them into Christmas — and bring Santa.’ ”

Cooper said that they would like to improve on last year’s event and double the turnout. He said he’d like make this a Christmas staple for years to come.

“Last year’s was well-received,” Cooper said. “We’ve been looking at it trying to make it a little bit bigger and a little bit better. We’d like it to become a really strong Christmas event.”

The Reindeer Trek will also be held Dec. 1 and 3 from 4-8 p.m., and Dec. 6 from 12-8 p.m.  

Four Paws Rescue helps pet owners find homes

In the last six months, Four Paws Rescue animal shelter has created a feature on its website to help prevent pet owners from having to part with their animals when searching for a home in Cache Valley. It is a webpage dedicated to help pet owners find animal friendly housing.

  

“I’ve generated a web page of pet friendly properties managed in Logan,” said Shannon Syrstad, the volunteer in charge of the website.

Syrstad said that it does not include all pet friendly housing in Logan, many private properties aren’t included. However, she said it’s a great start to helping pet owners find appropriate housing.

“A lot of requests for us to take in pets are due to life changes,” Syrstad said. “Almost always the person is moving, or they just had a baby, or someone has an allergy, or job loss or home loss – but moving is the number one reason they surrender their pets to us.”

Syrstad hopes to help pet owners keep their pets, even when these life changes happen. She said that if the shelter can help prevent a pet from being given up or surrendered, then they’re successful.

“Whenever someone comes to the shelter to give up their animal because they’re moving, I always say, ‘can I help you find pet friendly housing?’ ” Syrstad said.  

Nathan Frantz, a pet owner from Florida, often visits Cache Valley for long periods of time and said he has used Four Paws Rescues services to help find temporary housing for him and his dog.

“Last summer I needed to find pet friendly housing for seven weeks in Logan,” Frantz said. “Seven weeks is an awkward period of time for any renter, especially as the dates did not correspond to the beginning or end of the month.  It was comforting to be able to contact Shannon through Four Paws and feel confident that she would come through -- and she did!”

Willow Park Zoo expanding its services

The Willow Park Zoo is currently taking big steps toward expanding its services and becoming more than just a zoo. 

“We want to revitalize it,” said Troy Cooper, the zoo director. “Bring in more classes, new animals and make it a staple of Cache Valley. We’d really like to have students from USU come share their talents, music, dancing or whatever — and we’ll provide a venue for them.”

Although Cooper acknowledges that it will take some time, the expansion of the zoo will attract people for more reasons than to see the animals.

“A large majority of people that come to the zoo say ‘yeah I remember when my grandparents use to bring me here,’” Cooper said. “We want to give it a face-lift because a lot of this stuff has been here for three generations.”

Cooper said he is happy with the progress that the zoo is making.

“We did a float in the Utah State homecoming parade,” Cooper said. “We’d never done that before.”

Barbara Tew, the education director, has also been working hard at revitalizing and bringing new attractions and patrons to the zoo.

“We’re making progress,” Tew said. “We’re starting to spruce things back up. We’re almost to the point where we can be AZA certified -- which is amazing. They’re really tough to get in to and we’re almost to that point.”

Tew said that being AZA certified would make Willow Park Zoo part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. She said this achievement would show the hard work and progress that the staff and volunteers have done in the last four years -- since the zoo was almost closed for good.

Tew said that for the first time ever, the zoo is also bringing schools outside of Cache Valley to go on tours and field trips to the zoo.

“We’ve had a couple classes from Ogden come in,” Tew said. “That’s never happened before. We’re trying to get schools from Ogden, Brigham City, Southern Idaho, and Bear Lake. We bring them in here to see the animals and they learn about them here.”

PetSmart hosts National Adoption Weekend

PetSmart hosted the Cache Humane Society and Four Paws Rescue shelters of Cache Valley for the National Adoption Weekend. The event began Friday and went until Sunday. Throughout the weekend, both organizations brought more animals than usual from their respected shelters to be adopted.

Although both organizations take animals to PetSmart on a weekly basis, this weekend was different.

“We try to get more transporters to go to Layton so we can have more dogs present at the event,” said Shannon Syrstad, a volunteer at Four Paws. “PetSmart does extra advertising for this weekend.”

In an effort to better their adoption opportunities, volunteers of Four Paws Rescue took animals to both the Layton and Logan PetSmart. 

“We see more adoptions when we take our dogs to Layton,” said Kim Moore, a volunteer at Four Paws Rescue.

Hoping to find homes for more dogs and cats, the Cache Humane Society advertised the weekend event using social media -- and tripled the number of animals it normally takes to PetSmart.

“We have more dogs and cats here this weekend,” said Alex Nissim, a volunteer at Cache Humane.

During the three day event, the Cache Humane Society adopted out five animals. Four Paws Rescue was also successful, adopting out six animals.

This song gives a couple of great reasons to go adopt a dog!

Willow Park Zoo builds new gift shop

Thanksgiving is known as the season of giving. This year the Willow Park Zoo will have gifts to provide.

On Nov. 29 the Willow Park Zoo will celebrate the newest addition to the zoo -- a gift shop. The gift shop is currently under construction, and although Troy Cooper, the director of the zoo, said for now it’s just four walls and a ceiling, it represents something a lot bigger for the zoo.

“What we hoped to help improve the look,” Cooper said.  “That it gives a face lift to the zoo. It points us in a new direction of new things to come. This is just the first of continuous changes long-term.”

The gift shop will help the zoo earn a small income while displaying some of the local talent of Cache Valley.

“We are going to have all local crafts,” said Barbara Tew, the education director. “We’re trying not to be a souvenir gift shop. We want to keep the money in Cache Valley.”

The zoo has been reaching out to locals that are interested in selling their crafts at the zoo.

“We have a lot of people lined up,” Tew said. “We have people coming out of the wood work to sell their crafts at the gift shop.”

Jennifer Hawkins has been doing crafts for the last year as a hobby. So when she saw the zoo was looking for people to sell their crafts at the new gift shop, she contacted the zoo and began making crafts to sell. Hawkins said that this was a good way for her to make a little money on the side. Hawkins has made bird feeders, bird baths and other crafts to sell at the gift shop.

“The zoo only keeps 20 percent of the money,” Hawkins said. “I plan on donating my 80 percent to the disabled.”

The zoo plans to keep the gift shop open for a few hours each night until winter ends. When Willow Park opens in the summer, it will be open full time.    

Heavenly Animals provides alternative to burying pets

Located in Smithfield, Heavenly Animals is the only pet crematorium in Cache valley. Angela Younker started Heavenly Animals 11 years ago – and has seen an increase of customers throughout those 11 years.

“The business grows every year,” Younker said. “We are adding a second cremation oven next year.  My goal is to have three cremation ovens by the end of 2020.”

 Despite her growing success, Younker doesn’t advertise, but instead relies on customers and other organizations to refer patrons to her business.

“All of our advertising comes through word of mouth,” Younker said. “We work closely with Four Paws Rescue, Cache Humane Society and other animal hospitals. They refer pet owners to us.”

Younker said there are many positives to cremation. For instance, it’s not legal for a pet owner to bury a pet within city limits.

“We provide a service to people who want to keep their pets,” Younker said. “It keeps the pets mobile so even if you move you can take your pet with you. We’ve actually had people that have buried their dog and then dug it out and brought it to us to cremate so they can take it with them when they move.”

Office manager Karen Jenkins said, cremation doesn’t only let the pet owner keep the ashes with them, but it’s much better for the environment as well.

“When you bury a pet all the chemicals that were used at the animal hospital seep into the ground and into the aquifer,” Jenkins said. “It contaminates the aquifer.”

Having two dogs of her own, Jenkins said she knows how important people’s pets are to them.

“When they come in we treat them as if they were ours,” Jenkins said.

Cache Humane society saves high percentage of dogs in their care

All dogs may very well go to heaven--but officials at the Cache Humane Society don't want to be the ones to send them there.

  

Throughout the last year the Cache Humane Society has raised its average placement rate for dogs to a new high of 97 percent. This number well surpasses the 90 percent mark necessary to be considered a “no kill” shelter.

“We are working hard to place our dogs,” said Roland Bringhurst, the director of CHS. “We are working closely with other shelters to get them placed.”

For instance, Bringhurst said that if the shelter has a Labrador retriever that doesn’t get placed in Cache Valley, he can send it to Montana or Idaho and it will be adopted within a day.

“It’s about putting the dogs where they have the best chance of getting a home,” Bringhurst said.

Cath Manrique, the volunteer and fundraising coordinator at the shelter, said there are many ways in which a dog can be adopted or put in the best position to find a home. So far this year the CHS has transferred 70 dogs to rescue partners -- most of them in Utah.

“We work a lot with rescuers who are part of the Best Friends coalition partners,” Manrique said. “We also work closely with animal rescue transportation organizations such as Dog Is My CoPilot.”

This year the Cache Humane Society has transferred in 194 dogs from other shelters. 

“We’ve been doing a lot more transfers into CHS within Utah this last year compared to previous years,” Manrique said. “The majority transferred in have been from a very high kill rate shelter in California. Sometimes it’s from overcrowded shelters, other times it’s because another shelter is unable to care for the health or behavioral issues, but we can handle them.”

Manrique said the CHS recently saved a dog named Roxy who had a dysfunctional leg. The shelter she was in could only euthanize her because of her health. The CHS stepped in and saved her by amputating her leg. Roxy ended up being adopted at the shelter.