Mary S. Roberts News and Facts!

MSRPAC Facts (2009):

• 722 adoption animals spayed or neutered
• 459 animals transferred from local county animal services
• 477 animal relinquished by their owner(s)
• 1,496  animals were adopted at the Pet Adoption Center

Differences Between MSRPAC and The Riverside City/County Animal Control


The Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center

• A non profit organization with all programs and services funded exclusively through fundraisers, grants, and donations.
• Receives no financial support from the government or State and National Humane Organizations. 
• Has NO animal control responsibilities such as picking up and transporting strays, animal cruelty investigations and licensing.
• A "no kill" facility where animals stay until adopted with 1,500 dogs and cats adopted in  2009.

-SPAY OR NEUTER YOUR PET(S)!-


Dogs or cats can't add or subtract--But they sure can Multiply! Over 6 generations--just from one pair of cats-- there can be over 100,000 kittens/cats. there are not enough homes for all these cats. Please be a responsible pet owner and spay or neuter your pet(s)!

Mary S. Roberts Adoption Center

www.petsadoption.org

951-684-6143

  


       

Delivering The Donations

This is Michael and Morgan delivering all the donations along with $78.00 in cash and checks.

They delivered rice, chicken broth, dog toys, dog treats, cat toys, cat food, cat treats, cat litter.

After the picture taking and delivering the donations, they were able to go on a tour of the facility and learn more about the history of the Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center.

In the late 1800's this shelter was located on Brockton in downtown Riverside.  It was originally the humane society for dogs, cats and children and farm animals.  It grew too large for the area, and moved to another unknown location.  Eventually it became just the Humane Society for dogs and cats.

Later in the 1990's,  Mary S. Roberts, the mother of the owner of the Mission Inn, took over the shelter and renamed it the Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center.  They changed the name to differentiate themselves from the Animal Shelter.

Their focus is the re-homing of cats and dogs and like to be known as an Adoption Guarantee shelter rather than a "No Kill" shelter.  The Mary S. Roberts has a transfer employee that works at the County Animal Shelter for the animals that are relinquished to the county but are viable for adoption and has them transferred to the Adoption Center if there is room.  We met an Australian Cattle Dog by the name of Zip who is a 6 year old female whose owners were moving out of state to an apartment and couldn't take her with them.  She is great with children and was slated to be put down right away if she hadn't been transferred.  She has only been at the Adoption Center for a couple of days.

Here is a picture of Zip with Michael and Morgan:

Our tour guide Carrie Ridgeway explained that last year the Riverside County Animal Shelter put down approximately 20,000 dogs and cats.   She urged Michael and Morgan to get the word out about spaying and neutering dogs and cats.  On the average, it takes about 30 to 45 days to adopt out a dog or cat.  Sometimes cats and dogs can be housed at the shelter for years.

We got some great news though.  Bud the cat we had to relinquish to the Pet Adoption Center in February had just been adopted on Sunday by a lady who has two other cats from the Adoption Center.  It was heartwarming to know that he has found a good home.  Apparently he had been a favorite there with Carrie.

Here is Carrie answering questions during the interview.  The interview took place in the lobby, and you can see the cattery windows behind them.

This is the outside meet and greet area where potential new owners can meet with the dog outside along with their current dog(s) to make sure that everyone gets along.

The brick path is a way to contribute toward the development of the new building.  People can buy the bricks and have their names engraved on the bricks.   Isn't it a pretty view from there?

Since this is a private Adoption Center, they operate on grants, private donations and volunteers and fund raising drives.  It is considered a not for profit organization.  It costs approximately 25.00 a day to house a dog or cat.  The bricks go toward paying off the loan of over $1 million dollars that is left on the mortgage of the facility.  The total cost to build the new facility that was finished in 2007 was about $3 million dollars

We are behind the building following a couple of volunteers walking toward the outdoor doggie play area.

Outdoor doggie play area.  There is the covered area along with 4-5 outside fenced areas that have little wading pools for the dogs to play in.

This is the covered dog play area that had been privately donated.  It is complete with dog agility training tools and astro turf so they don't have to mow or water it.

This is one of the original kennels that is left for emergency situations like quarantine or if an owner that had been hoarding needs a place to house the dogs until they can be sorted out.

This is an outside dog run for the big dogs.  It is complete with chairs for the volunteers and a bin of toys for the dogs.  This is located behind the building and is a long dirt pathway that parallels the Santa Ana River bed.

Michael and Morgan holding two very adorable and adoptable kittens.  The Adoption Center has a pediatric veterinarian that spay and neuter the kittens when they are at least 2 pounds and 2 months old.  This prevents them from being able to reproduce.

Carrie said that if one pair of cats reproduces over 6  generations, and their kittens reproduce, they will have produced over 100,000 kittens.

We saw first hand the importance of spaying and neutering.

5 Easy Ways To Help the Shelters

This is a quick list of 5 easy ways you can help the animals and pets in your community:

1. Volunteer at a local animal shelter by visiting the dogs and cats.  Grooming, pet walking and cage cleaning are simple ways to help the animal shelter.

2. Urge friends and family to spay or neuter their pets.  By reducing the number of kittens and puppies will in turn help reduce the number of unwanted pets that end up abused or given up.

3. Hold car washes, make and sell cat toys, or hold fundraisers for your local pet shelter. By doing this, you raise the awareness of who these shelters are and how much help they need.

4. If you have a special skill that could benefit your local shelter, offer your services so that it could reduce their costs and allow more money to go toward saving the lives of the animals that need it.

5. Let friends and family know that adopting a pet is more loving than buying a puppy or kitten.

Getting ready to make our presentation

We are gathering our donations and packing them up, and now we are in for the big presentation.  We will be videotaping a 5 minute commercial on why our project was so important and how it will help others in our community.

Our mom said that it was success just for the fact that so many people in our community wanted to help us to help the animals in the shelter.

We learned a lot from this project.   We learned that people like to help other people and to help animals that have been abandoned or relinquished because of financial hardships.  We learned how much cats love catnip, and that people like to buy toys for their cats. We learned that community projects do work, and that we really like helping others.

We also learned how to make cat toys and will be donating them to the shelters.

Thank you to everyone that donated or helped us with the project!

Michael and Morgan

Donation Button Removed

OOPS!!  We made a mistake!  Mom didn't know PayPal won't let us put a Donate Button on our website because of the IRS.  Sorry for the mistake!

Just imagine that these dogs and cats that were used to a loving home, have been dropped off to strangers and don't know what is happening to them.   The money that you give will help support them in health and healing.  

It was a sad day that a family friend hit hard times and left her cat with us.  He was with us for 6 months in a room by himself.  We finally thought that it would be better to have him have the chance at finding a real family.  Bud is a sweet sweet cat, and deserved his own home.  He encountered some health problems and had to have surgery.  The MSR Adoption Center had to pay the veterinary costs for the surgery.  Rather than having him put down, they gave their best efforts to save his life.  It was truly remarkable. He is still available for adoption.

This is another reason this charity means so much to us.  They give so much to the animals, and we want to be able to give back and we need your help to truly make it a success.

Their adoption fees are minimal too.  It is so affordable to adopt a pet from them.  Please consider a donation.  All of the money received will be donated to the cause.  In fact, our mom will make up the difference in the PayPal fees so that all the money goes to them.  Thank you!

Sold Cat Toys at School To Raise Money

We want to thank our school, River Springs Charter School and the director Marla Hart for allowing us to put donation boxes in the lunch room.  We were also given permission to have the basket of toys for sale in the front office.

We Made Catnip Cat Toys for School Donation

We are so excited about our new cat toys.  We bought some adorable kitty material and made our own cat toys.


The first design is very simple.  We took a square of fabric, put some wax paper, pillow stuffing, and organic catnip and folded all four corners together and tied it with yarn.  We tried one out with our own cat and here is a video that shows how much he liked it!

We're Getting Donations - But We Need More

Thank you to all who are helping and have helped with donations...but we still need more things:


Cardboard shoe boxes
Microwave rice packets
Clumping Cat Litter
Purina One kitten and Cat food
Any brand dog food
Cat or dog carriers
Dog and Cat shampoo and grooming supplies

We are in the 5th grade and are members of the F.I.R.S.T. Lego League through Riversprings Charter School.  We have been assigned to find a project that would contribute to our community.

We are from a family of animal lovers, and we both thought a good way to help the community is to start a donation drive for the Mary S. Roberts Adoption Center in Riverside, CA.  The Adoption center is a "No-Kill" shelter that has been remodeled into a beautiful facility. The cattery has floor to ceiling windows with large cat trees and loving volunteers that take time to play and socialize the kitties.  The dog area has large kennels with caring volunteers that walk the dogs every day and an on-site dog trainer that offers dog training classes to the public.

The Adoption center gave us a wish list of things that they can use for the shelter.  The best way to collect the items is to either drop them off at our house, or we can come to you and pick up, or if some people wish to take the donations directly to the shelter on behalf of our drive that would be great.  Please mention our project name.

The project name is M&M F.I.R.S.T. Donation Drive.  Please let the shelter know if you are donating on behalf of our project.

The list of items needed are as follows:

Dogs

blankets

treats

dog shampoo

grooming brushes

hard rubber toy balls (no tennis or stuffed animals) Nylabones, Kong toys

dog food - any brand

stainless steel food dishes

Merchant gift cards

chicken broth

Microwave rice packets

Cats

cat treats

grooming brushes and combs

scoopable cat litter

cat furniture - 2 story or 3 story

empty clean cardboard shoe boxes

cloth catnip mice - no furry mice

teaser wand cat toys - no feathers
Purina One dry kitten and cat food

If you have any questions, or want us to pick any local items up, you can contact us at:
Replace (at) with @ when using the email addresses:  horsereiki (at) gmail.com  or socksacat (at) yahoo.com

Contact Phone:
949-525-2488