Boonie Tails

By Grace Keilbach

What community really means

Last week, during Saipan Humane Society’s spay and neuter clinic, staff from the Mayor’s Shelter arrived to collect crates they previously agreed to loan for the clinic. As you can imagine, dozens of patients were in the clinic at a time waiting for surgery or recovering after, making crates a crucial part of the process. Without crates, the clinic can not function effectively or safely. As dog control officers loaded crates into their trucks for “maintenance”, clinic staff began scrambling to find a solution, concerned that they may even have to cancel all surgeries scheduled for the following day. News quickly spread that the clinic needed help, and our community stepped up to answer.

Almost immediately after social media posts were made asking for crates, we started getting messages from people saying they were leaving work or dropping whatever else it was they were doing to deliver their own crates. Not only did people lend crates, a group of volunteers even showed up to build some so that Saipan Humane will have their own moving forward. What started out as an extremely difficult and unfortunate situation quickly turned into an incredible day of our community rallying for the cause: saving the Boonies. Spay and neuter is hard to come by around here and thanks to everyone who stepped up, all surgeries were completed as scheduled. To everyone who has been supporting our spay and neuter efforts whether it be by donations, volunteering, sharing our mission, or assisting directly with the Great Crate Crisis, thank you for helping us save the Boonies!

In response to Marianas Press’ request for comment, the Saipan Mayor’s Office provided the following statement: “In response to videos posted on social media regarding alleged substandard operational practices, the MOS Chief of Staff is conducting an inspection on Dog Control Program (DCP) Operations, including the equipment used to capture dogs. The crates were recalled to DCP so we can inspect their condition and ensure they are safe and fully operational as part of the wider inspection.”

Thank you Saipan Humane Society for putting on yet another successful and impactful clinic. #SaveTheBoonies

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Boonie of the Week

During my last visit on Saipan, Aria and I rescued Toulouse Tangerine. If you’ve been keeping up with us on any platform, you may remember his story. From feral street cat to absolute love bug practically over night, this boy quickly stole our hearts. We were so excited to watch his recovery unfold and things were looking great… until they weren’t. Toulouse experienced what we call “the crash”. This is when extremely sick animals seem to be making great improvements and then out of nowhere, rapidly decline. He passed away shortly after we found him, in Aria’s arms. I had plans of fostering a dog when returning to D.C. but Toulouse inspired me to foster a cat instead in his honor.

Tennessee, now known as Tennessee Tangerine, is a rescue from the Feline Foundation of Greater Washington, a non-profit organization that pulls cats from shelters and places them into foster homes. This is my first time fostering in the States, and my heart breaks for the animals we work with in the CNMI who will never have opportunities like this. Nonetheless, I am also overcome with joy for the animals here that do. Tennessee is, in my opinion, the perfect cat (mainly because he has not messed with any of my plants). All this guy wants is a nice spot to curl up after inhaling all of his food. My Boonies have all been around cats before but I was still a bit nervous. Its been two days now and the cat and dogs could not be more uninterested in each other. If anything, the dogs are rather intimidated by Tennessee as Boonie cats are MUCH smaller.

If you’ve been thinking about fostering, this is your sign to do it! Not only does it save lives but I promise you’ll have fun along the way. Tennessee already has some adoption interest and if all goes well, he will be going home to his forever family any day now. Although our time together is short, I am so grateful to have been a small part of his journey. Reach out to your local shelters or rescue organizations to learn more about fostering today!