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THANK YOU FOR THE DANCE
by Gloria Dauphin
In the immediate
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of
individuals and hundreds of organizations came to the aid of the
Gulf Coast region to help with the rescuing of animals, and a
few have remained to aid in the long term recovery of
organizations like the Louisiana SPCA with little fanfare and a
desire to remain behind the scenes. For two years, the LA/SPCA
had the opportunity to experience such long-term aid with a
shelter professional that is regarded in her field as the “best
of the best.”
Not unlike our entire community, one of the areas most affected
by Katrina was the LA/SPCA’s infrastructure. When we refer to
LA/SPCA’s infrastructure it’s the behind-the-scenes nuts and
bolts that maintain the foundation upon which day-to-day
operations are based. Think of things like the training that
prepares a staff to deal with any given adoption scenario; or
the cleaning procedures that may seem mundane but can affect the
entire health of the shelter population with devastating
proportions if not maintained and properly implemented.
When Kate Pullen, Senior Director of National Outreach for the
ASPCA, was loaned to the LA/SPCA by the ASPCA to help with our
recovery, what we received was the advice and day-to-day
commitment of a shelter professional who has an encyclopedic
knowledge of all things related to running an animal shelter. It
was akin to getting a four-star general dispatched to the camp
to help rebuild an army still surrounded by rubble, and facing a
new landscape that bore an eerie resemblance to it’s former
self, but was undeniably altered.
In November 2005, Pullen was hired by the ASPCA as Sr. Director
of Programs and Strategies specifically for the LA/SPCA, to aid
the organization in rebuilding it’s day-to-day operations, while
the director focused on long-term planning and the
organization’s future vision. Pullen’s assignment was a two-year
run that officially ended November 30, 2007.
It’s no surprise that Pullen is regarded in her field as the
“best of the best.” It’s in her blood and she can discourse on
everything from disease control in a shelter to how to relate to
a client that’s new to an animal shelter environment and how
their senses can be overloaded upon seeing so many animals up
for adoption. Or she can discuss the pros and cons of foster
care, and why the decision to foster an animal is often times
even more difficult than adopting an animal. It’s a combination
of sensitivity and experience, combined with a no-nonsense
approach that allowed her to see that what’s happening in one
city’s animal population is both similar and dissimilar to
what’s happening somewhere else. Standard operating procedures
and policies have to be in place, but you also have to possess a
nuanced understanding of the gray areas within the black and
white text.
 So why is animal sheltering such a draw for Pullen? It probably
doesn’t hurt that she literally grew up in an animal shelter
environment. Pullen’s mother, Betsy Pullen, was Director of the
Kent County Humane Society for 23 years. So while most of our
childhood’s included hopscotch, tinker toys, and after school
jobs like a paper route delivery, Pullen’s childhood included
cleaning kennels, helping a family pick out a pet, or observing
vets administer vaccinations to shelter animals.
In the animal welfare field, colleagues often say that if
spaying and neutering were a topic of conversation at every
dinner table, many more animals would benefit from the triumphs
of spaying and neutering. When you listen to Pullen talk about
the topic you realize that such dinner table conversation ruled
the day in the Pullen household. When drawing the plans for the
now new LA/SPCA Campus space was a hot topic. For someone whose
never worked at an animal shelter, it’s easy to imagine that if
a building has enough kennels you can solve the problem of
animal overpopulation. But for someone like Pullen whose
experience has taken her through the doors of many shelters, one
of her most well-known sayings is that, “no matter how big a
shelter is if you build it they will come.” The answer, Pullen
will always return to, is quite simply spaying and neutering.
Besides literally growing up in an animal shelter environment,
Pullen, prior to joining the ASPCA, served as Director of Animal
Sheltering Services for the HSUS, working in a consultant role
and offering advice to shelters all across the United States,
Russia, Brazil and Taiwan. Prior to that she also served as
executive director in shelters in Virginia, Washington D.C. and
Maryland.
 As her two year consulting assignment with the LA/SPCA
concludes, in no way does it end Pullen’s connection to New
Orleans. Along with the frustrating nights of creating computer
presentations on training protocols, and being the go-to person
on day-to-day crisis, Pullen couldn’t get New Orleans out of her
blood, and decided, “Oh, what the hell,” and bought a home here.
She fell in love with the people, the funky neighborhoods, a
bar, or two, and discovered the soul-wrenching beauty of the
Gospel Tent during her first New Orleans Jazz Festival. And
although she’ll remain a self-described unsentimental realist,
she also fell in love with a goofy, giant, gangly of a dog named
Crispy, aptly named due to the extreme mange that so covered his
body when he first entered the shelter that he looked just like
a “crispy critter.”
She’s also committed to Louisiana in a further extension of a
professional life, working in concert with Kathryn Destreza of
the Louisiana SPCA in a LA/SPCA/ASPCA joint project called the
Louisiana Partnership, which will help struggling municipalities
across the state build better and stronger animal shelters.
In her two years working with the LA/SPCA Pullen learned about
more than just the joys of the Gospel Tent and the beauty of New
Orleans amidst the rubble, she also learned how to dance through
the rhythmic grays that so defined rebuilding the Louisiana
SPCA.
Thank you, Kate, for the dance.
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