ElderPet’s Efforts to Support Companions Through the Golden Years

Pets of all shapes and sizes fill a critical role for seniors, providing them support, care, and companionship. However, having a pet doesn't come cheap, especially with all the bills that pile up: food, grooming, toys, leashes, veterinary care, the works. Many seniors on fixed incomes find it difficult to keep up with those bills, and that's where ElderPet comes in to help. They work with seniors on the New Hampshire Seacoast to ensure they have everything they need to make sure their beloved pets stay by their side for as long as possible. Jerilee Zezula, Treasurer of ElderPet, joins us to talk about their history and efforts, and what you can do to keep them going.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend. Each week
we come together and talk about allthe topics important to you and the place
where you live. So good tobe back with you again this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. Now, look, I may be biased as an animal
lover, but I feel that sometimesthere's nothing better than a cute little dog
wagging its tail, looking up atyou, wanting to be pet, getting

(00:29):
some scretches behind the ears, andcuddling up next to you. Maybe for
you that's a cat, a hamster, a hedgehog, probably not a fish.
Whatever animal you choose, companionship isdefinitely important if you're a pet lover,
and pets do fill that critical role. They can give us comfort and
support even when we're not feeling likethat for ourselves. For seniors, as

(00:49):
you can imagine, that is especiallyimportant. And on the other hand,
though having a pet does not comecheap, the bills definitely pile up quickly,
the vet bills, the food,the grooming, the toys, all
that stuff. Considering inflation has hikedprices on so many of our everyday needs.
Many seniors now are finding it hardon their fixed income to try to
keep up. It's a difficult balance, but in New Hampshire, Elder Pet

(01:11):
is there to help. They makesure that seniors on the Sea coast have
all the supplies, the food,the care they need to make sure their
beloved pets stick by as long aspossible. Jerry's Azula is the treasurer of
Elder Pets. She's here on theshow now. Jerry, really good to
have you here. Thank you foryour time. Tell us a bit about
how Elderpet came around in the firstplace. It has a very interesting background.

(01:33):
I'm actually a retired Universe New Hampshireprofessor. I taught in an associate
degree program known as the Thompson Schoolin Applied Animal Science. I am a
veterinarian and back in nineteen seventy nineeighty I started the small animal care option

(01:57):
for the Applied Animal Science pro whichhad been strictly all livestock for the most
part, and we had no companionanimals on campus, so I had to
be very creative about how I couldteach the students and we ended up going
to the local animal shelter. Iwould take them down there for hands on

(02:21):
experiences and labs, so to speak, and that was back when social service
social workers and social science people andveterinarians were beginning to get a handle on
the importance of the human animal bond. And I thought, wow, what

(02:42):
a great experience for these students tobe in on this. So back in
the early eighties was when there wasthe big push to get allow pets into
senior housing. Before that, itwas illegal, you couldn't have any pets.
And New Hampshire actually had a lawbefore the federal law went in.

(03:06):
And because of my position and thefact that I knew a couple of lobbyists
and legislators, they asked me tostart promoting the law to get pets and
elderly housing. So what we didwas I got a group of students and
it became a class project where wewrote a manual for housing managers to allay

(03:34):
the fears that every elderly person wasn'tgoing to go out and get a great
Dane and let them do their businessall over the place. I mean,
that was the story. I don'tknow how many times we heard something like
that. So we put together whatwere reasonable rules and regulations and what they
could expect and responsible ownership type things, and in doing that, because of

(03:58):
the work with the shelters, wealso started bringing pets to shelter, pets
to nursing homes, and we alsoas the students got out into the world,
they began to do other projects likegive rides to people to veterinary hospitals
or groomers. We actually groomed someanimals for senior citizens. They also noticed

(04:23):
the financial needs that some of theselow income elders had because we were dealing
a lot with public housing, sothey got the idea of starting to provide
pet food. So we were actuallygetting surplus pet food from the animal shelters
and distributing it to other people thatneeded it. So that's how it got
started. So I taught there formany years and it was for the most

(04:46):
part of student project. We switchedover from working with animal shelters for the
animal therapy part of it and switchedto pet partners. I aligned with a
group that was doing pet visitations anddoing the pet partner's screening for therapy animals

(05:09):
out of Exeter Hospital at the timeand convinced them to join us with the
service aspect. And this was gettingwhen I was starting to think about retirement
because I was afraid the project wouldgo down the tubes when I retired,
so we became an actual nonprofit intwo thousand and three. So we still

(05:30):
had the student volunteers and still involvedthe UNH students, but it was and
became an outside nonprofit. And whenI did retire, we started looking for
grants and got a loan pool,which is what we started with first.
On top of the pet food andthe loan pool is if a senior citizen

(06:00):
who has a low income, andwe worked primarily by phone conversations because most
of these things were fairly time sensitive. They had an animal that needed some
veterinary care and they couldn't afford it. We would pay the veterinarian and they
would pay us back at a predeterminedrate that they determined depending on their income.

(06:24):
So I found that people of thegeneration we were dealing with didn't want
handouts. They wanted to be ableto do it themselves. So they really
appreciated the loan aspect and would payus back on a regular basis. We
had a little contract and all ofthat. They set the rate, we
set them a schedule, and that'show we started with that. So we

(06:47):
started with the loan pool and peoplebegan to hear more about us, and
my board started getting the word outabout some of this, and we began
to getting other funding. There wasa couple of businesses that did the payroll
deductions with the employer matching and woulddonate to us, so we actually got

(07:15):
more money than we needed for awhile. So we began to do the
what we call pet medication assistance becausethe other thing that we found was a
lot of times older people had petsand they took good care of them when
they were working and that type ofthing, and then when they retired and
got on a fixed income, thecare kind of lapsed a bit and the

(07:40):
animals got older, and then whenthey had to pick up with the care
again, they found that they hadsome expensive long term illnesses to deal with.
A lot of cats are hyperthyroid nowolder cats. We have a lot
of allergies in dogs and cats.Now we have animals that are diabetic,

(08:03):
those kinds of things, and whilethey could pay for the initial diagnosis,
they couldn't pay for the ongoing medicationon a regular basis. So we decided
to pick that up and provide prescriptiondiets and medication for owners that could continue

(08:24):
with their veterinary care, lab work, those types of things that they needed
for follow ups. So those arethe services that we provide for the most
part. A couple of other littlethings thrown in, but it's the pet
food and now it is mostly eitherdonated or we have We're on the Chewy

(08:48):
lists so that people can donate throughChewy and we can order pet food through
them. We also do the loansstill, and we also do the pet
medication assistance. So the rules haveevolved as we've gone because we've learned as
best we can, and that's kindof what we do. In addition to

(09:13):
giving rides and consulting, I doa lot of work with social workers that
are dealing with pet owners that arehaving issues with changes in their life and
they have to make account for theirpets and so on, So we do
a lot of work with that.Yeah, let's expand on that a little
bit actually, because that's a reallygood question. Could you tell us a
bit more about why having pets andthat human animal bond is so important for

(09:39):
seniors and how it enriches both themand the pet. Seniors are often isolated.
Now the families don't tend to livetogether. We used to have the
group families where everybody lived in thesame area and everybody would watch out for
everyone, but that is not alwaysthe case now and a lot of time
seniors will have lost their spouse orother loved ones, other family members,

(10:03):
and they have a pet, andtheir pet is basically their reason for being.
Gets them up in the morning,gets them on a routine. If
anybody that's hot a pet knows that, they regulate your life, which is
good to an extent, is notthe best, but yeah, okay.

(10:24):
It gets them out of bed.It gets them exercise for the most part,
at least the dogs do. Thecats don't get people to exercise too
much, but entertains them. Theyhave something to worry about besides themselves.
Sometimes that gets a little a littleexaggerated, but they no longer, you

(10:45):
know, they have a companionship.They have this pet they've had. Oftentimes
it's the connection to a loved onethat they've lost, so it's really important
to them and it becomes their alterego. Cases you know, everybody knows
their pets, they don't know them, and oftentimes the pets will actually become

(11:09):
mascots of a floor in public housingand things like that. So everybody knows
the pets of people and it's reallyimportant and I think any pet owner can
sort of relate to that and theywant to be able to take care of
them the way that they should.Yeah, and everybody loves I love how

(11:30):
you bring that up about the likethe homes where the pets become the star,
because it does not take much forthose pets. They've all got great
personalities and they are very quickly.I've noticed they kind of become the rallying
point around a specific community or aneighborhood. Everybody's like, Oh, that's
Jack, or Oh that's Snuffy orwhatever the dog's name is exactly, And
we have a number of people thattheir pets are so special. Then they

(11:54):
cross over and they do the animalassisted activities and therapy through the Partners program,
which we also do, but wedon't need funding for that because the
owners pay for the registration with PetPet Partners and all of that, so
we're not doing any fundraising for thataspect of our establishment. So we have

(12:15):
two branches. We have the PetPartner's Therapy branch and then we have the
service community service branch related to petsso okay, yeah, tell me a
little bit more about Pet Partners,and you know, if somebody's listening,
they might be curious about how theycan get involved. So obviously, you
need to have a pet that isnot going to fly off the handle.
You need a well trained pet exactly, you know. But if you have

(12:35):
a good dog who is you know, able to stay calm and you know
most conditions, I'm sure that thatwould be a really good qualification to get
involved in Pet Partners. Yeah,dogs in general, owners will know right
away if they have that special dog. And yes, they do have to
have basic training, and we dorecommend that they take an outside obedience class

(12:58):
just for the socialization and the experiencefor basic training, or sometimes the CGC
class that AKC sponsors. But thereason that we go with Pet Partners versus
the other organizations that register therapy animalsis a couple of different reasons. One

(13:22):
is they require the handler training notjust the pet, but the other end
of the leash, because if you'regoing to bring your pet into public places,
you're responsible for that pet the wholetime. So Pet Partners emphasizes the
bond between the handler and the animal, and Pet Partners will also unlike some
organizations, they register lots of differentspecies. So we have cats, we

(13:46):
have rabbits, we have horses,we have guinea pigs. A lot of
different species come through pet partners.Okay, I even see here mini pigs,
which I love a mini pigs.Yea, they are so cute.
People don't get really big. Ohwell then they're not so many, but
they're still super cute exactly. Yeah. So anyway, the handler training is

(14:11):
really important and the owner is madeaware and many owners already are, but
they're made aware of the fact thatthey have to be in touch with their
animal at all times because you're askingyour animal to kind of do something for
you and to be safe in anyenvironment that you might ask them to go
into. So you need to bein touch with your animal at all times.

(14:35):
And you know, it's really importantthat handlers realize that. Sometimes we
have people that you know, thattheir animal is really, really good and
they just kind of let it doits own thing, but they get into
trouble sometimes and they don't even realizeit. They don't realize the animal is
stressed, or they don't realize thatthe animal is uncomfortable with a particular individual

(15:01):
and animals. Dogs are dogs,you got to you've got to be aware
of where they are in their headand how they're doing and that type of
thing. So we do really likePet Partners for that reason and the fact
that they do other species and theyprovide a lot of support the only and
they have a lot of continuing educationthrough their website so that you know,

(15:26):
if you want to get involved withcrisis response training, you can do that.
If you want to get involved,if you are a healthcare professional or
a social worker, you can getinvolved with learning how to utilize analysistic therapy
in your practice. So Pet Partnerskind of does it all. It's a

(15:48):
good package and that's why we've gonewith that. And Elder Pet is a
community partner of Pet Partners. Sowhat we do is offer handler classes and
we also induct the evaluations for theteam because we don't just evaluate the dog,
We evaluate the owner and the dogtogether as a team. So you
mostly operate in the New Hampshire SeaCoast. Correct, give me a basic

(16:11):
idea about where people can get involvedwith the Elder Pet. Okay, we
do Strafford County a lot in StraffordCounty and the Sea Coast of Rockingham County
for the most part as far asour services go, as far as pet
partners go, it is a webbased registration process and people have to go

(16:34):
to the pet partner's website and thehandler's class is online now, but the
evaluation is in person, so theyhave to go find a place where there's
an evaluation being offered and schedule itonline. And we have people that have
come to us from Maine up toMid Coast Maine down to Massachusetts and Rhode

(17:00):
Island in Connecticut for the pet partner'sevaluation because you know, they may have
a specific time slot that they haveto do it, or they miss the
one in their area or something likethat. So we have people doing the
pet partners from all over for themost part. Okay, we even have
some snowbirds that come up and doit here and then go back and do

(17:23):
their work in the South in thewinter, so we do get a lot
of people that way. But forthe for the services, yeah, we're
pretty much strictly in Stratford and SeaCoast Rockingham Counties, which is still a
decent amount of space to cover.There's a lot going on there. When
I began thinking about this, Ithought, Oh, we'll just do it

(17:45):
statewide, and then I went,oh, what was I thinking? Maybe
going to work? Yeah, onething at a time. No, you
never know where it could go inthe future. But I mean, you're
obviously doing some really good work rightnow for seniors and for pats and if
somebody is listening and wants to help, what do you need the most right
now? Well, we were reallydamaged by COVID and a couple of other

(18:11):
situations, so we definitely need funding, you know, a reasonable source of
funding where really you said you foundout about us through New Hampshire Gifts.
We're really putting a lot of effortinto that this year and hopes that we
will get a good turnout for us, and we've been grant writing. We've

(18:32):
been fairly successful with that, butit's very time consuming and we have an
all volunteer board. We have nopaid employees or anything, so it's only
so much we can do as anall volunteer board because we're we're doing all
the outreach work and we're also conductingthe pet partners evaluations and things, so

(18:52):
it's a lot of time constraints aswell as financial constraints. So obviously financial
donations are helpful. We have alink on Chewy that if it's called Chewi
gives Back. If somebody would liketo donate a gift card for pet food,
that would be very helpful. Weneed volunteers for our outreach services.

(19:21):
I do our pet food. Weprimarily limit to people that don't get out
the shut ins, so we actuallydeliver, so I often will need delivery
people. But right now we're kindof have some of this stuff on hold
because of financial issues. So youknow which comes first. Should we get
the volunteers or should we get themoney first. Something we can keep the

(19:45):
program going foods exactly to have workfor them to do. But we are
keeping up with our current clients.We have a list, a waiting list
of people that want to get intothe program, and we're hoping that New
Hampshire Gifts and the couple of greatwe've got out will we'll come to Fruition
and we're also getting on a listfor the Charitable Gaming So we're hoping to

(20:07):
turn things around pretty quickly. ButCOVID hit us like everybody else. We
had a number of retirements for thebusinesses that we're giving the the employee payroll
donations, so if they retired,we're not getting those fundings anymore. So

(20:29):
we are getting We got into troublebecause of COVID and we're trying to get
out of the hole now right now. I get that. Your story is
one I've heard from many, many, many nonprofits around here. We all
and there's so many worthy organizations.It's like I look around and it's you
know, it's like everybody needs help. Yeah, I get that, but

(20:51):
you know what, this is definitelya great cause and we just want to
make sure these pets are fed andtaking care of and these seniors are taking
care of as well. So ifpeople want to help, if they want
to contribute in any way, eitherthrough volunteering or pet food or money or
whatever, where can they find you. We have a website elderpet dot org.
You can always reach by email atelderpet at gmail dot com. Okay,

(21:18):
and if you go to our website, my phone numbers on the bottom
of the web pages every web page, so you can get a hold of
me by phone. Our web page, I've got to redo it. Apparently
less is more now, So myweb page is very wordy with lots of
links to different things. So ifyou really want to learn a lot,
it's there. But I guess peoplelearn into that so much anymore, so

(21:41):
I've we've got to work on thatand get it down to less words and
more pictures. I don't know,there's a really cute picture of Keeper the
dog here that I just keep comingback to because Keeper is this cute little
Golden Retriever I think, and justlike the cutest smile. Keep all the
cute dog pictures. Please, yes, I know everybody loves that exactly.

(22:03):
Well, Jerry, thank you somuch for your time. Thank you for
everything you're doing for our seniors andour local pets, and hopefully we can
get you some help. Okay,great, thank you for considering elder pet
and we'll take all the help wecan get. Have a safe and healthy
weekend. Please join me again nextweek for another edition of the show.
I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radioon iHeartRadio.