Animals Benefit Club: Refuge for Rejected Pets
By Cassaundra Brooks
Photography provided by ABC Sanctuary
When a student brought a sickly stray dog to her South Phoenix classroom twenty-eight years ago, teacher Dee Kotinas made a class project out of nursing the animal to health. One more student-stray combination later, Kotinas organized the Animals Benefit Club (ABC).
Kotinas put the profits of her book, All About Love, toward caring for her growing number of animals. In 1991, the retired teacher purchased a one-acre former junkyard and transformed it into the ABC Sanctuary, which now encompasses two acres and houses up to 100 dogs and cats at a time. She hopes to extend the sanctuary to include a small rescue area for farm animals.
Since its founding in 1979, ABC has rescued over 16,700 dogs and cats, including 4,678 special-needs cases. The meticulous screening process places the animals in good, caring forever homes after being spayed or neutered in accordance with animal shelter laws that Kotinas created and helped to pass.
“The abused, neglected, stray, and unwanted animals at the sanctuary are guaranteed loving care and the space necessary for self-expression until they are adopted,” says Kotinas. Available space—not age or condition—decides whether an animal is accepted at the no-kill sanctuary. And the space is used freely by the canine and feline critters—an enclosed outdoor play area for cats, and fourteen separate yards with shade trees and grass for dogs. Care, from bathing to feeding to playing, takes place daily.
The sanctuary’s Animal Emergency Services program incorporates the generosity of various emergency clinics in rescuing suffering strays that are hit by cars or are ill. ABC also comprises Arizona’s only authorized branch of Delta Pet Partner Animals Assisted Therapy teams, which pair up disabled pets with various medical and care facilities. Its Continuing Care Program provides care for animals who have lost their owners, and its Paws for Reading program helps children learn to read. A few of the trained pooches even turn the pages! It also provides volunteer training and community service programs.
You can help the stray and pet overpopulation problems by keeping your pets safe and neutered, and by remembering ABC Sanctuary when you encounter a dog or cat who needs a home. As Kotinas says, “Each is a unique individual who should never be thought of as disposable.”
Animals Benefit Club is located at 3111 St. John Road, Phoenix. To make a donation, and for information about hours, volunteering, and adoption fees, call (602) 971-0839 or visit animalsbenefitclub.com.