Ft Myers Beach - Good Neighbor
Listen & Subscribe
Island Vibes Ahead!
Tune in to the Ft. Myers Beach – Good Neighbor Podcast, where the spirit of community meets the rhythm of island life. Each episode is a laid-back journey through heartfelt stories, local voices, and the connections that make our beach town so special. Whether you’re a resident or just dreaming of coastal breezes, let us be your guide to all things good in our neighborhood.
Hit play and catch the vibe – Ft. Myers Beach style.
Ft Myers Beach - Good Neighbor
ST INS CARES-Caloosa Humane Society Saves Dogs And Cats Through Shelter
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
A no-kill shelter can’t run on good intentions alone, and Caloosa Humane Society in LaBelle, Florida proves what it looks like when a community decides animals are worth the work. We sit down with Executive Director Erin Hitsman to hear how her career in zoos, wildlife conservation, fundraising, and rescue led her to a shelter that cares for 70 to 80 animals at a time, from big dogs needing room to decompress to cats you can meet in commingled cat rooms.
Erin walks us through one of the most powerful solutions they’ve built: the Cell Dog program with the Moorhaven Correctional Rehab facility. Dogs get structured training toward Good Canine Citizen standards, become more adoptable, and open up space at the shelter, while residents gain real skills and certification. We also talk about the behind-the-scenes realities of animal rescue and pet adoption, including why Caloosa focuses on dogs and cats, how they handle meet and greets for current pets, and how a 10-day foster trial can prevent a bad match.
Funding is a major theme too. Caloosa receives no government funding, so donations, fundraisers, and their veterinary clinic keep the shelter running. You’ll hear exactly what supplies matter most (kitten and puppy food, neonate bottles, bleach, leashes, beds), why heartworm treatment is a costly but non-negotiable part of responsible rescue, and how events like the Love Unleashed Gala help sustain lifesaving care.
If you care about animal welfare, no-kill shelters, volunteering, or humane society donations in Southwest Florida, listen through and then subscribe, share with a fellow pet lover, and leave a review so more people can find these stories and support the work.
Caloosa Humane Society
Erin Hitsman
ADOPTION CENTER
1200 Pratt Blvd LaBelle, FL 33935
863) 675-0997
VETERINARY CLINIC
1050 Commerce Dr LaBelle, FL 33935
(863) 675-7387
info@caloosahumanesociety.org
caloosahumanesociety.org
State Insurance USA
4450 Camino Real Way
Ft Myers, FL 33966
239-567-9992
office@StateInsuranceUSA.com
stateinsuranceusa.com
https://www.facebook.com/Stateinsuranceusa
#StateInsuranceUSA
#SupportLocal
#WeLoveOurClients
@Stateinsuranceusa
Ft Myers Beach-Good Neighbor
To Nominate Someone to be Featured
Or
To Subscribe to the Newsletter
CLICK HERE
https://cabowabojim.com/listen-to-podcasts/
Welcome And Mission
Intro/CloseWelcome to State Insurance USA Cares Podcast, where we celebrate the heart of our communities. Each episode, we highlight local charities and nonprofits who are bringing hope, help, and healing to those who need it most. Get ready to be inspired by the amazing stories of people making a difference. Because together, we care.
Gail LangnerWell, welcome to State Insurance Cares, the charitable giving arm of State Insurance USA. I'm Gail Langner, and today we are highlighting the Caloosa Humane Society in LaBelle, an organization that's dedicated to rescuing animals, finding them loving homes, and educating our community about responsible pet ownership. Today, joining me is Executive Director Erin Hitzman. Thank you, Erin, for joining us.
Erin HitsmanThank you, Gail, for having me. I appreciate this so much.
Gail LangnerWell,
Erin’s Path From Zoos To Rescue
Gail Langnerwe're excited to have you on today. Um, when you and I talked on the phone, um, I already can tell you totally love what you do. How did what brought you to the Calusa Humane Society?
Erin HitsmanSo um, long story, kind of. I worked in the zoo, zoo world for 20 years. So my degree is wildlife conservation biology, and I started out as a zoo keeper a million years ago um for, you know, maybe five years or so, parrots and primates. And then I went into the administrative side of it. So I've done everything that you can imagine with development and fundraising and marketing and volunteer management and event management, all the things, right? So um worked in the zoo sector, nonprofit sector for about 20 years. Um, and then I had a parrot rescue, I had my own 501c3. Wow. Um, been been really involved in all of the exotic side of things, right? Um, and and a lot of the um wildlife, uh domestic, not not dogs and cats, but the wildlife um that actually lives in your backyard type of thing. Okay. Um, and then I left and I went into real estate, became a real estate broker, and my husband's a contractor. We were doing our own thing, and then I was like, I I need to volunteer. Um, and so I decided to volunteer at the Calusa Humane Society, and then it turned into a little bit more than volunteering. I shouldn't say so.
Gail LangnerExecutive director, I would say so. It turned into a little bit more.
Erin HitsmanOnce they figured out my background, um, and it happened to be what they needed at the time, and I didn't know that it's what I needed at the time, it ended up being a really good marriage. And so here I am.
Caloosa Humane Society Shelter Overview
Gail LangnerWell, that's wonderful. Well, tell us about the uh Calusa Humane Society.
Erin HitsmanSo Caloosa is um it's a small uh humane society. We are no kill. We have at any given time, we probably have about 70 to 80 animals on site. So we've got 26 large dog runs, and then we've got 13 giant dog yards outside for the dogs to go run and play in. Um, we have four commingled cat rooms, and so we typically have about 40 cats at any given time where you can come in and you can interact. You can sit in the cat rooms and play with the cats and get to know them. Um, so we've got we also have a cell dog program.
Cell Dog Program With Moorhaven
Erin HitsmanSo we have a partnership with the Moorhaven Correctional Rehab uh facility geo, and they have about eight dogs in the cell dog program at a certain time that the residents there they do a training program. And so the resident does 1,920 hours of service of training and they get their master dog certification pro training uh certification, and then the dog gets their good canine citizen CGC certification in the program. Um, so that makes the dogs more adoptable, and it it also allows us to take more animals in and we don't have to hold those kennels for those animals. We can adopt them out through the prison. That's incredible. How's that working?
Gail LangnerIs it working well?
Erin HitsmanIt's pretty cool. We started it last year when I came in. I started in January of 2025, and I think we started that program in April uh last year. So this is our our we just had our second graduation. We're on our third class of dogs. Um, so it was kind of a a trial and error getting it started on their side and on our side, but we're getting better at it. We're learning as we go. One of our board members is a um AAKC trainer, and so she helps them with some of the programming and she tests the dogs out and the trainers out at the end of the program when they think the dogs are ready. Sometimes the animals get adopted before they graduate, and then we roll new dogs in there. So it just kind of the way we just, you know, it's a great program, and we're excited about it, and we're still figuring it out as we go, but it's awesome for the residents and it's amazing for the dogs. It's a win-win for everybody.
Gail LangnerI can see it would be. That sounds like an incredible program, really. It does. Um, do you do um other animals besides dogs and cats? Do you ever get anything else there?
Erin HitsmanWe really don't. Um, we're open to it. You know, if we had the right veterinarian come in and work with us, if that vet happened to be a large animal vet or a small animal exotic bird, whatever, okay, we can open our clinic practice up and we would be willing to open up the Humane Society on a different level. But since we don't have that specialty medicine in our clinic, it makes it really difficult to actually take those animals in from a humane society standpoint. So we stick to dogs and cats because that's what we know and that's what we're able to medically treat.
Gail LangnerRight. And that's good too. I mean, Kentucky Fried Chicken sticks to sticks to chicken, and that's what, you know, when you do it well, you do it well. So we
Vet Clinic Funding And Volunteers
Gail Langnerdo have a vet side then of a clinic, right?
Erin HitsmanWe have a vet clinic, yes, yes, ma'am. So um we're about two streets down, we're not on the same campus, but very close to each other. We do have our own veterinary clinic, and it is one organization, it is one bank account, it is one everything. So it's all uh the same umbrella. The board of directors and myself are over both both sides of it. And so we everything that happens at the vet clinic supports our shelter directly. So every dollar that goes in from you taking your dog or cat there for a wellness visit or a surgery, whatever it is, every bit of revenue goes directly to our shelter. And that's our greatest revenue generation source, other than our fundraisers. I can see why it would be.
Gail LangnerYeah. So I know, of course, obviously people can can volunteer. How are there different, you know, I'm assuming they can volunteer. Are there different volunteer positions that you would have available there?
Erin HitsmanThere are, and we are um, so we're slowly really building our volunteer program. We don't have a true volunteer manager, we don't have a lot of those management positions. So it's, you know, slow rolling to make sure that it's successful, but we do have volunteers that help us clean on a daily and regular basis. We are starting a dog walking program with the volunteers. We really um want to get that kicked off and and get the dogs walked on a regular basis with a big group of volunteers. Um, so yeah, we do have people that help us at events, we have people that help us regularly for cleaning. Um, absolutely. So we and I can use administrative volunteers. We've got volunteers that can help us in different capacities depending on your skill set and your desire.
Gail LangnerSo okay, that's wonderful. You brought
Love Unleashed Gala And Swamp Stomp
Gail Langnerup events. So um, do you have a fundraising event that you do? Are there do?
Erin HitsmanSo actually, our annual gala, it is the Love Unleashed Gala, and it's October 10th this year. It's gonna be at the Labelle Civic Center. Um, it's $100 a ticket. We have a lot of sponsorships available. We're just now rolling out those packets and sending those out to our sponsors and potential sponsors. And so it is our 25th anniversary for the organization. So our our theme is silver and black for the 25th anniversary. Um, so yeah, our annual gala is our biggest annual fundraiser that we do, and it is this October. We also have a 5k that we do every uh uh every February, along with um the Swamp Cabbage Festival. It's our swamp stomp, and we have about 500 runners that participate in that. We have about 300 people that come to our annual um fundraiser for the gala. And then we do um work on some smaller things throughout the season. Uh, we just did a bingo fundraiser partnership. We've got a few other little partnerships that we do and small um integrated fundraisers, and we're working on building that side of things, but right now we've just got our two really big main fundraisers that are okay.
Gail LangnerAll right, well, that's good, and that's really good. Would you send me the sponsorship information?
Erin HitsmanAbsolutely.
Gail LangnerWould you send that to me? Okay, that's great. Can
Supply Donations And Easy Drop-Offs
Gail Langnerpeople donate supplies or food or uh are are there things that you need that I know? Yeah, I know during those cold times I noticed that you really needed blankets and things. So um, what kinds of things could people donate?
Erin HitsmanCould they just come and drop them off or absolutely so dog, cat, kitten, puppy. Um, we we especially during kitten and puppy season, we always need kitten and puppy food. We need some of the neonate kitten milk replacer um bottles. We need bleach, is is so expensive. Bleach has gotten crazy. So that's bleach and Dawn dish soap cleaning supplies are things that we can always use. Um, we definitely can use, you know, leashes and collars, and um the big industrial like Coranda makes these really amazing dog beds. They're very expensive. So if somebody wanted to clean up they are um they're a couple hundred dollars per bed. Okay. But they are they're really industrial and they're um very heavy duty. So for the kennels, they're amazing beds for the dogs that they can't really chew up and destroy. Um, and they're made of different, like either aluminum or um sometimes really heavy-duty PVC, depends on the bed, and different sizes. So different types, even the fluffy dog beds, we use all of those for the dogs and the cats, cat toys, dog toys, all of that stuff. We can use any of those donations. They can be um distributed. You can bring them straight to the vet clinic or the shelter. You can have them delivered through Amazon or Chewy. Um, there's you know, any kind of avenue you can absolutely um we can do if anybody in town wants to do a collection box. We were just talking about this last week. I want to start putting collection boxes out there. I'll come pick them up. If you want to have a collection box at your office, we would love that. So absolutely, we can use donations. That's cash donations, medical supplies. We are always, you know, that any type of donation we can use.
Gail LangnerAnd if somebody wanted to donate cash, they could do that on your website.
Erin Hitsman100%. We've got PayPal links on our website. Um, we can accept checks. We are um we do not receive any federal, uh, federal, state, or local funding. We don't get any governmental funding whatsoever. So everything that we do comes directly from donations, fundraisers, and the revenue that we are able to create through our vet clinic. So yeah, okay, absolutely. That's good to know. Every dollar helps save lives in that we we set we appreciate every dollar that we get because we work very hard for everything that we do. Right.
Gail LangnerI can
Rescue Turnarounds And Heartworm Treatment
Gail Langnerimagine what it would be like, or maybe I can't imagine what it would be like to have um you and I talked about Carl, your Bernese mountain dog, to have an animal come in that you know has not been treated properly, but to watch them grow and go off to be live in their forever home. Do you do you have a favorite story or anything?
Erin HitsmanWe have some. So Carl that you're speaking of, he came in maybe last week, week before, um, he had a chain embedded into his neck. And so he we had to um actually cut it off with a grinder. Um, and he is uh about 60 pounds underweight. So at his age, he's only a year and a half. He should be about 130 pounds and he's 71 pounds right now. So he's got to go through a lot of um nutritional development there. Um, but otherwise, he's he's doing great. I'm really surprised you would think that an animal would have a broken spirit like that coming in, but he's he's really an amazing animal. He's gonna make a great pet for somebody. We have a lot of really crazy stories. And last year, I would say we took in what we call broken dogs. We took in quite a few broken dogs because we're afraid that if we don't take them in, that they're just gonna get euthanized, and we'd rather give them a chance if we can. Yep. So we've taken in quite a few that have been hit by cars or shot it uh gunshot, you know, different tragedies that have happened. Um, the little dog that I just adopted, he is a border collie, and um he was shot and we had to amputate his leg. So I was like, okay, he's coming home with me.
Gail LangnerGood for you.
Erin HitsmanHe's my newest little baby, but you know, we we do what we can um for as long as we can with all of them, and they are they're just amazing creatures, and you never know what they've been through before we get a hold of them. We've got a German shepherd right now, her name's Naya, and she was the owner of relinquishment, but she was, I mean, super skinny. She was skeletal when we got her. Um, no hair, no, I mean, no, no meat on her bones whatsoever, heartworm disease. So we've had her for probably, I'm gonna guess eight or nine months because we've had to build her up so much before we could even do heartworm treatment because she was so sick. Sick. Yep. Now she's got this amazing coat of hair. She's gorgeous, she's ready for adoption. She just finished her heartworm treatment. She looks amazing. It's really, really cool to see them actually become. We were able to let her run in the yards the other day because they can't run around too much when they have heartworm or it's too much stress on their heart. And she loves running, she's so excited. She's the sweetest girl. So it is very cool to see them grow up and actually, you know, become a dog and experience life for sure.
Gail LangnerWell, I'm excited to come and do um the check presentation with you. And like we we spoke earlier before the podcast started, that I have a few of my team members want to come along, which I'm wonderful. I'm glad it's okay with you that I bring them up.
Erin HitsmanYeah, the more the merrier.
Gail LangnerOh, well, I'm I'm thrilled to meet you, Erin, and thank you for all you do. I am um a pet advocate and a dog mom forever. And um, it's um it breaks my heart to hear the stories, but it but it also warms my heart to know that there are people like you out there that are are really doing the right thing. I love the fact that you're a no-kill shelter. I love that.
Adoption Steps And Visiting Hours
Gail LangnerSo again, how would they um if they came to donate, what's the address that they would they would come to?
Erin HitsmanYeah, Gail, um our our shelter is 1200 Pratt Boulevard in LaBelle. It's 33935. And the shelter's open every day, seven days a week from noon to 4:30. Uh, if you need to come earlier, you can always make an appointment. And our staff is there, they're just usually busy cleaning and they go to lunch from 11 to 12. So nobody's there between 11 and 12. But prior to that, if somebody has to come earlier, by all means, we just, you know, if we know that you're coming, we'll let you in. Um, but we're there every day from 12 to 4:30. The vet clinic Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. Um, and that's at 1050 Commerce Drive. So we can accept donations at either place. You can come meet the animals every day from 12 to 4:30. Come sit out and hang in the cat rooms, come meet a dog or a few dogs. Um, we can schedule meet and greets. If you have a dog already and you want to get a new one, we can schedule a meet and greet with your dog and our dog to make sure that they get along, see how that goes, try the family out and make sure it's a good fit before we finalize it. We also do kind of a 10-day foster program so that if you're not really sure if it's gonna be a good fit or not, we can try it out for 10 days. And if no harm, no fell, every day out of the shelter is a good day. So if it doesn't work out, they come back and they had puppy camp for a little bit and then we we try to find another home for them.
Gail LangnerSo I was gonna ask if there was criteria for that for people to adopt.
Erin HitsmanYeah, so we have it we're not super restrictive, but we do need to make sure that all your dogs or cats in your household have are up to date on their rabies. Um, we want to make sure that everybody in the household comes to meet the animal and that it's a good fit there. Um, not all the time, you know, they may not always be good with kids or men or like certain situations. We just don't always know that. And then if you have, if you're adopting a dog and you want to um adopt and you have a dog in your household, we would ask that you bring your dog or dogs to meet our dog to make sure that we can make sure that they get along because they don't always get along.
Gail LangnerSo oh, that's a great idea, and you know, I my little dog, I mean, he he loves everybody, but you know what? There, there are some just some little dogs. There's this little black dog on our street, has never done one thing to anybody, never will, and Max does not like him.
Erin HitsmanWell, we never know why they have triggers, they can't tell us why.
Gail LangnerI know we don't know why.
Erin HitsmanYeah, so we do our best to make sure, and sometimes four months down the road, things have a problem, and we try to help with behavior modification and behavior training. You know, if you have a problem, you can always call us. But yeah, we do everything that we can do to get our dogs into good homes and dogs and cats into good homes, and then keep them in the good homes. So exactly good. And then we do about a third of the dogs that we get in um have heartworm disease. And so we actually medically treat all of our animals that come in. We do spay neuter, we do vaccinations, and then if it's if it's a dog that has heartworm, it costs us at least $500 per dog to do that treatment. And we do that and we lose money on that. That's okay because we want it to be a healthy animal going into a home. Right. So we we do as much medical on them as we can to make sure that they're healthy before they go to their new owners.
Closing Support Links
Gail LangnerOkay. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for joining us today. And I know our listeners learned a lot about you, and I know we'll keep our fingers crossed that you'll have tons of donations of money and and things that the dogs and cats need. So I appreciate you taking some time to be with me today.
Erin HitsmanThank you, Gail. We appreciate you so much, and we look forward to this continued partnership. And I look forward to meeting you on Friday. Exactly. See you then. Yes, thank you so much.
Intro/CloseThank you for joining us on State Insurance USA Cares. We hope today's story uplifted and inspired you. If you'd like to support or learn more about the incredible work happening in your community, visit StateInsuranceUSA.com or call 239 567 9992. You can also visit cabowabo jim.com. Until next time, be sure to let your sun shine and keep sharing good and positive vibes wherever the waves take you.