I know many of you wonder how it is that we always have so many dogs in urgent situations in our Southern shelters. Maybe this will help explain it. Our local shelter in West Monroe (yes, Duck Dynasty country) is parish-run. They receive stray pets from three different animal control agencies: City of Monroe, City of West Monroe, Ouachita Parish. These dogs are placed on 7-day hold for possible owner reclaim. 6% are reclaimed. Fewer than half of the shelter population comes from AC. More than half are owner surrenders. The parish shelter is required to accept all owner surrenders, regardless of condition. These animals get no hold time. If there is room, they may live for a while. If there is not, they are immediately euthanized unless they are considered extremely adoptable. The shelter has 57 pens, currently all full, and in some cases the pens are housing 2-3 smaller dogs or puppies, and there are temporary puppy pens outside as well. Since June 1 (which was a Sunday when they are closed, so really just in the past three days), the shelter has received 124 animals. Summer is a slow adoption time, so there have been about 6 adoptions. The adoption rate is 13%. So between reclaims and adoptions, 19% of these animals survive. 81% are euthanized. This is the reality we face every day. The shelter director and assistant director, along with one work release employee, work very hard to save as many dogs and cats as possible, but the situation is nearly hopeless, and it falls to their lot to euthanize hundreds and hundreds of animals every year. These men are kind, and I like to believe they offer a soft touch or word at the end. They and the volunteers who largely work on comfort issues--walking dogs, talking to and petting dogs, washing bedding, taking photos and posting them, installing fans or heat lamps--are heroes for these former pets. Thats the reality of life in a Southern shelter run by a director with heart. I can only imagine that some places are much worse. Today, on a day when it was 96 degrees outside, volunteers walked dogs and tried to cool them down. A transformer on a light pole blew and all the fans stopped, and will remain stopped until Entergy makes repairs. Meanwhile, beautiful doxies, poodles, rat terriers, a gorgeous small husky, many many lovely hound puppies, fuzzy mutts, German shepherds, all manner of beautiful dogs and scores of kitten-cats wait--for someone to come for them, either to take them home to a new life or to end their life as an unwanted nuisance. Here are some of the dogs I saw today: a beautiful Plott hound, a young doxie and maybe a Lhasapoo, hound puppies, and a lovely black & white fluffy dog with a charming black eye.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 22:56:58 +0000
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