Agenda - 09-19-2006-7b - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 5$ later, she and Dockery are providing guidance on training, retrofitting, and basic operations, working with both local animal caretakers and county administrators to improve the status of animals in Virginia. A new law levies fines against facilities that don't comply with minimum standards set by the state; while the law provides powerful backup in situations where local officials are unwilling to budge, Pullen and Dockery would rather see enforcement as a last resort so that communities can spend what little money they have on improvements. In one county facility, The HSUS is funding the construction of new walls that will allow for a cat holding area, a cat adoption room, and a euthanasia room; the officer in that shelter will now be able to perform euthanasia by injection instead of by the carbon monoxide method previously used. To Pullen, who spent years directing shelters in nearby northern Virginia and Maryland, witnessing the conditions of agencies in the forgotten pockets of the country has come as something of a shock. The economic divides are not particular to any region, nor are they limited to rural areas. Even in California, the picture is more mottled than many imagine; the state that's often seen as the Promised Land for animals is home to shelters that still take in litters of baby animals and fight to obtain even basic funding and support. And Californians need only drive an hour or two out of San Francisco to find facilities struggling to bring their operations up to minimum standards. "The rift is really a range of haves and have-Hots," says Julie Morris, vice president of the ASPGA's National Shelter Outreach division. "It seems to me it gets bigger and bigger ... in the sense that the haves at this point are now building some incredible facilities, upwards of 8, 9, 10 million dollars, that have all the bells and whistles, and there are still people who are operating out of sheds and Quonset huts and hooking cars up to the exhaust and euthanizing by exhaust." Progress in the Space Between Somewhere between all those haves and have-Hots are the hundreds of animal shelters that, while not quite prepared to declare victory in the battle against animal homelessness, have experienced gratifying progress. Even as human populations grow, shelter staff in many regions report reduced intakes, a commitment to spay/neuter that was unheard of two decades ago, and reduced euthanasia rates, But as Anne Irwin points out, the latter is the result of years of attention to basic needs of animals in the community. "We've been trying to reduce suffering, and who knew that by plugging away at it, our percentages far euthanasia [would go] down? And the real numbers are dawn," says Irwin, who has been the executive director of the Bucks County SPCA in suburban Philadelphia for 30 years. "There are days-we never thought we'd have days- where we don't have to euthanize anything."