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

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orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 66 Since the program's inception, Fridley s small shelter has financially assisted in the sterilization of about 1,000 animals from Chilton County and the surrounding area, Annual intake numbers at the shelter have dropped from 5,500 to 4,100, the euthanasia rate has dropped by 25 percent, and adoption numbers have increased. The 60 to 80 animals the shelter used to see coming through its doors in a single day during the summer months is only a memory; daily intake is more like 25 to 30 in the hottest season now. The numbers, says Fridley, are a direct result of the spay/neuter efforts. "After working in this for so long, I hadn't seen a drop," she says, "In fact, every year the numbers of animals coming into the shelter increased-every year until we started the spay/neuter program, "Five years ago, if you had told me we could do this, I wouldn't have believed it, I would have been skeptical..., You just can't believe it would make such a difference," Seeing such tangible results of spay/neuter efforts in her community encouraged Fridley to go a step further and try to expand the program statewide, As the president of the Alabama Humane Federation and a board member of the Alabama Animal Control Association, she was already familiar with the needs and dynamics of the 40-some shelters in the state; many of them had been coming together for the better part of a decade to try to push for a felony animal cruelty law. "So I really already had the collaboration, the coalition built," she says. "I didn't have to start opening doors to do that; they were already open to me." After meeting with the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association to garner its support as well, Fridley decided to approach Maddie's Fund, She knew how much money Maddie's had to give and thought its emphasis on sterilization programs was in line with her own philosophies, so Fridley went to the foundation armed with statistics that included baseline data from every shelter in the state. "Maddie's Fund came back and wanted more information from all those places," she says, "They do not make it easy for you-I can tell you that," That original proposal would have had Maddie's money being funneled through Fridley's organization, but it was turned down because Maddie's wanted to see a "no-kill base" whereby "no-kill" shelters would assist animal control agencies and shelters that euthanize in placing animals. "We didn't have that base to support the shelters in all those counties here," says Fridley. "For instance, in my county, I'm the only shelter in afour-county area, There isn't even any other nonprofit organization that deals with animals in these areas," "The animal problem in the Southeast is worse than any place in the country," says Fridley. "If Maddie's Fund wants to be a 'no-kill nation' by the year 2010, they have to address the situation in the Southeast. I posed that to them: `You