ANIMAL CONTROL, RESCUE, & SHELTERING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

Fixing the problem

During the first decade that the
Humane Society of Charlotte ran a lowcost
neutering clinc, 1985-1996, it fixed
71,000 animals, reports president P a t t i
L e w i s, achieving a cumulative drop of
60,295 dogs received by Charlotte Animal
C o n t r o l, with continuing declines. Cat
intakes, peaking in 1989, are down 16%.
Doing Things For Animals,
publisher of the No-Kill Directory and organizer
of the annual No-Kill Conference
series, began providing direct animal care
as well in February, when director of animal
services Christine French won foundation
support to start a neutering assistance
project in the Verde Valley of Arizona.

The Houston-based Fund for
Animals Spay/Neuter Assistance
Program on March 5 celebrated performing
10,000 free neutering surgeries since the
SNAP van hit the road in 1994.
The Foundation Against
Companion animal Euthanasia is close to
opening a high-volume, low-cost neutering
clinic in Indianapolis, founder S c o t t
R o b i n s o n told ANIMAL PEOPLE i n
February, having already bought a building
and raised two-thirds of the cost of fixup.
The FACE clinic will be modeled after the
one in Las Vegas run by Animal Foundation
International, which has averaged 10,000
neuterings a year throughout the 1990s.
Not getting it
Taking note of Trixie Foundation
no-kill shelter founder Randy
Skaggs’ demand that Kentucky counties
should explain how they comply with a 40-
year-old law requiring each county to have
a dog pound, and Skaggs’ further contention
that they are violating the state Open
Records Act if they don’t furnish the information,
the state attorney general’s office
on February 23 gave 36 nonresponding
counties until March 10 to reply. Retorted
Nicholas County Judge-Executive
Charles Smith to Tom Lewis of the
Ashland Daily Independent, “Sometimes I
wish Skaggs were up here, so I could take
him out behind the barn.” Asked to pass
legislation providing funding for animal
control, the Kentucky House meanwhile
deleted a proposed 1% surtax on pet food,
replaced it with an allocation of $10 from
the state general fund, and passed it 88-2 on
March 4. The hollow “victory” might have
satisfied some of the national animal protection
groups that made noise about Kentucky
dogcatchers shooting strays in 1994, just
before closing their Appalachian regional
offices, but Skaggs promised he won’t soon
be going away. “I can’t afford to,” he told
ANIMAL PEOPLE. “They’re stuck with
me and all the dogs.”
Kenneth B. Horn, a member of
the board of commissioners in Saginaw
County, Michigan, is reportedly pushing to
abolish a free neutering program for the pets
of low income people in order to spend the
savings on a new county pound. The neutering
program spent $16,000 in 1997 to fix
236 animals; the new pound––which is
needed, according to a county engineering
study––could cost $500,000. The current
pound houses up to 120 animals at a time,
killing about 300 a year. Fixing 236 pets at
minimum prevents the birth of more than
1,000 kittens or puppies within one year