Link back to where ever you came from.| Link back to where ever you came from. |
After a period of time, news articles are often not available at the original bookmark site. To make reading material safely available for students, the article below is used for educational purposes, by Dr. Jan A. Nilsson, Biology Department, South Texas College, Texas, USA. Emphasis using differen color and bold text was not in the original article. Photo: Nathan Rapheld/The monitor. Appeared on p. 1 E, ValleyLife section, with the following text: "Kennels at the Upper Valley Humane Society are teaming with stray and abandoned dogs picked up bt nearby city and county animal control units. kennel caretaker Juan Alba tends the dogs and shelters monday. Of the animals received at the Humane Society, 75 percent are dogs, 20 percent are cats, and the majority of the remaining animals are opossums."
LOOKING OUT FOR FIDO
August 21,2005
Stephanie Holmes
The Monitor
Humane society hoping to revamp facility, services to aid animal welfare
The Upper Valley Humane Society has requested more funding from the county to improve accommodations, services and community education efforts.
The goal is simple: to create a safety net for the thousands of stray animals that enter the shelter every year.
But the request was about more than money. The staff’s presentation Aug. 2 at Hidalgo County Commissioners Court raised a number of questions about social responsibility and animal welfare in the Rio Grande Valley.
"What people need to be aware of is when they take on the responsibility of a pet, they are taking on a long-term commitment. Most of our animals are failed pets. People have not taken care of them the way that they should and turn them back in because of behavior problems," said Lisa Stone, co-director of the humane society, which serves an area spanning Roma to Harlingen.
In 2004, 40,528 animals were brought to the shelter, located at 2501 W. Trenton Road in Edinburg.
Of those animals, 1,540 were adopted and 1,498 were claimed by their owners. However, 29,586 were euthanized.
The number of animals that died last year is close to the shelter’s total 1995 intake of 30,000.
Government and shelter officials say that the area’s growing population and the closing of the Weslaco Humane Society in 2000 have contributed to the jump in admissions.
"We are no longer just a rural county," said Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia. "We are the seventh-largest county in size in Texas. There is no question that it’s an individual’s responsibility to provide for these animals. Unfortunately, it’s not occurring, and you can’t shut your eyes to the fact that you have these animals roaming the streets."
More than 100 animals are brought to the shelter by area residents and animal-control officers every day, Stone said.
By law, the shelter is required to provide accommodations for the animals for five days, which gives pet owners time to find and rescue them.
After the five days are up, some cats and dogs, if they are in good health and have a good temperament, will be groomed for adoption.
Other animals, sometimes as many as 100 per day, will be euthanized to make room for incoming animals.
"They are beautiful animals. I hate the idea that they euthanize so many of them," Garcia said. "They are required by law to keep them for a minimum of five days, so the adoption period is very short, and it’s very difficult to publicize because of the cost involved."
The shelter’s current budget is $100,000 from the county. The humane society raises additional funds by charging each city according to the use of services.
Outside of drawing attention to the social issues at hand, the humane society will request $200,000 from the county during the budget process and aims to renegotiate fees with every city that uses the service for the fiscal year 2005-06.
Rising costs are not just to cover the bare bones of feeding and housing them.
"It’s to create new programs that get to the root of the problem," said Kristin Gaston, a member of the Upper Valley Humane Society’s board of directors.
Spaying and neutering
"There is a lack of awareness on how quickly animals can reproduce," Gaston said.
It’s easy to produce cats by the million, according to American Humane Association’s Web site, www.americanhumane.com.
The Web site says allowing two cats and their surviving offspring to breed for a decade eventually results in an exponential growth of 80,399,780 cats. This number assumes that two cats produce two litters per year and that 2.8 kittens survive from each litter.
Humans can produce one baby every nine months, but animals have a greater tendency to have multiple births. During the first year, mating cats can produce 12 kittens. The number jumps to 12,680 after five years and close to 14 million by year nine.
"It’s hard to get your mind around those numbers," Gaston said. "People think, ‘I just have one cat, and it has five cats per year.’ Some of those thoughts are due to irresponsibility, and some are a lack of education. People think it’s expensive to spay and neuter."
The average local cost of spaying an animal ranges from $121 to $220, and $96 to $209 to neuter. Both price ranges fluctuate based on the animal’s size and weight, according to a price list at Four Paws Animal Hospital in Edinburg.
To offset costs for low-income families, Vilma Laurel, a humane society volunteer, is in the process of creating a network of area veterinarians who provide low-cost spaying and neutering and vaccination services to area pet owners.
"It seems like a natural fit to have a connection with the vet community," Gaston said. "There are 40 vets across the Valley; if we had 20 to 40 vets to help coordinate, we will make more progress."
Some local veterinarians and city officials, like Pharr public works director Don Medina, are considering community-wide spaying and neutering clinics that would bring those services to the people and help prevent the pet population from growing.
Another avenue of pursuit is raising funds and writing grants for a mobile unit outfitted to spay and neuter animals.
"That could really reach the community," Gaston said. "We’d love to work with not just the shelters, but a few sanctuaries to encourage a low-cost mobile unit."
Disease
Overcrowded shelters often become a breeding ground for disease.
"The two main diseases we see are parvo and distemper," said veterinarian Justin Cerelli at Four Paws Animal Hospital in Edinburg.
Parvo is a curable viral illness that causes extreme diarrhea and vomiting.
"Parvo lives on surfaces for six months and in the dirt for two years," Cerelli said.
Distemper is an incurable viral disease that attacks the central nervous system. It often starts with a cough, then progresses from little twitches across the body to seizures, Cerelli said.
"Vaccination is the only preventative measure for parvo and distemper," Cerelli said.
Stephanie Marroquin, of McAllen, learned about distemper the hard way.
She adopted Olive, a Labrador retriever mix she fell in love with, from the humane society.
Her puppy walked with a slant and began to leave blood on the pillow it slept on.
"My other puppy wouldn’t go near it. I took it to the vet and I found out it had distemper. I took it to the shelter and they took it back," Marroquin said. "I adopted this dog to get over the death of my other dog."
Marroquin said she is not sure she could go through the pain of adopting another sick animal, but she might consider the humane society again if she was ready to adopt another pet.
Disease is always a concern, Stone said.
"Anytime you have animals in close quarters, it’s always a potential problem since there are strays on the streets. You don’t know what they’ve been exposed to," she said.
Cerelli said the best thing to do after adopting a stray is to take it to a veterinarian for an examination as soon as possible.
"We haven’t seen rabies popping up here right now, but that doesn’t mean that people should pick up a stray dog and play with them," Cerelli said. "Rabies is transmitted by bites. Animals may get bitten by another dog or a bat that has rabies. We have possums in the area that might be harboring that as well."
[Instructors comment: There are no animals with the name “Possum”, the correct name is “Opossum”]
Staffing and facility challenges
How big the facility is and how many animals it can house are two different questions, Gaston said.
High occupancy has prompted the humane society to consider remodeling the shelter or improving the space.
"We are consulting with an architectural firm in Austin," Gaston said, noting that the firm specializes in constructing animal shelters.
The firm, which the humane society will not name because no contract has been awarded, will suggest different construction phases or approaches to upgrading or replacing the facility.
"They need a new facility. There is no question that they do," Garcia said. "They may need to begin looking for a different location and raising the funds needed to construct that facility."
Research is in the early planning stages. The humane society does not have cost estimates or a timeline for construction.
"It’s something we hope to see happen soon," Stone said. "Our stray-animal area is outdoors. We need it indoors, so the temperature can be controlled."
Improved ventilation in the shelter is key to improving the health of the animals and reducing the risk of diseases like parvo.
Another improvement Gaston envisions is improving the pay for employees, and adding a volunteer-education coordinator to the shelter’s staff.
"Our staff members start at $5.25 per hour. It’s on-the-job training," Stone said.
The low pay can burn people out emotionally, Gaston said.
"It’s a tough job," Gaston said.
Improved compensation is a longer-term goal Gaston hopes will come to pass after facilities are secured and expenses do not overpower the budget.
Adding to the staff, primarily through volunteer efforts, is another priority, Gaston said.
An education coordinator would focus on educating the public about issues like spaying and neutering, animal obedience and caretaking.
"With education, you are making progress instead of treading water," Gaston said. "Every single person you talk to makes a difference. If your neighbors let their dog run free, you can talk with them and tell them what you know. We need to reach volunteers who are teachers. In schools, we can talk about the benefits of what a pet can bring to the family. Several Web sites have curriculum."
Right now, the budget does not include such a position, Gaston said. It’s a long-term goal.
"(Education) helps open people’s eyes to the fact that the way people are treating animals is against the law. There are people who chain their dogs to a tree in 100-degree heat, and that is abuse and neglect," Gaston said.
Hidalgo County Commissioners also have begun to address potential shortfalls within the humane society itself.
Commissioners recently appointed an advisory board to serve as a watchdog over the humane society’s compliance with state animal laws.
"Texas law requires humane treatment of animals. And they specify different treatment of holding the animals, taking care of the animals and euthanizing the animals," Garcia said. "This advisory board is given the responsibility of what the law requires animal shelters to do and to make sure that it’s getting done right."