Martinez, S. 2000. No place to call home: Humane society forced to kill 900 unwanted animals a week. The Monitor, McAllen, Tx (August 26). Http://www.themonitor.com/story1.shtml (Aug. 26, 2000).

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Photographs from the Valley Humane Society in Edinburg, Texas, was not in the newspaper article. All photographs © 2000, Jan A. Nilsson



The article is used for educational purposes by Dr. Jan A. Nilsson, Biology Department, South Texas Community College, Texas, USA.


No place to call home: Humane society forced to kill 900 unwanted animals a week

By SUSAN MARTINEZ

The Monitor
Edinburg

About 900 animals a week are being killed at the Upper Valley Humane Society.

For years, the shelter has been trying to cope with an extremely high stray and unwanted pet population in Hidalgo County and surrounding cities. Since the Weslaco animal shelter closed last October, the Upper Valley shelter has felt added pressure.
The wider scope has increased the number of animals at the shelter by between 10,000 and 12,000 last year.

Sandy Summers, executive director of the Upper Valley Humane Society, said that represents a 50 percent increase over last year.
"We now have contracts for the entirety of Hidalgo County and 12 cities since Weslaco closed. That is a significant increase, because Weslaco took care of about a third of the county and five cities. Now, we do it all," Summers said.

Summers said county and city trucks come to the shelter all day, their beds full of stray animals. On a recent day, Hidalgo County workers unloaded nine stray dogs from their pickup truck. Seven of them were put into kennels to await processing, the other two were dead from mange.


After animals are brought in, they are put into cages and tagged, added into the computer database and then placed in a holding area where owners can claim them. "We keep them in the holding area for 10 days," said Summers, "but if the animal is wearing tags, we call the owners immediately. We get lots of calls at lost and found."

Summers said there are 200 animals up for adoption. Unfortunately, most of the dogs, cats and other animals brought to the shelter won't survive their stay. Last year, the shelter euthanized 34,000 animals.

---> You can click on the photographs above and get a bigger picture of the pups.


Of the 3,000 animals brought to the shelter last month, only 88 were adopted, the rest were killed either by lethal injection or in the shelter's gas chamber.

Volunteer Dorothy Miller pointed out that, while the shelter is forced to euthanize thousands of animals each year, it's not something they want to do. "We try to get them adopted. We clean them and give them their first sets of shots and we walk the dogs every day to keep them healthy," Miller said. "There are just not enough homes."

Summers praised Miller and others like her for their dedication. "Dorothy spends most of her days here and does so much for the dogs here. She walks and feeds them and even spends her own money on them, even after I told her not to," Summers said.
The situation at the shelter frustrates Summers, who came to the Valley from Houston eight years ago and has been dealing with the Valleyís enormous pet overpopulation ever since. Summers said compared to Houston, the Valley is a killing field.

"In Houston, with a population of two million people, we were only taking in around 30 animals a day, as opposed to here.
"The Valley has only a quarter of the population of Houston and we are taking in between 120 and 130 animals every day," Summers said. "Something is not right here, and we're trying hard to fix it."

What's not right, according to Summers, is the lack of a low-cost spay and neuter clinic in the area. "Our goal right now is to get a mobile spay and neuter clinic," she said. Summers said the shelter has had many problems trying to get area veterinarians to volunteer their time at a spay and neuter clinic, but hopes to have a solution soon. She also pointed out the need for public awareness, because animals at the shelter are dropped off by owners who simply grew tired of them.

"I think the public really needs to know what's going on out here, because most of them don't have a clue," Summers said.

"One lady came and dropped off two older kittens from her cat's second litter. When I told her she should have her cat spayed, she told me no, because she likes kittens"

Summers said the public needs to understand the importance of having their pets spayed or neutered. "I don't think people realize how many offspring two un-fixed animals can produce in a lifetime, Summers said, quoting statistics from Spay USA, a non-profit organization.

"Did you know that two un-spayed or neutered cats can produce an accumulation of 80 million offspring in a lifetime, and that dogs can produce over 4,000?"

---> You can click on the photographs above and get a bigger picture of the dogs.


"It makes me angry because people try to blame us for killing them, but we kill them because people are irresponsible pet owners," she said.

In spite of the daily carnage, and her frustration with uncaring pet owners, Summers said she isn't going to stop working at the animal shelter. "I quit the insurance business because I wanted to devote my life to animals, and thatís what Iím going to do," she said. 

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Article source, The McAllen Monitor: Martinez, S. 2000. No place to call home: Humane society forced to kill 900 unwanted animals a week. The Monitor, McAllen, Tx (August 26). Http://www.themonitor.com/story1.shtml (Aug. 26, 2000).

Photographs from the Valley Humane Society in Edinburg, Texas, was not in the newspaper article. All photographs © 2000, Jan A. Nilsson



The article is used for educational purposes by Dr. Jan A. Nilsson, Biology Department, South Texas Community College, Texas, USA.

Address and Telephone Information to the Valley Humane Society:

Valley Humane Society

Trenton Road, 1/4 Mi. East of McColl
P.O. Box 3386
McAllen, Texas 78502
(956) 686-1141

Upper Valley Humane Society

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