Life After NaKoda's Random Journey: August 2017

Normally, I try very hard not to say anything bad about our local shelter because I know that shelter work can be a very difficult job. The people who work at shelters usually have no experience or very little experience working with animals and are paid very little for the work they do. However, recent events have piled on upsetting me.

When I moved back to Brownwood TX after being gone for about 15 yrs. one of the first things I started doing was volunteering at the local animal shelter known as the Corinne T Smith Animal Shelter. You can read about the history of the shelter here: http://www.ctsanimalcenter.org/history.html The shelter used to have a different name but under went a name change in 2006 to honor one of the founding members and another reason listed on the website for the name changes was, "The final reason for the name change was to reflect our changing vision. We are working hard to become an Animal Center - a place that supports the human/animal bond in a multitude of ways, not just offering homeless pets for adoption. Although pet adoption is still a crucial part of our program, our transition to an Animal Center means developing programs that provide education, support and recreation for animal lovers in the Brown County area."
I have to say that in the 7 yrs since I have moved back (2 of which I volunteered at the shelter) I have never seen, attended, heard of any programs for education, support or recreation for animal lovers in the Brown County area. Hell this town is having a hard time even getting a quality dog park established that's more than a 2 acre fenced yard at one of the local parks! Bello's birthday party at the first park of April and the Barktoberfest (fundraiser for the shelter) are the only two pet friendly events I have ever heard of in this town, I guess to give them a bit more credit we could count the Cats and Cabernet event but I can honestly say I think it would be frowned upon if people actually showed up with their cats to the event.

As I stated above, I use to volunteer for the shelter but stopped after several experiences. One of the main ones was that no matter what the idea was to get more animals adopted it always seemed like it was an uphill battle. I would work with obedience for the dogs but it always appeared the staff (which none of the ones that were there when I volunteered are currently employed there) did not follow up. The adoption events were few and far in between and the overall care left much to be desired. However, I always tried to give benefit of the doubt because I knew how many dogs and cats went through there on a daily basis and how few staff they had. I recruited volunteers, handled the volunteer training, managed adoption events, made adoption bags to go home with the dogs that were adopted and even created kennel cards that the volunteers and staffers were supposed to add notes to based on the dogs individual personality and training level so that potential adopters could read something about the dogs they were interested in. I even did little personal ad type write ups for each dog I worked with for the shelter to post on their social media or give to the newspaper for the write ups the paper did on dogs.

So when it became apparent that my efforts were not making a difference or appreciated and disagreements on several other areas I decided to help in a different capacity. So I started only doing transportation and sharing particular breeds of dogs in the shelter with various rescues I volunteer for to help get them out of the kill shelter. However, in 2017 alone the following issues have occurred:

1. can't get the phone answered during regular business hours. - I had a rescue who was willing to take a dog from the shelter who had health issues and needed care but we had to be able to get through to the shelter in order to try and rescue the dog. It took a week, many phone calls from the rescue and myself several FB messages to the shelter, emails and finally contacting one of the board members before the shelter contacted the rescue back. This is a consistent complaint I hear about the shelter currently. People looking for their missing pets, people wanting to see if a dog on the website is still available, rescues trying to rescue dogs all complaining they can't get anyone to answer the phone.

2.people walking in and not being helped.
3. people walking in and being told the person at the counter doesn't know how to complete an adoption and not going to get staff to help so a dog can't be adopted.
4. walking into the shelter and it smelling like the building as been washed down with urine.
5. being ignored at adoption events in the community instead of greeted and asked if I am interested.
6. being at the park located across the highway from the animal shelter and hearing the staff members (on a Sunday morning) screaming at the dogs.
7. commenting, questioning on shelters social media pages and getting no responses
8. no vetting to adoptees - a large breed dog (german shepherd mix) was adopted out to a person who lives in a small RV trailer on this person's landlord's private property. This person works from apx 6pm -6am at one job and then a 2nd job from apx 8am - 2/3pm . the property is not fenced in and this person did not have their landlord's permission to have an animal. When outside the dog is on a apx 8 ft tether and there is no shade around the RV for the dog. The landlord was never contacted. Another women regularly adopts from the shelter (and other surrounding shelters) and runs what could be considered a puppy mill. Another person regularly adopts from the shelter and surrounding areas shelters and has on occasion even returned injured or sick animals after adopting them.
8. and the last thing that just ruffled my feathers: this past weekend was #cleartheshelter weekend (Aug 19th) however our local shelter not only did not participate in this event (although they did have 8 unwashed dogs at the local Petsense for fees) they were closed on what is a normal business day for the shelter!

This last item on the list really upset me because currently the shelter reports to be over capacity with animals. On Friday, I was also told by an official who would like to remain anonymous that if the inspector walked in there the shelter would be shut down for the number of animals they currently have in their possession and were having to euthanize animals the next day (which would have been #cleartheshelter day)! They cannot do intake. This would be a definite reason to participate in the #cleartheshelter day but instead their social media pages state their hours as follows:

Monday - Friday 1pm - 5pm (so anyone who works cannot get to the shelter without having to take off work those days.
Saturday & Sunday closed (which means anyone who works normal Monday - Friday 8am -5pm must take off work in order to adopt an animal, recover a pet who may have gotten loose, etc. However, further own in the about section of their facebook page it says they are open Saturday 1-4pm so why closed on #cleartheshelter day?
No wonder the shelter is over capacity! No one can get into the shelter to adopt an animal without taking off work!

I count 91 dogs available (this doesn't count all the dogs that are not available for adoption due to 3 day holds for owners to claim, or ones that have health issues etc) for adoption on the web page. While the posts appear to be sporadic they did post an hour ago that 11 dogs went out to rescue today (Sunday).

One of the main purposes of #cleartheshelter day is to waive adoption fees and get these animals into loving homes! Last year the participating shelters were able to find homes for over 50,000 animals according to Cleartheshelter.com.According to NBC participating Texas shelters adopted out over 7,000 and as of 3pm today Cleartheshelters.com reported 62,600 on a day our local animal center was closed. If a shelter is over capacity wouldn't this be another reason for them to waive the adoption fees and find loving homes for these animals in need?

What happen to our shelters goal of becoming a no kill shelter?
Why do our "new" shelter hours make it more difficult for people to get in to adopt?
Where are the education programs being held?
Where are the programs that offer recreation to the pet friendly community in Brownwood?

While not everything went off as planned I am happy to say I think we had a nice little gathering for Bello's birthday for the first pet friendly event in Brownwood Tx! The dogs enjoyed the treats and visiting with one another, the humans visited and laughed at our canine friends and even the deer in the pasture behind came up to check out the party!

While I was trying to set up the party a rain shower hit of course preventing me from being able to set up the photo booth props but I am not going to complain because we needed the rain! After the rain it was so humid but I was determined to have the first pet friendly event at La Sorella in Brownwood Texas https://www.facebook.com/sorellawine/ even if it was rough around the edges! It was nice to just get together and share time with some dog friendly people, socialize and give our dogs a chance to meet and socialize as well! A special thanks goes out to Leona Cleveland for hosting and donating the delicious Sangria for the human attendees!

Here are a few photos