April 16, 2008

RALEIGH, N.C. – A North Carolina Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is pushing a county-run animal shelter to make fundamental changes. SPCA officials said their plan will prevent the unnecessary killing of animals.

Although the Wake County shelter disagrees, it is being forced to implement the SPCA’s changes anyway -- and may lose part or all of a proposed $4 million budget as a result.

Mondy Lamb is the marketing director at the SPCA. For years, she said, the animal loving staff there has tried to help local animal control reduce euthanasia, increase adoptions and improve the quality of life for animals’ within its care.

But until recently, the SPCA’s plans were mired by a lack of outside force, and fundamental differences in the groups’ animal care outlook.

“(Wake County Animal Care, Control and Adoption’s) role is to prevent people from getting rabies,” said Lamb, referring to the county shelter’s mission.

According to Michael Williams, director of Wake County Animal Care, Control and Adoption is protecting the community from unhealthy and unsafe animals.

It also provides homeless animal care and adoption services -- although it doesn’t require an adopted animal to be spayed before leaving with its new family -- a major point of contention for the SPCA.

Williams said that at the onset, every government run animal care facility was meant to prevent the spread of rabies. But that role has grown to include stray animal collection, care and adoption.

“We adopt more animals per year than the SPCA, but then again we take more in, too,” said Williams, whose budget is about $500,000 less than the SPCA’s.

Both Lamb and Williams said that for the last decade or so, the SPCA has been working with the county shelter to make improvements. In Williams’ words, “they want us to do things their way.”

But Lamb said her organization’s goal is to improve the well being of the animals in the county’s care -- by reducing the number they take in and have to euthanize through implementing low-cost spay/neuter programs and increasing adoptions.

In the SPCA’s view, preventing animal births today means fewer will need to be put down tomorrow.

Lamb said those techniques have worked at their facility, and if they are adopted into law by the county, they could set an example for the rest of North Carolina’s public and private animal care groups to follow.

The SPCA follows the Maddie’s Fund guidelines -- which promote No Kill through spay/neuter, fostering, rigorous adoptions and an adoption guarantee. Meaning the shelter has committed to get an animal adopted -- and it cannot be put down to make room for another.

While the SPCA is honing its skills for saving animals’ lives, it has worked to share the life saving goal with the community -- and the county shelter.

Measures for transforming the county shelter into one more closely allied with the goals of the SPCA were discussed during a Board of Commissioners work session held on Thursday, March 10. Lamb said her organization had tried to get these changes made through working more privately with the county for years, but to no avail.

So prior to the meeting, the SPCA sent a newsletter to its 60,000 readers asking them to mail letters regarding the county shelter to their local commissioners. After the local representatives’ inboxes were flooded with letters and e-mails, it was decided that the concerns should be heard.

During the session, the SPCA laid out that it wants the county shelter to combat issues in cleanliness, overcrowding, and the use of a gas chamber for putting down animals that pose a health or safety risk to staff.

Also, on the agenda is a devised plan by the county to start sending more animals to the facility beginning July 1 -- which Lamb said the county cannot manage.

Finally, the SPCA believes it can help reduce the county shelter’s need for a larger facility, through preventative spay/neuter and increasing adoption, as well as animal reuniting programs.

The SPCA said their changes amount to reduced taxpayer spending and potentially saving more homeless animals’ lives.

But Williams said his shelter is clean, and that those who made allegations about it being unkempt, “probably hadn’t been inside the shelter for a year or so.”

“We do keep a clean shelter,” he said.

He said staffing needs could be met through increased funding -- specifically, a $4 million package, which could be approved as early as July. At that time, animals will be redirected from shelters in the nearby towns of Garner and Cary to Raleigh’s facility.

Williams believes his shelter can handle the additional animals -- roughly 900 or so each year -- since his facility already takes in more than 5,000.

The decision to redirect the animals came from the SPCA, which for years has held a contract with the county to collect and house homeless animals, but now wants to opt out and focus only on “high-volume” adoptions.

Lamb said the SPCA’s plan would help prepare the county shelter for that transition without the need for the $4 million in taxpayers’ money. She doesn’t think the shelter will be able to reduce its euthanasia numbers through increased funding.

She said the plan was to “hold the shelter’s hand” through the transition.

Williams disagrees with that notion.

“If we were on the same playing field financially, we could make a lot of changes,” he said.

Yet the Board of Commissioners decided to hear out the community’s concerns and will begin the process of implementing them, although no date for making any legal changes has been set.

“We’re going to stop using (the gas chamber),” said Williams. “If that’s what the citizens would like, then we’re happy to do that.”

The device, in recent years, had only been used for around six percent of the shelter’s euthanasia -- and Williams said even then it was for rabid raccoons and other wildlife and overly aggressive dogs. He said it was a way to reduce the risk of injury to shelter staff.

As for that potential $4 million budget, Williams is still pushing for it. The board will reconvene in coming months to make that decision.

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