Rogers : City expands animal shelter
Posted on Monday, September 11, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/166282/
ROGERS — Sharon Laxen came to the Rogers Animal Shelter last week in search of a dog for her 14-year-old son.
Laxen admired the city’s new 4, 800-square-foot shelter as she checked out a long-haired Chihuahua, a rust-colored Pomeranian and a few hounds.
“I didn’t even know they had this new facility,” Laxen said, making her way to the cat kennels. “This is nice.”
Rogers opened its new shelter Wednesday. The $ 500, 000 block building smelled new, with odors associated with animals noticeably absent.
Where space for animals used to be cramped, the new facility offers enough room for animals from both Rogers and Bentonville. It’s estimated more than 1, 500 animals will come through the shelter this year.
The Rogers shelter gained notoriety six years ago for drowning cats. But that practice ended five years ago and there’s a new attitude at the shelter on Oak Street.
Shelter employees go into schools to conduct educational programs on how to care for pets, and promote pet adoption on area TV channels. “The things the staff does, their hearts are really in finding these animals a good home,” said James Willett, director of code enforcement. “Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know my staff.”
Laxen of Rogers, a self-described “cat person,” watched a young gray and black cat named Danny climb the walls of his crate.
“You’re like a monkey !” Laxen said. “You’re a friendly little guy.”
The new shelter has space for 20 cats and 50 dogs at a time, whereas the old shelter could hold a maximum of 50 animals. On Friday, Rogers counted 52 animals in the shelter — 33 dogs and 19 cats.
Dog kennels line the outer walls of the new shelter. Dogs stay inside at night, and shelter workers raise kennel doors each morning to wrangle the residents into outdoor kennels. In the old building, it took employees 90 minutes to transfer the dogs outside to hay-lined kennels away from the main building. In the new shelter, employees clean kennels with an automated pressure washer system, which also saves time, Willett said. The new facility includes two rooms for potential owners to get to know shelter animals. “In our other building, [it was ] ‘Put them on a leash and run outside, ’” Willett said. “Now they can see how they interact one on one.”
SHARING A SHELTER In Bentonville, stray animals are held in a controlled facility maintained by the police department. Plans call for Bentonville’s strays to be brought to the expanded Rogers shelter, starting this fall. Bentonville’s animal facility on N. W. A Street will be torn down. Both cities will keep their animal control officers. It’s the first time the cities have shared a shelter. The base adoption fee in Rogers is $ 61. In Bentonville, it’s $ 55. All animals in both cities must be registered. Lt. Mike Smith of the Bentonville Police Department said the centralized location will save taxpayers money. “We’ve outgrown the previous one we’re using now and we’ve got too many animals for that small shelter,” Smith said. “It’s kind of like housing prisoners... we have the Benton County jail. We maximize the tax dollar.”
NOTORIOUS PAST Rogers started using a cityowned building as its shelter in 1996. The structure was falling apart three years ago.
Gray paint was chipping off walls and tile had separated from the wood floor beneath. Animal travel crates were used as kennels and suspended from the ground with metal and PVC pipe.
The shelter was “God-awful ugly,” Willett said.
Willett told the city in 2003 he would need a new shelter. And with the new building, employees plan to leave the past operation behind — literally. All lethal injections will take place in the old building, Willett said. Former euthanasia practices earned that facility a reputation for inhumane treatment.
The shelter staff began drowning unclaimed cats in a 50-gallon barrel as a form of euthanasia as early as 1996, according to a criminal investigation conducted in late 2000 and early 2001.
Mayor Steve Womack stopped the practice on Aug. 21, 2000, after the practice became public knowledge. A day later, residents’ outcry at a Rogers City Council meeting forced Terry Thurman, the city’s director of code compliance, to resign.
Attempts to reach Thurman for comment were unsuccessful.
Drowning is an “inappropriate method” of euthanizing an animal, according to a training course sponsored by the National Animal Control Association. Cruelty to animals in Arkansas is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $ 1, 000 fine.
No criminal charges were filed against shelter employees. The Rogers Police Department and the Washington County deputy prosecuting attorney, who investigated the shelter operation, did recommend, however, the adoption of a policy and procedures manual and the institution of a training system to prevent future questionable acts.
No employees who worked at the shelter in August 2000 are working at the new shelter, Willett said.
WHEN TO EUTHANIZE A Rogers veterinarian trains the city’s two animal control officers to properly euthanize animals, Willett said. A city ordinance requires that animals remain at the shelter for six days, giving an owner time to pick them up. The city chose not to adopt a policy for when an animal should be put down, Willett said. The decision depends on several factors, including the animal’s health, the likelihood of it being adopted and preferences of residents looking to adopt a pet, Willett said. “It’s a judgment call,” he said. “What if after two weeks someone comes in and says, ‘I lost my dog Fifi,’ and we say, ‘No one adopted her, so we euthanized her. ’” Willett said the number of euthanizations can be reduced if pet owners follow city requirements to register pets and put a city tag on their collars.
“We can’t keep animals forever,” he said. “It’s taxpayers’ money.”
It’s common for shelters not to have strict policies on euthanization, said Donna Miles, who manages Bella Vista’s animal shelter. Her shelter is required to hold animals for a week, but does not have a euthanization policy, Miles said.
“We just got a puppy in that had a broken leg. It weighed 1. 9 pounds,” Miles said. “I look in that little face and how do you put it to sleep ? We were just able to send up a dog to a great home that had been here a year.”
Miles hopes her shelter’s expansion from 21 dog kennels to 31 — plus three new dog yards — provides enough space to reduce euthanizations. In 2005, Miles ordered euthanizations for 8 percent of the animals that came through the shelter because of a lack of space.
“That’s the biggest thing for us,” Miles said, as a beagle barked in the background. “If people spay and neuter their pets, I would be out of a job and that would be fine with me.”
Willett said euthanizations will continue in Rogers. “When we start bringing in Bentonville animals, I don’t see the euthanization rate changing a whole lot,” he said. “If it’s not adoptable, we don’t want to keep it there forever just because we have an open cage.” Employees watch the way customers respond to animals to determine if the animals are adoptable, he said. Aggressive animals are more likely to be euthanized. “It’s not an easy job, trying to figure out how long they’ll be here,” he said. “There’s no polite way of saying it. That’s part of running a shelter.”
To contact this reporter: lboch@arkansasonline. com