Local shelters face a Katrina-size dilemma

Sparta - When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August, Sussex’s County Animal Response Team led a group of local organizations that accepted over 100 animals from the region. While the program’s good intentions are clear, local shelters, faced with the influx of animals whose stories of suffering were more compelling, have found it harder in recent months to find homes for regular old Sussex County strays. “People seem to be much more aware of Katrina animals, and our local animals are being euthanized,” noted Christine Feoranzo, who volunteers at the CLAWS Rescue Shelter in Sussex. Feoranzo laments the greater number of euthanizations, but for Laurie Walsh, the founder of CLAWS, the problem is even more complicated. Her shelter never euthanizes animals, and while she looks for homes, they must still be fed, medically cared for, and even loved if they are to make appropriate pets one day. “Our adoption rates went down about 30 or 40 percent” in the past few months, Walsh explained, because “people are bleeding their hearts out to adopt Katrina dogs.” Donations have dropped too, and Walsh and her husband were forced to sell some property in order to continue to maintain their shelter. Jeri Ryan, who works for the Sussex County Fellowship for Animals, points out that animal shelters are often last on the list of charity choices and the first to suffer when a more compelling cause presents itself. Ryan, who often answers the phone at the fellowship, has received calls from people looking for animals rescued from Katrina, and she has to turn them away, since the shelter did not take any in. She has noticed a peculiar increase in demand for pit bulls in particular. Pit bulls are notoriously in low demand because many insurance companies exclude the dogs from their liability coverage. Ryan explained, however, “Now that people hear they are suffering from Katrina, everyone wants them. What about all the pit bulls that are languishing in shelters across the country?” Karen Dashfield, the county’s emergency veterinarian, who oversees the rescue operation, pointed out, though, that adoptions are always slow in the winter months and added that she and her colleagues have steered many prospective adopters toward local shelters when the animal they had hoped for could not be found among the Katrina refugees. “People have become more aware of how many animals are out there,” through the county’s rescue operations, she said. One of the shelters involved with the county’s operation, Byram Animal Rescue Kindness Squad, held a pet adoption day on Jan. 21. The shelter has placed one dog from the Gulf Coast in a home and has two more available. Families have been drawn to the kindness squad because they have refugee animals, but others were turned away before the animals were received. After quarantining the animals at the Farm Fun Building on the Sussex County Fairgrounds, “our main aim was to reunite as many animals with their owners as possible,” she explained, so as not to flood the Sussex County pet adoption market. As the numbers of animals have dwindled, they have been moved to local participating shelters, such as the Byram squad. While volunteers look for the animals’ owners, the animals are available for fostering; if no owner is found after 90 days, the animals can be adopted. Thus far, 17 animals have been returned to their owners, and 65 are in local homes on a foster-care basis. Many involved with local shelters, like Walsh, volunteered to help while the Katrina animals were being held at the fairgrounds. But they are disappointed by the diversion of attention - and funds - away from the local population of strays. “Most of what I see is jugs all around for Katrina [animals],” says Feoranzo. And those jugs are often filled with money that could have gone to local shelters. The one benefit to the local shelters is that the county has passed on to them the excess pet food that has been donated to the Katrina refugees. Dashfield insisted, however, that the animals from the Gulf Coast are in a different situation from the usual abandoned animal. “These are not animals that have been given up to shelters with the knowledge they would be euthanized,” she said. The animals were abandoned usually against their owners’ will, and thus there is perhaps a greater responsibility to find them homes. She estimated that had various shelters around the country not taken animals, about 100,000 pets would have been killed. The county’s operation has slowed for the moment, as the shelters involved have almost reached capacity. Shelters hope that Sussex County residents’ desire to help will not slow. Local shelters still need money to build more space to house their animals, to pay their medical bills and to provide food. Perhaps even more, they need responsible, committed volunteers to provide the care it takes to make a feral cat a pet.