by Heather Miller
So anyone that follows animal rescue, knows that all shelters are full of cats. All of us have cages stacked and two to a cage, just to make room and keep them safe. It is the time of year where kittens are everywhere and sadly, people are dumping.
As a licensed humane society, we have to take all stray and abandoned animals from every town that contracts with us. We cannot pick and choose the animals we take. These towns, by law, have to pay an animal shelter to take their towns stray animals. That means every animal left without an owner in a town goes to the shelter they pay. We currently contract with 14 towns. This is a lot of towns, with a lot of animals. Every town pays us yearly, but five of these towns pay us less then $800 a year. That’s less than $80 a month from one-third of our towns. Town money covers less than 50 percent of our budget. Every other dollar we need, we have to raise through fundraisers and hope to get through donations. When we take in so many in a month, it hurts our budget badly. These last few months have drained us financially and completely cleaned out our supply stock.
In nine days, we took in over 20 kittens, some of which were left in boxes by our front door. These babies didn’t ask for this life, they didn’t choose it. We as a shelter have to try and better their lives – which is where we hope you all come in. Even one bottle of bleach is a huge help. Even one blanket or towel, can make a huge impact for a cold kitten. We are here for our community. We are here to all help animals, whether we are broke or not. We spend endless hours cleaning, up all night bottle-feeding and cleaning up messes all day. It is what we do and who we are. But the stress of not knowing where the support will come from, whether people remember we are here or who will help us with food is emotionally draining. and if we have to focus on this and try and fix it, it takes away from our care for the helpless animals. If you can help us with some of these stresses, financially or with supplies, it helps us help more in so many ways.
If you find an animal, call your animal control officer. Try and make a difference. Please know, though, being so full, we can only take from towns that pay us right now. We have agreements with these towns to take their animals. If you find a stray in a town we do not contract with, we will do all we can to get you connected with the appropriate authorities to get the animal to the shelter it is suppose to go too. Please do not dump them here, or get mad at us because we cannot take them. We help so many and try and help so many more. Like every shelter, we have rules to follow, towns who pay us to help them first.
Please, be their voice, be our voice. We need you and your support, as do the animals. Thank you to everyone who has been bringing in supplies these last couple days. You all are amazing! We as a community can do this!
