Last week, a new director of the animal shelter was hired and it seems the flood gates of controversy have been pushed open. I have always said that the animal shelter is about the ANIMALS...its time to leave the egos out of it.

Jennifer Hubbe-Jones has been serving as the interim director since the departure of the previous director. Jennifer was just hired as the new director for the animal shelter. I have personally worked with six different directors at our local animal shelter and I can tell you that the job is an extremely tough one.

There have been many noticeable changes at the shelter in recent months. One of the things that I have noticed and appreciated is the shelter's animals being posted on Facebook. From new arrivals to animals in need, to animals being adopted, there have been a lot of pics and info making it to the Internet. The social media aspect of any animal shelter is very important to getting animals out of the shelter and into new homes and rescues. Social media, mainly Facebook, is how most rescues and volunteers help to move animals these days. Facebook is the easiest, fastest and most widespread way to get an animal in need in front of the people that can help. Petfinder is also a very important tool in the rescue world but it is very time consuming and Facebook is instant and like I said, it gets the word out far and wide very quickly. In my dog rescue usually start with a Facebook post then follow up with posting the dogs on my Petfinder page. Of course, the control of my rescue's Petfinder page wasn't being held for ransom by a previous, disgruntled employee like the shelter's page.

Unfortunately there will always be something that people will complain about. I was in the shelter today and heard someone say how ridiculous it was that they had to pay $131 to adopt a dog. The majority of that adoption fee goes to the vet to pay for sterilization and vaccination. Education is the key to opening the eyes of the community so they can clearly see what is going on at our local shelter. The problems at the shelter are not new. Too many un-neutered and un-spayed animals! That issue starts in the community and flows to the shelter. I have heard it said before that if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.

"We will need help and all the personal attacks, for whatever reason, will not help. It just hurts the animals." This quote came from a post on the Texarkana Friends of the Shelter Facebook page on Saturday, Nov. 1. There was a lot of time and effort put into each and every sentence of the posting. I cannot imagine how incredibly long it took to write. I feel it was very well written so please take time to read it.

In order to respond to questions regarding what is happening at the Animal Care and Adoption Center, we would like to address them.

Much has been accomplished in these past few short months. With help from our local veterinarians, the Texarkana Friends of the Shelter, the Shelter Advisory Committee, many wonderful volunteers and diligent rescue and animal organizations, we have been able to place the foot work to making our shelter a better place for the animals. There is much more work to be done, but we take it day-by-day.

We recently donated walkie-talkies to our shelter for employee use to help with efficiency. We've upgraded our washer and driers to newer models to make washing more efficient, as well as just this past week adding a commercial bowl washing machine. This is a tremendous upgrade! Previously, employees or volunteers would have to hand wash every single food and water bowl, but now, all that manpower time will be cut out and this dishwasher will do all the sanitation for us much faster! On that note, we've also been researching and trying out different hanging water bowls so that we can order these for all the kennels in an attempt to keep water bowls cleaner and spread less disease. This past week, we added dog houses and straw to all our outside kennels in preparation for the cold and to keep our animals as comfortable as possible this winter.

We are constantly researching grants and ways to add to our budget where we can increase staff, including, hopefully soon, an on-staff part-time vet tech. (Anyone out there want to volunteer to write grants for us?) Have you noticed the new signs that we've put up so people can find us easier? They look great! We've also started doing as many community events with adoptable pets as possible, and we just got in our "Adopt Me" vests for animals to wear at these events.

We are very thankful to be working with the Texarkana Humane Society to give a complete overhaul to our cat rooms soon, too. We are currently getting bids and different ideas on this. There are countless other day-to-day things that have been improved, but you can see that things are changing. Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. Our shelter will not turn around over night, it will take years of work, but we are willing to do that. We will need help and all the personal attacks, for whatever reason, will not help. It just hurts the animals.

Sadly, animals do die in their kennels and are sometimes found by the kennel staff in the mornings. Typically, these are puppies or kittens that cannot easily survive in a shelter environment. However, since many positive changes have been made at the shelter in the past few months, much of the common shelter illness has been eliminated or controlled with medication (something that was not being commonly done before.) Sadly, when people bring premature or days old animals into the shelter without their nursing mothers there is little hope that they will make it.

The shelter is overcrowded and that is something that is still being worked on. We have increased adoptions and decreased euthanizations in the past few months, but the animals do keep coming in. There are several different plans in effect that will help with this problem, aside from just euthanizing in general. We would like to work with some of the existing low-cost spay/neuter programs to offer other incentives and make it even easier for people to take advantage, in hopes that we can stop some of the problem before it gets to the shelter. Another less fortunate plan is ordering testing for specific diseases, such as feline leukemia, so that we have a better idea on which animals are uncurable and too sick for adoption.

Most people that have been to the shelter in the past few month would tell you that it is cleaner than it has been in the past. It is a shelter, and sadly, the animals do have to urinate and defecate in their kennels, but it is kept as clean as possible. We have recently lost our two inmates that had been shelter employees under a work release program for a long period of time, and they just happened to be released very close to the same time. These two were essential to the shelter and are very missed, as they were great with the animals and great workers. We do have two new inmates who have taken their place, but unfortunately are only allowed to work half days for some period of time. So, we are EXTREMELY short staffed. We would love anyone with concerns to come help us and volunteer at the shelter!

The shelter is now a rescue friendly shelter! We will work with any reputable rescue in an attempt to get animals out of the shelter and avoid having to euthanize due to lack of space. We do have guidelines that rescues have to meet to fall into the "rescue" category and be able to pull animals for rescue. We have also started working with rescues outside of Texarkana and transport services to get animals to other parts of the country where dogs are less abundant. This is especially important with us being able to move puppies, who are more susceptible to shelter illness, or big dogs, that often take a lot longer to adopt. It's a win-win. We also recently placed dogs in the program, Train a Dog Save a Warrior, a group that rescues shelter dogs and provides training to make them service animals for veterans suffering with PTSD. We have also started a "Sponsor a Pet" program where people who want to help but can't adopt pay for the animals services (spay/neuter, vaccines, etc.) so that an adopter only has to pay the $40 adoption fee rather than all those up front costs. This has helped us move animals faster and is a program we hope to continue to grow. If you're interested in sponsoring a pet please contact the shelter! You can pick out which pet you'd like to sponsor, too!

In regards to Faithful Friends Dog Rescue, specifically… Faithful Friends is a rescue specializing in large breeds that would be deemed less adoptable. Sara Caller, founder, pulls dogs often that have injuries or issues that are going to take a lot of time to heal before they could be adopted. Faithful Friends had recently been cut off from vetting animals until more funds could be raised because they have not had enough donations to cover bills. (More bluntly, Caller was in debt with the vets, rather than the opposite of turning a profit.) However, a rescue “angel” just came through and paid that bill for her! Rescues typically take animals knowing they are going to lose money. They do it to save animals that deserve a better chance. Anyone that thinks rescues are pulling animals to profit off of them has obviously never helped one and is naive on the subject. The shelter promotes any and all rescues that are pulling our animals. We do not play favorites and hope that all rescues are getting the donations they need to take care of their animals. That's how rescues work.

Since changes started being made there has been an effort to get to a point where all shelter animals can be listed on Petfinder.com. Unfortunately, because of the state that the shelter was in, this is a lot more difficult task than it seems to those who don't understand what is going on in the shelter. We have encountered many road blocks. The computer system to keep up with our animals in the shelter has not been maintained in years, and this system, once cleaned up, should be able to automatically update our animals to several sites, including Petfinder.com. There just isn't enough staff to take on this task at this point in time, which is why we have been working with volunteers and Girl Scout groups to organize efforts for a volunteer to help us with this task. Luckily, we have a large group of Girl Scouts needing big projects for their Gold Awards, who are getting ready to do several projects for us, this specific one being on that list. There is a lot more to it than just hitting the upload button. We've also had to contact Petfinder.com because we originally had no account information and it has taken time for them to verify our account and get back with us. The last update that was given said that we should be receiving our password from them any day now. If someone would like to volunteer to take over this task of inventorying our current animals and uploading to Petfinder.com that would be much appreciated! There are many other projects the Girl Scouts have also shown an interest in. For now, we network on social media daily via Facebook, where people can share and reach people even outside of our area.

Our advisory board has been hard at work trying to help! There are members from both sides of the state line. Rather than being rescue owners, all of our advisory committee members have animal experience, are passionate about helping our shelter animals and have something else to offer the committee outside of animal rescue. Many members are business owners and have experience with budgeting, staff, fundraising, etc. Included on the Shelter Advisory Committee is Daphnea Ryan, manager of the city of Texarkana, TX, Environmental Services Unit (over Texas side animal control.) Daphnea Ryan works closely with the shelter, as all animals from the Texas side go to the shelter, located in Texarkana, AR. It is important that both sides work together to correct the issues as they affect animals from our entire area. Texas also pays nearly as much as Arkansas for the shelter budget. In the 2014 Statement of Revenues and Expenditures it shows Texarkana, Texas, responsible for $150,000 of the annual budget and Texarkana, Arkansas, responsible for $185,000 of the overall $430,800 budget. We hope by working together with Daphnea and the Texas side we can eventually build a shelter that is truly run by both cities. In addition, we have several vets in the area who are our advisors should the need come up -- which is on a regular basis. We appreciate their help!

We are very open to discussing any issues citizens may have concerns with and would love to see those that are still not happy with the progress at the shelter come lend a hand. There is only so much time in a day and we can only do so much without more hands on deck.

Visit Texarkana Friends of the Shelter Facebook page to follow the progress of the shelter and to find out how you can help.

Please, let us move on from stirring up controversy to something more productive. Its time to neuter the drama as it just dangles in the air and serves no purpose.

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