Animal shelter plans expansion

$600,000 expected from LR tax increase; timing uncertain

Little Rock Animal Services Manager Tracy Roark points out the injuries of a rescued horse being kept at the Little Rock Animal Village. Additions and renovations are planned for the facility with funds from the recently passed sales tax increase.
Little Rock Animal Services Manager Tracy Roark points out the injuries of a rescued horse being kept at the Little Rock Animal Village. Additions and renovations are planned for the facility with funds from the recently passed sales tax increase.

— A brown and white horse ambled around in a grassy area penned in by a tall fence and nosed at the water in a child’s swimming pool at Little Rock Animal Village.

The horse, which hasn’t been named yet, was in good spirits last week, considering the ordeal he had been through.

“That scar on his neck, it was about 10 or 20 times worse when we first got him,” said Tracy Roark, manager of the Animal Services Department in Little Rock. “There’s a hole you can see where his neck was just gouged and it was deep. We put antibiotic ointment on it every day and he’s starting to look pretty good. I bring him an apple from home every morning,so he’s warming up, too.”

The horse is one of a bevy of animals found a second life at Little Rock Animal Village, at 4500 S. Kramer St., near Asher and University avenues. Among the animals there last week were a handful of parakeets that were surrendered by their owner, a duck with a broken leg and a cat that had been shaved by some teenagers as a prank.

The shelter will be getting a second life of its own next year from a planned $600,000 allocation from the city, made possible by a sales-tax increase approved by voters in September.

The money will be used for needed expansions to the building and additional hires accommodate the increasing number of animals coming through the facility.

“Last year, the village adopted out or helped reclaim 2,057 animals. That was a record,” said At-Large City Director Joan Adcock, who volunteers at the shelter by leading children’s birthday parties and tours of the building.

“When we first started the shelter program in Little Rock, we were at a different facility and we would adopt out 200 animals in a year. We thought that was great back then.”

The shelter is on track to set a new record for adoptions this year, Roark said. It adopted out more than 200 animals in April alone, he said.

Animal Village was designed and built so, as money becomes available, the building can be easily expanded.

“It was built like a Lego puzzle. It was made to be added on to,” Adcock said.

One of the additions will be a room designed for the intake and quarantine of animals.

The current facility has space for those services, but they are scattered about.

Another addition will be a room where animals will be assessed whether they are family friendly, how well they get along with other animals and what work the shelter staff will have to do to get them ready to be adopted.

Here, the animals will have their pictures taken to be posted on adoption websites - something the staff has been working to increase.

A staff break room is also in the planning, with showers and a place to do paperwork and eat a meal.

“Right now, if one of our staff has to go out and chase a horse around in the mud, they’ll go home to take a shower and then have to come back,” Roark said. “And the [existing] kitchen is one of those areas we’ve just worn out, so it’ll be nice to have that for them.”

A new refrigerator will be dedicated to employee lunches.

The refrigerator staff members currently use also holds animal medications.

Roark and Adcock both touted the planned cat room as an example of the shelter’s efforts to socialize animals.

The new room, which will be situated at the front of the building, will feature lots of glass so visitors can observe the cats.

It will also include various items of cat furniture.

Arkansas, Pages 7 on 05/07/2012

Upcoming Events