Cabot Animal Shelter officials hope to shift its focus from the enforcement aspect of the shelter, including fines and other fees normally associated with shelters, and move toward assisting pet owners in keeping their animals instead of losing them to circumstances out of their control.
“We want to stop looking at [our abundant pet population] as an animal problem,” said Mike Wheeler, director of community services for the Cabot Animal Shelter. “We are a city full of loving people who want to help each other keep their animals.
“We will still adopt, but the shelter will no longer be the center point of [our efforts]. Our community services will be the center point, and the shelter will be a tool.”
He said that by breaking the cycle of pet owners losing their dogs and bringing new ones to the city, the center will focus more on the owner and the animal together. He said certain programs will be in place to help finance unexpected costs for pet owners, such as veterinarian bills or other expenses.
“We are getting away from the enforcement side [of animal control] and moving toward the social side of an animal,” he said.
Recently, the city of Cabot was chosen as one of 12 pilot cities in which more animals are kept in their homes and communities, reducing the number of pets entering the shelter system. In a press release, Amy Zeifang, part of the executive leadership team with Maddie’s Fund, which is partially funding the undertaking, said animals are being reunited with families by community members in numbers not seen before.
“During the pandemic, we broadened the safety net for animals dramatically by asking the community for support, and they stepped up in a big way,” Zeifang said. “By keeping animals in the community and not in shelters, we’ve all realized how much better for everyone it is to focus our efforts on keeping pets and families together.”
Wheeler said one of the reasons the city is implementing these new programs is due to the domino effect that impounding dogs can have on low-income families. He said that for every dog that is picked up, there is a $50 impound fee, and if a family cannot afford the fee, then it is an extra $5 per day that the dog isn’t picked up.
“So we keep charging the fees, even though they couldn’t afford to pick up [the dog] the first time,” Wheeler said. “Then they have to go to court and face another $175 fine, and if they can’t pay that, then there is a warrant out for their arrest for failure to pay.
“And I’ve still got the dog, and in the meantime, they’ve gotten another
animal because they need a companion, and by the end of it, they are owing $500 in fees and fines. I’m not sure we are helping anyone there.”
Wheeler said the constant fines and fees are not hurting those residents who have adequate incomes, but rather lower-income families. He said the penalties only compound the issues these families already have when they can’t afford a simple $10 or $20 fix.
“They are just bringing another animal into the city instead of taking their dog home from the shelter,” he said.
Last year, Wheeler said, 3,352 animals were brought into the city of Cabot, and 22 animals were euthanized as a result of being injured or sick or for some other reason. Wheeler said Cabot is the 19th largest town in the state of Arkansas, but it shouldn’t be bringing that many animals into the city.
“We have to figure out what the root of the problem is,” he said.
Wheeler said one program he hopes to implement is setting up different donor accounts to be allocated toward purchasing medicine, or pet deposits, or other needs of pet owners. He said, for example, that someone could donate money into the pet-deposit program so a pet owner can use some of the funds to pay the fee instead of having to get rid of the dog.
Cabot is one of the smallest shelters to be a part of The Human Animal Support Services (or HASS) pilot organizations, with other locations including Washington, D.C.; Oakland, California; Los Angeles; and San Diego. Wheeler said if Cabot’s facility succeeds as a small shelter, other small shelters won’t have the excuse of lack of employees or a small budget, because Cabot’s animal shelter has only five full-time employees and one part-timer.
“We are building programming as the community needs it,” he said. “We won’t see anything major for another 30 or 60 days, as far as the programming coming out of it.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cabot Animal Shelter did not have any foster parents, but now it has implemented temporary foster homes for 24 to 48 hours so the dogs don’t have to come to the shelter. He said 85 percent of those dogs that have been called in as strays have been reunited with their owners.
“That’s huge,” Wheeler said. “We don’t have that success rate at the shelter. These fosters have stepped up and provided food and shelter and are holding on to the animal.
“A shelter is a horrible place for a dog. They are in a kennel all day, so it would be much better if they were in a home.”
For more information about HASS, go to humananimal
supportservices.org.
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.