Tough times threaten Humane Society

A kitten lies in a cat tree at the Humane Society of Tuolumne County. Maggie Beck/Union Democrat, copyright 2009

 Because of dwindling donations, the Jamestown shelter could soon be void of meows, barks and the occasional oink.
 

 “If we stay on our current path, we’ll be shut down in eight to 12 months,” said Randy McNurlin, shelter manager.

So far this year, the shelter has lost about $120,000, McNurlin said. Last year, the shelter was short $85,000.

“We don’t get money from local, state or federal government,” said Jennifer Lothert, shelter board of directors president. “We don’t survive without donations ... our money is getting desperately low.”

On Friday, despite kitties wandering like vagabonds in a downtown park, the shelter’s front room was spanking clean and smelled like bleach. The decor wasn’t drab and depressing, but painted with forest scenes and filled with pet play palaces.

A door to the left leads to the cats’ sleeping quarters and the kitten nursery — a small room where kittens learn that nails scratch, bites sting and having a warm body to coddle them is pristine.

Volunteer Betsy Danon was sitting on the floor of the nursery Friday, allowing the kittens to crawl on her like she was a jungle gym.

“I started volunteering to get my granddaughter involved,” said Danon, who’s been volunteering now for about three years. “I’ve taken two of these guys home already.”

In the back, a hallway snakes to the veterinarian room and another room where diseased animals are quarantined and, hopefully, cured, before they can make new friends. Eventually the hallway leads to the dog kennel.

The dogs are caged but walked five times a day. They range from big to small, old to young, black to white, energetic to mopey, trained to, well, a little rambunctious.

If the shelter goes under, adoptable animals like Chopper, a Rottweiler-Labrador mix with a mean bark and sweet lick, or Callie, a border collie that stays calm even in the bark-filled shelter, could become statistics.

Twenty years ago, Tuolumne County Animal Control had a euthanasia rate of 72 to 78 percent, McNurlin said. Today, that rate is down to 17 percent.

“We like to think we had something to do about that,” McNurlin said.

The Humane Society cares for up to 75 of some of the more adoptable homeless cats and dogs in the county. Animals on potential death row next door, at Tuolumne County Animal Control, are transferred over and others are found through direct adoptions. Time limits are not set for potential pets to catch the eye and heart of a window shopper.

“We work hard to work with animal control,” McNurlin said. “We don’t refer to them as killers — they’re animal lovers. They do what they can.”

McNurlin predicts that if the shelter goes under— during a recession that has caused a spike in homeless pets — the euthanasia rate will jump towards the national average, salivating dog packs would roam county neighborhoods and cat litters would spill from garbage bins.   

This might be a bleak outlook from a man who obviously believes in his cause, but McNurlin said this worst-case scenario is already developing.

During a two-week period in June, the shelter received calls to take care of 300 litters of kittens.

“We take in 250 to 300 cats a year,” McNurlin said.

Currently, the only venture bringing in money to the shelter besides donations is Purrfect Bargains, a thrift store in East Sonora the shelter recently opened. 

“It’s been a huge success,” board president Lothert said.

The board of directors is looking into its second business venture — a pet crematorium.

“We hope so,” said Irwin Schwartz, a shelter board director, about the new venture being a success. “It’s a huge investment.”

While the shelter has been a lost cause financially, success stories abound. In the past six years, the shelter has found homes for 1,873 dogs and 1,903 cats, spayed or neutered 2,279 animals and given more than $189,000 to assist in spaying and neutering companion animals for low-income folks.

The average stay before adoption for dogs is 30 days and cats is 56 days.

The society has also been successful in recruiting volunteers, with a crop of more than 100 people donating time. Also, six veterinarians, as part of the Tuolumne County Veterinarian Association, assist the shelter on a rotating basis.

But despite the successes, the shelter can’t survive without the generosity of area residents.

“I think people are putting animals on the bottom of their list,” Lothert said.

“We’re not saying give us money,” McNurlin said. “We’re saying this is what we do with the money to save animals and assist the community.”

To make a donation to the Humane Society of Tuolumne County, visit their Web site at www.hsotc.org/donate.html or call 984-5489.