Dozens Get Paws on New Pets

Aiming to burnish its image, the county’s animal shelter held an open house Sunday to showcase improved facilities for dogs and cats, as well as expanded hours for adoptions.

Hundreds of people attended the event, snapping up dogs and cats on a day the shelter used to be closed. The most popular were kittens: 15 of 16 available for adoption were gone within 40 minutes of the shelter’s 10 a.m. opening.

By day’s end, 24 cats and 36 dogs had found new homes, including some that would stay at the shelter temporarily pending neutering and a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

“Being open Sundays gives us a whole new window of opportunity to reach families and get our pets adopted,” said Mike Spurgeon, director of regulatory health services at the Orange County Health Care Agency, which oversees the shelter.

The turnaround at the shelter on The City Drive in Orange comes after a tempestuous year that saw both its director and chief veterinarian step down under fire. They had been harshly criticized by veterinarians and animal rights advocates for not stemming a distemper outbreak among cats at the shelter and for failing to inoculate all strays. Shelter officials were also targeted for being slow to adopt mandatory spaying and neutering rules, and for failing to create a friendly environment for adopting pets.

Those days appear largely behind the facility, which is now open seven days a week, operating from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and until 7 p.m. on Wednesdays. A second staff veterinarian--Dr. Kelli Barnett--began work two weeks ago, and the county is searching nationwide for a new chief veterinarian and a director of animal care services, who will run the shelter and all stray operations.

The county closed the application process for director March 31, and officials will meet this week to pick their top choices from more than 60 applicants and bring candidates in for interviews. Health Care Agency Director Michael Schumacher said Sunday that he will allow public input in the process.

A new director will be selected about May 1, but an arrival date is not set, Spurgeon said. The county had hoped to have someone in place by April 1. The director will Upgrades

be paid about $90,000 annually.

The selection of a chief vet has also proved difficult, with only one person responding to the recruitment notices. As a result, the job will be re-advertised and the pay increased by as much as $15,000 from the $60,000 range previously set, officials said.

In addition to the personnel changes, the shelter has taken on a new look, adding several grassy dog runs where volunteers can exercise pets and the public can play with dogs they may want to adopt. There also is a new cat pavilion contained in two 72-foot trailers.

The cat pavilion has separate cages for 150 cats; other parts of the shelter have an additional 120 cages for cats under quarantine, recuperating from surgery or that are adopted but being held pending release. The situation is a complete turnaround from last year, when group-caging of cats in the old facility helped spread the feline distemper, which killed scores of animals.

The number of strays picked up continues to be a problem for the shelter, which handles animal services for the county and 21 contract cities, said veterinarian Allan Drusys. The shelter held 250 dogs Sunday morning and 154 cats. Twenty-eight dogs were picked up by animal control officers between 6 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday.

The shelter euthanizes an enormous number of animals. It picked up 18,898 dogs last year, with 5,360 returned to owners and 4,865 adopted. The rest, about 8,700, were killed. For cats, the numbers are even bleaker: 12,038 were impounded and nearly 9,800 were euthanized, after owners claimed 254 and 2,011 were adopted.

Schumacher, who toured the open house with his wife, found the adoption totals at midday a good sign for the future.

“The fewer we have to euthanize, the better,” he said.

Adopting a dog costs between $50 and $85, including license, shots and mandatory spaying or neutering; for a cat, the fees range from $35 to $70.

The open house on a nonworking day clearly made a difference for a number of families, who otherwise would not have visited the shelter.

Dena and Ron Ortiz of South County left with two puppies they named Mo and Joe. The dogs are a gift for their daughter, Emily, who recently turned 9. Though the family had seen some dogs advertised in the newspapers, they decided they would give the shelter a shot when they heard about the open house, Dena Ortiz said.

“We didn’t expect to pick up two, but we fell in love with them,” she said. “Emily has been working toward this goal in school. We told her she had to be a little more responsible, and we thought she deserved it.”