Good Signs at Animal Shelter

The willingness of officials at Orange County’s animal shelter to hold an open house earlier this month is an encouraging sign that the troubled facility is on the right track. Equally encouraging is the day of the open house: a Sunday. This choice reflects the shelter’s new, seven-day-a-week operating schedule.

That’s realistic recognition that the facility needs to encourage more adoptions of cats and dogs and that the most likely days for public visits are weekends, when most folks aren’t working.

In the last year, the director and chief veterinarian at the shelter in Orange resigned. That followed criticism that a distemper outbreak among cats was not dealt with swiftly and that not all strays were inoculated. The facility also came under fire for not sprucing up in an effort to persuade the public to look inside and adopt the animals.

The county’s Health Care Agency, which has suffered a good amount of turnover at the top, operates the shelter. It has added a second staff veterinarian and is still looking for a new chief vet and a director of animal care services to run the shelter.

It’s an unfortunate fact that many of the animals brought to the shelter are euthanized. Last year, nearly 19,000 dogs were brought in, with nearly half killed after not being returned to owners or adopted. Of 12,000 cats impounded, nearly five of every six were euthanized.

This month’s open house provided hope that those statistics can be improved. Within an hour of the shelter’s opening, 15 of 16 kittens available for adoption had been claimed.

The situation for cats brought to the facility has improved greatly. Where once many cats were held in a single cage, which helped spread often fatal feline distemper, now there are separate cages for 150 cats. There are additional cages for felines being quarantined or recovering from surgery.

County officials deserve credit for responding to deserved criticism of the animal shelter by improving conditions and increasing the staff. Expanding operating hours should allow more animals to live longer and bring joy to more people willing to take them into their homes. Shelters in cities like Irvine and Mission Viejo have done a good job and can serve as models for the county.