The Potomac Highlands Dispatch - the online newspaper

County Animal Control Board votes to oppose effort to evolve into no-kill shelter
* Consensus: Option is too costly and 'a big mistake'

By The Potomac Highlands Dispatch
LAVALE, Jan. 12 -- Members of the Allegany County Animal Control Board on Wednesday voted 4-0 to oppose efforts to convert the county-owned animal shelter into a no-kill facility.

Area residents associated with various new volunteer groups, including the Queen City Animal Rescue and Tri-State Animal Advocates, plan to present to the Allegany County Board of Commissioners on Thursday at 4 p.m. an online petition with more than 1,100 electronic signatures. Those signatures, petition organziers said, show support to convert the Allegany County Animal Shelter on Furnace Street in Cumberland into a no-kill facility.

According to the online petition, a no-kill shelter "commits to euthanizing only companion animals that are either irremediably injured or terminally ill."

Specifically, the petition is to show support for the county commissioners to appoint a new shelter manager who believes in the no-kill philosophy. The deadline to apply for the position, which became vacant with the resignation of former manager Camille Carrico last month, is Friday.

Animal Control Board members took a pre-emptive strike against the effort Wednesday during a quarterly meeting at LaVale Veterinary Hospital with a vote of opposition to those volunteers' efforts. The board is comprised of Peggy McDaniel, chairperson, with some 40 years' volunteer experience at the shelter and Gay Cole, an ex-officio member with 18 years' service as an Allegany County animal control officer, among others.

McDaniel said she was asked by one of the three county commissioners to get the board to take an official position on the issue. McDaniel said she plans to be at Thursday's meeting to present "the other side" of those advocating for a no-kill shelter and shelter manager.

Dick DeVore, acting deputy director of Allegany County's Department of Public Safety who is overseeing the day-to-day affairs of the shelter until a new manager is selected, said he doesn't see it as being possible to become a no-kill facility. His heart, however, has him balancing the fence between becoming a no-kill shelter and following the pervious shelter policies which strictly adhered to a 72-hour hold for all animals before they were euthanized.

Though the county has not offered an official report on the kill rate of animals taken in at the shelter, the estimate of 75 percent to 85 percent of all animals is widely regarded as accurate based on figures provided for previous news articles.

DeVore mentioned two dogs - Raz and Taz - found together in September and kept at the shelter through Christmas. Both are now living away from the shelter but, under existing policy, should have been put to sleep a long time ago.

Then, DeVore said, there's the situation in which an older woman was moving into a nursing home and could no longer keep her "lovable dog" - a senior citizen in her own right by canine standards. With Carrico at the helm, the dog would have been considered for euthanasia. The dog was adopted within two days. Since a near-moratorium on euthanasias since Nov. 29, only four dogs have been put to sleep.

"That dog would have fallen into our euthanasia category," DeVore said. "I don't have that in my conscience to follow through on that."

Gay Cole, an ex-officio member to the board who retired with 18 years' experience as an Allegany County animal control officer, estimated the shelter accepts about 3,000 animals each year. In the past, more than 2,200 of them were put down.

If those animals were not euthanized, "Where would you put them," Cole asked. "eventually, the rescues are going to get full."

Doug Holler, member-at-large, spoke against a county-owned no-kill shelter but said it might be too late to turn back from a path that leads to a no-kill shelter. Holler said DeVore's recent statements to media outlets and actions at the shelter - including DeVore's oft-repeated commitment to reduce the number of euthanasias - could be seen as an obligation to move to a no-kill facility.

"Someone has changed course here to the point where you've already changed the direction of the shelter to become a no-kill shelter," Holler said. "I'm not sure when that happened."

Holler wanted to know the commissioners' position on the issue, but McDaniel told him they hadn't yet taken a position. Holler also suggested that should the facility ever been promoted as a no-kill shelter, "there will be people there at the door every day" dropping off unwanted animals.

Having a sufficient number of volunteers now - when the number of animal drop-offs are down - is fine. But, Holler said, what happens "next summer, when things really get bad ... You're going to have a problem."

He said moving to a no-kill shelter would be a "big mistake."

Board member Dr. James Cosgrove said it'd be great to "save every animal that comes into a shelter." However, that's not realistic.

"you can't paint yourself into a corner and take options off the table," he said.

Cosgrove spoke of the financial drain on animals kept at the shelter but wouldn't be adoptable.

"It's just not feasible," he said.