There is aninteresting article from the Kansas City Star this week with some great news for animals in Kansas City, KS.
For years, KCK has been a black hole for animals. The facility routinely killed the majority of the animals that entered the shelter and were mostly unwilling to work with local rescue groups to save them. Last year, the shelter killed about 4,300 animals.
But a new animal control director, Rodney Smith, has helped change that. A new coalition that calls themselves "Ray of Hope" is now moving the majority of the animals out of the KCK shelter and safely into rescues. There are several rescue groups -- particularly the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City, the Pet Connection, and others that are working with KCK in order to safely find homes for animals.
This year, thus far, the shelter has killed on about 4% of the "adoptable" animals in the shelter -- and the group has saved about 800 dogs since January.
Several factors have been declared keys to their success.
1) Availability of low-cost spay/neuter clinics.
2) A network of area farmers that are willing to take in feral cats to roam their barns.
3) Off site adoptions at major shopping centers on the weekends.
4) Help of volunteers.
5) And I'd add: Animal Control management that was willing to work with the rescue groups in the first place.
KCK still has some issues. They are still taking too many animals from good homes because of the way they look based on the city's breed ban. I would also still like to see how many animals are considered "unadoptable" and killed. The city repealing its 20 year old breed ban would really be helpful for these rescue groups.
However, I'm thrilled that the shelter is no longer an abyss for animals with no hope of escape.
While I admire the work all these groups are doing, particularly "Karen Sands" of the local Humane Society of Greater Kansas City; none of these professionals or volunteers regularly attend AC court to see who is really being targeted.
AC is still wasting gobs of time and money on hauling in dogs that poor people can't afford to alter, feral cats that have caretakers, KS licensed rescue and foster homes are busted, and of course any dog that has a boxy head with a muscular body is confiscated.
The MSN has literally chased out the show dog folks of this community. Those are the folks that would provide money, knowledge and support to Karen Sands and the Humane Society of Greater KC's efforts. Too many groups like that firmly and wrongly believe MSN had to be in place to make people comply with s/n.
The MSN is also in violation of the State of KS Pet Animal Act. That act dictates that public shelters s/n the animals in their care before adopting them out to the general public; and that makes sense.
The AC officers in the field for the most part, are woefully ignorant and lazy. Instead of spending more time educating the neighborhoods most in need, they prey on certain zipcodes that will generate the most revenue in AC fines with the least amount of resistance.
Until the head of AC, the Ray of Hope group understands the importance of fair and enforceable legislation aimed at the problem, they will continue to have to work extra hard at placing animals in rescues and homes that already had "good" homes.
Posted by: KC KS Kills Dogs | June 18, 2009 at 09:15 AM