by Suzyn Barron, President of Warwick Valley Humane Society, Inc.
Did you know, last week we had our “educational inspection” by New York State Agriculture and Markets? This inspection was to help us better understand and implement the requirements of the New Shelter Guidelines. I understand the reasoning for the need for guidelines for shelters throughout the State. I have seen several animal shelters, local and otherwise, that shouldn’t even be called shelters but rather cell blocks. There is definitely a need to raise the standards for the care of homeless animals in New York and beyond. This is a start. However, requirements on paper are a lot different than requirements in reality. But, we should all strive to better the living conditions of shelter pets during their stay.
That said, one of the new rules is to only allow 12 cats per colony room, no matter the size of the room. Our Lee-isure Room is 150 square feet with 16 cats comfortable co-existing, yet we have to reduce that number to 12. Six of our colony rooms average about 100 square feet with anywhere from 15 to 20 cats occupying each, three of which are kitten rooms. To be in compliance within the next ninety days, we must reduce each room to 12. This means eliminating 36 cats somehow. Not like there is any room anywhere else in our 3 year old new facility. This past weekend, 3 kittens were adopted and 5 came into shelter! One, a sickly, six week old, happened to be from outside our area. The local shelter turned him away. We couldn’t. Locally, a litter of 3 week old infants were found in a wood pile. It was going to be 30 degrees overnight. Did we really have a choice?
The only way out of this overcrowded shelter cat situation is through adoption. If there was ever a time to adopt, please do it now!
Other requirements from the State include mandatory education courses for all staff, volunteers and fosters to be completed annually. The courses include safe handling, disinfection protocols, animal cruelty, sanitation procedures, animal body language and normal behaviors regardless of volunteer and foster involvement in any of these categories.
Plus we now have to log the mandatory daily, out of the cage or kennel, enrichment: 15 minutes per cat and 20 minutes per dog. All new intakes within the first 2 hours must be documented if emergency vet care is needed. Excluding stray animals during the five day hold period, new intakes must be fully evaluated on paper within 24 hours by staff with appropriate vaccines administered within the first 48 hours.
In house protocols must be in writing and protocols for nutrition, feeding, medical examinations, pain management, all vaccinations, parasite control, infectious diseases and illnesses must be approved by a veterinarian.
We have a lot of work ahead of us within the next ninety days before the follow up inspection.
Fortunately, we are ahead of most shelters in that our facility is fairly new without issues.
By definition “an animal shelter is a facility that houses, cares for and protects stray, lost, abandoned, surrendered or mistreated animals”. We are and do so much more than that.
Pet of the Week:
Adoption applications are available at wvhumane.org or call 845-986-2473 for more information.
