Animal shelter needs community support

Through community support, Las Vegas may become the home for the nation's first public animal shelter to stop euthanizing healthy animals.

Funds are being raised to build a new 35,000-square-foot facility for the Animal Foundation, the city's contracted animal shelter at 700 N. Mojave Road.

The new shelter, which will be located across from the current one, will have 300 dog runs, compared with the 70 it has now, and 200 cat cages.

This extra space will allow the foundation to meet its ultimate goal: to be the first no-kill city pound in the country, said Mary Herro, the foundation's president.

Not only that, the shelter will provide more comfort for the animals than than the average shelter. The runs and cages will have good sunlight, separate ventilation and disease-free surfaces.

"The city desperately needs it and we want the community to be a part of it," board member Marilyn Larson said.

The funds are being raised through sponsorships ranging from $200 to $2.5 million of various elements, from an engraved sidewalk brick to the building itself.

Marilyn and her husband, Mel Larson, who sponsored a cat adoption center and set aside shares of stock for an endowment, are two of many in the community who have stepped forward see that funds for the new facility are secured.

"A better facility is going to save more lives and give these animals the dignity and comfort they should have, no matter the outcome," Herro said.

The current 7,500-square-foot facility is swamped daily with new arrivals and is overcrowded and run down.

An average of 1,500 cats and dogs are dropped off at the shelter each month. Some are adopted, some return home with their owners, others are euthanized. At any given time there are 500 cats and dogs in the shelter.

The foundation has been criticized locally for its decrepit cages and overcrowding, but those conditions are partly due a policy that has received national attention. Animals are given 30 days for adoption before euthanasia, compared with a usual five to seven days at other shelters.

The additional time provides a better chance of adoption, Herro said.

The effort has resulted in success in saving animal lives. From 1995 to 1997, the city animal adoption rate increased 30 percent while the euthanasia rate decreased 20 percent. There were 6,000 adoptions in 1996 and 8,400 adoptions in 1997.

Of the 19,700 animals that came through the shelter 1997, only 615 healthy adoptable animals were euthanized. More than 5,000 animals were euthanized because of health and behavior problems.

Herro wants to see the day that no adoptable animals die in Las Vegas.

The barks, howls and meows resonate through the shelter while employees scuffle through the facility trying to assess the incoming and accommodate the adoptees.

Within a two-day period last week, Animal Control brought in 24 cats from one home, 20 from another and 35 birds from yet another.

A hallway near the receiving area has turned into a holding area, where cages lined against a wall hold nearly 70 cats, who if not claimed, will be checked in, neutered or spayed, microchipped then put up for adoption.

Because of his sneezing, a long-haired, blue-eyed Siamese won't make it that far. On a good day, he would have been taken to the treatment center behind the shelter and nursed back to health, but the overcrowding in the treatment center limits his chances.

Space has been a big problem for the foundation since it received the city contract in 1995. At the time, officials were expecting an average of 8,000 animals a year. Instead, they received 18,000, Herro said.

"We have no room. I have animals, six or seven deep in a cage," she said.

"The shelter's shrinking and the city's growing. Something's got to give here," Roger Van Oordt, supervisor at animal control, said.

And it needs to give sooner rather than later.

The city is providing the two acres of land for the shelter rent-free. But the funds to build the shelter must be secured by April 2000. So far $1.5 million has been raised in cash, labor and materials. Another $3.5 million is needed.

Seventeen rooms, including a dog hospital ward, an outdoor animal play area, a puppy nursery, a kitten nursery and a feral cat room have already been sponsored in addition to five dog runs and five cat cages.

Brick by brick, tile by tile, room by room, the new facility will be constructed -- all in loving memory of pets that passed away or in memory of people who loved animals.

"Instead of the house that Jack built, it will be the shelter the community built," Herro said.

Two hundred dollars will buy a sidewalk brick -- with a pets name engraved on it -- leading up to the facility. A $35,000 donation will sponsor a lost cat holding room and a $2.5 million donation will sponsor the entire building. A bronze plaque will placed in each room with the sponsors' names and or the names of their pets.

"We have a lot of generous people in this town who will make it happen," Larson said.

"If we have enough funds to get the new building, we'll never have to kill an adoptable animal," Bill Moore, a local land developer and a donor, said. A fund established in his name is providing an endowment that will support the shelter throughout the years.

Other major contributors include noted sports gambler and golf course developer Billy Walters, Margo Rogich, wife of Rogich Communications owner Sig Rogich, and local resident Judy Barnum, who has fostered 300 cats.

The foundation first formed as a low-cost spay and neuter clinic in 1989 as a response to the pet overpopulation crisis in Las Vegas. Since then, the foundation has performed more than 110,000 surgeries and helped create awareness of the issue.

Herro said the more pleasant environment will not only benefit the animal's comfort, but potential adopters who normally would avoid selecting a pet from the shelter would be more at ease in a cleaner, more spacious environment.

"Our board believes life is valuable," Herro said. "We should give every adoptable animal a home."

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