Baxley worked with the shelter for years, but gave up the job several months ago.
“As for me, after euthanizing 20,000 to 25,000 animals, many of which were perfectly healthy, there were just no homes for them, I can’t do it anymore. You cannot understand what it is like to study for years to save animals’ lives and then turn around and have to euthanize healthy animals,” Baxley said.
He said he was concerned that the public and even the media could forget about the animal shelter and the issues it continues to face. He said it seemed to indicate that the issue was drawing to a close.
“The problem with this issue is that it is too important to close, not only for the animals but also for the people of Sylacauga and the surrounding area,” he said.
Baxley said the problems with the shelter are two-fold. First, there are too many animals and, second, there is too little funding.
Baxley said the solutions are simple.
“First Sylacauga has a leash law, simply enforce it for dogs and cats. Whether the city wants to admit it or not, there is as much of a problem with stray cats as there are with dogs. During euthanasia at the shelter it is nothing to have to euthanize 50 to 60 cats — one time we euthanized 107 cats,” he said.
Enforcing the leash law, Baxley said, would prevent owned animals from breeding with strays that are already out there. Sylacauga has a city license on the books and he said it should be enforced. He also said fees for animals that are not spayed or neutered should be increased, and owners who want to breed should have a breeder’s license. He said that money could go to the shelter.
“These actions will do three things. It will provide critically needed funding for the shelter, it will give owners an incentive to get their animals spayed or neutered and it will reduce the number of strays running free,” Baxley said.
This, he said, will not solve all the funding problems for the shelter. The Animal Rescue Foundation will still need to charge for adoptions, have fundraisers and seek donations. The city will need to add more funding, but it will help over time decrease the number of animals going into the shelter.
He said the city also needs to enforce the state rabies law.
In Alabama every dog and cat is required to be up to date on their rabies vaccine, when they get the vaccine they also get a tag. Baxley said the rabies tag could be used as a city tag. Every veterinary software program can print out a vaccination certificate.
“Just change the vaccines to a license. In our program that would take a total of about a minute. At the end of the month, run off a report of the licenses, cut a check, and send it to the city. The program could be administered through the city, where people pay their traffic fines. Just run off a license receipt. The program could be administered through the animal shelter or animal control. Animal control can do periodic inspections in areas of the city and issue fines if the animals don’t have a license,” Baxley said.
He said this program is beneficial and outweighs the problems and costs.
“I cannot understand why it has not already been started. The county could do something like this and help the situation.”
When it comes to ARF, Baxley said the board and people who work at the shelter, with a few exceptions, have been and are doing an excellent job considering the lack of funding and the number of animals they have to deal with.
The veterinarian said the problem at the shelter is not new and didn’t just happen.
“There is absolutely nothing new about it. Lisa Allen was a board member during the 2000 to 2002 time frame. She met with members of the council and informed them of the situation, the number of animals coming into the shelter was increasing and steps needed to be taken to correct the problem and increased funding was needed,” Baxley said.
He said his clients have told him they complained to their council members and commissioners. “I’ve had others come in off the street and tell me they filed complaints at City Hall about all the strays. Officials know this has been building for years and did nothing. No one has done a thing to alleviate the program,” he said.
Baxley said the shelter was not designed properly. “When you design a shelter, prevention of disease spread is critical. Animals should be first brought into a room for evaluation, then evaluated and placed into one of three rooms. The first is the euthanasia room, which is for animals that are too sick to be treated, injured or too aggressive to be adopted. You give them food, water, pain medicine and make them comfortable as possible until they can be euthanized. The other two rooms are for quarantine, usually one for dogs and one for cats. If they are sick and treatable, you start treatment. The reason for quarantine is so you don’t put sick animals in with healthy ones because all you are going to do is spread disease to the healthy animals. With the number of animals coming into this shelter, the quarantine would have to be short,” he said.
Baxley said all animals are brought into the shelter through the front door, the same route that adopted animals are sent out. That shouldn’t happen because, again, you are spreading disease. When people come in to look at animals, they track the organism over the shelter.
Baxley pointed out that the shelter has many other problems when it comes to spreading diseases among animals.
He said he believes the city failed to get input from local veterinarians when the shelter was built.
“The point I’m trying to make is that every veterinarian in this area has training, knowledge and experience that can benefit that shelter, but they have either been under utilized or completely ignored,” he said.
Baxley said what he was hearing is that this person should have done that and this other person should have done this.
“That’s not the way to solve the problems. There are problems, to be sure, but it’s not the mayor’s problem, it is not the City Council’s problem and it is not the County Commission’s problem. It is the community’s problem. Everyone can and should help and have input into how to best solve the problem. If you disagree with my solution, then suggest another. Remember, the hardest part of any solution is the start. You have to start before anything gets done,” he said.
Baxley said pointing fingers and playing the blame game needs to stop. The people of Sylacauga and Talladega County need to take responsibility for their own pets by having them spayed or neutered, then the problem of overcrowding and euthanization would greatly diminish.
“I am well aware of the fact that no one wants to hear about more fees or fines, but I am also aware of the facts that the overcrowded conditions at the shelter and the stray animal population in this area are to the point that something has to be done. If you have or can come up with a better plan please do so,” Baxley said.
Contact Denise Sinclair at dsinclair@dailyhome.com
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