Howard and Benna Wasson of Maple Hill were Annie’s angels last week.
Annie, a boxer mix, was adopted by the Wassons from Emporia Animal Shelter on Dec. 22.
“We like boxers,” Benna Wasson said. “We lost two this year.”
The Wassons usually adopt their animals from animal shelters. They saw Annie on petfinder.com, a national Web site that allows people to search for pets online from animal shelters across the country.
Two kittens, Wyatt and Bobo, also found a home on Dec. 22. They were adopted by Jennifer Yunk and her children, Zach, 12; Melissa, 11; and Emmalea, 3. The Yunks also found the kittens on petfinder.com.
“We lost both of our pets this year to old age,” Jennifer Yunk said. “We just sort of felt the older one could help with the younger one. We really wanted to save a life.”
A lot of Emporia Animal Shelter’s adoptions come through petfinder.com, said Jennifer Meier, a volunteer at Emporia Animal Shelter.
“We get a ton of adoptions through PetFinder,” Meier said. “It’s huge.”
A typical day at the animal shelter starts early in the morning with manager Rachel Parris. She cleans out the cages, feeds the animals and does paperwork. On a recent morning, Cheryl Ankerholz, animal control officer for Lyon County, was in the shelter doing laundry, such as towels and blankets that had been donated for the animals to sleep on.
“There’s lots of cleaning to do,” Parris said. “And lots of laundry.”
The animal shelter has 44 pens for dogs and can handle about 40 cats, Parris said. Right now, animals are euthanized when space is needed for new animals, she said.
The shelter is owned by the city of Emporia and only takes animals from Lyon County. Animals are not taken from cities, with the exception of Emporia and Miller. Those two have contracts with the shelter.
The shelter takes animals regardless of health or behavior, Parris said. It also takes citizen drop-offs when stray animals have been found.
The shelter takes donations of any sort, but right now, the shelter is most in need of cash donations, Parris said. The holidays have the shelter stocked full of supplies such as food, bleach and blankets. Cash donations are used for vaccinations and general animal care, Parris said.
Another vital aspect to the shelter is the volunteers. Nearly every night, with Wednesday being the biggest night, volunteers come in to the shelter and walk the dogs, clean the cages and give the cats a break too.
Debbie Coleman of Emporia volunteers to help the animals, she said.
“We are giving them some love and attention,” Coleman said. “I’m an animal lover. They deserve to have attention.”
Connie Coleman, Debbie Coleman’s sister, said she volunteers because it makes her feel good.
“I just feel better knowing that I am helping them,” Connie Coleman said as she walked a dog back to its pen.
Michelle Schierling of Wichita, an Emporia State University student, also volunteers.
“I just love animals,” Schierling said. “I can’t have a dog at my apartment. I just came out one day and can’t stop. I’m making a difference.”
Mary Murphy of Emporia said she would take all the animals home, but since she can’t, she volunteers to help them out.
“It’s just good,” Murphy said. “It’s a little thing I can do. It’s kind of nice when you know some of them get adopted.”
ozma (anonymous) says...
The Emporia Animal Shelter DOES NOT work to reunite lost pets with their owners. Nor do they pass on information after given to them important to the adoptees--such as THE DOG YOU HAVE ADOPTED WILL BITE SMALL CHILDREN! You ask for donations? Are you kidding? Its hard to pick up our lost animals brought to you on your "2 HOUR WORK DAY".
Why help you with a pet prison when you punish us for a lost pet. Get a new program. Your division needs better management, friendlier workers, and a goal to help the pets lost, not punish the owners, their families, and of course the pet.
BOO TO THE EMPORIA ANIMAL (PRISON) SHELTER.
January 1, 2007 at 1:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
leo6914 (anonymous) says...
The Emporia Animal Shelter does amazing work, we have adopted 2 dogs from there, one Jack Russell Terrier and one Rat Terrier and on both dogs, they made sure we were informed on where they came from, whether or not they would be good with other dogs and children. Sometimes they do not have this information as the dogs are picked up as strays, the shelter can only inform you of information they have. If a dog bites a small child there is reasons, not all breeds are made to be around small children. The shelter cannot be faulted for our city governments budget cuts. Due to our city governments negligence and lack of funding the shelter has had to cut their hours. The shelter is open 7 days a week except for holidays so those who do work during the week has a chance to go to the shelter. The shelter does everything humanly possible to save the life of the animals. I have seen the volunteers and workers upset when they have had to put an animal down. As a responsible dog owner if my dogs were to get loose and then picked up I would expect to be fined for them running loose. Yes dogs can escape but to be a responsible owners also means that you be responsible enough to take measures to help prevent your dog from getting loose and make sure that your dog has proper id tags from the vet and city so that the shelter can make sure that all measures are taken to reunite the families. I would strongly recommend adopting from the Animal Shelter instead of going to a pet store. There are many pet stores that have been fined for buying dogs from puppy mills. Why encourage this when there are truly many animals that can be adopted from a shelter. The best advice to anyone wanting to adopt a dog is to research the breed prior to adoption to make sure the personality of the breed would be a good fit for your home. I am proud to say that the shelter will continue to get donations from me and my husband.
January 1, 2007 at 6:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
chicaliebehunds (anonymous) says...
As a person that used to work at an animal shelter, I take issue with the comment below. No dog comes with a warning label. How animals behave at the shelter is not always indicative how they will behave once placed. It is your responsiblity as a pet owner to help the new pet and the children understand how to behave around each other. You should inform yourself what kind of pet is the best for your family. And as a pet owner it is your responsibility to properly tag and register your pet. You would not believe how many people don't do this and then wonder why they never get the animal back. How many black dogs, or spotty dogs do you think the shelter gets a week that vaguely match the description you have given. You have to be active in the search also, put up fliers, keep checking every day with the shelter, word of mouth works wonders.
A shelter is not a pet prison, it's a place where animals are taken in and cared for after "responsible" pet owners no longer carry the torch. If you ever worked or volunteered at a shelter for at least an hour you would understand the two hour visiting hours and why not everyone is bubbly all the time. You have no clue how hard it is to care for each individual animal, keep up on veterinary care for those animals, and ensure that day to day maintenance and cleaning are being done. You have no idea how hard it is to only have so many spaces and so many uncared for animals that you have to actually choose who will stay and who will go. It is the most difficult task anyone will ever have to undertake, which is why so few people actually have the integrity to work there. I applaud each and every person that works at a shelter or volunteers their time at a shelter.
January 2, 2007 at 2:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
animalover (anonymous) says...
I have been volunteering about 4 nights a week along with several other people, to walk dogs, clean cages and play with the cats. I have been doing this for about 2 months now and it is by far the most rewarding thing that I have ever done. It is also frustrating because I see the innocent animals and hear their sad stories. Since I've been volunteering I've learned more about the shelter than I realized. The manager and the head volunteer at the shelter are two wonderful ladies who have brought the shelter a long way from when it was at the dump and put animals down after only 3 days. These two ladies have set up the petfinder on the internet. They find rescues (no-kill shelters) all over the United States to take some of the animals. They have a program called adopt a cage where you can donate money and have your name put on a cage in memory of a pet you have lost and they exhaust every possible effort to find a home for these animals before they are put down. Of course, they also come in the evenings to let volunteers like myself in to give the animals much needed love and attention. Without them to come in their spare time in the evenings to let us in, the volunteer program will disappear. The scary thing is that these two ladies will be leaving at the end of Jan. because of lack of support financially and emotionally. When they leave it is very possible that these great programs will disappear including the volunteer program that I do and the animals could go back to being put down after only 3 days. The shelter needs help financially plus they need people employed there that are truly there to help the animals and have compassion. These two ladies that are leaving have that. The animals don't have a voice, but I do and I'm asking anyone who loves animals like I do to speak up to our city commissioners and mayor and let them know the seriousness of this issue.
January 2, 2007 at 6:36 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mjp (anonymous) says...
Sounds to me like "ozma" is one of those irresponsible pet owners. Animals usually bite small children because the parents havent taught the child how to treat the animal. Try spending time with the animal and child together. Also, maybe that shelter could stay open more than two hours if there weren't so many irresponsible pet owners which results in a FULL SHELTER to clean and feed EVERYDAY and that doesn't mean just scooping crap. Maybe you should VOLUNTEER for a week and spend from 7:30 to 5:00 out there and see what really goes on. With only one FULL TIME employee that is at the shelter all the time, there isn't a lot of time to be able to open up for people like you to go look for a pet.
Try obeying the laws of the City of Emporia and keeping your animal in a fenced yard, inside or on a leash and maybe you won't have to bail your animal out of "prison",
My final comment to you ozma is GET A LIFE.
January 4, 2007 at 2:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
bethy87 (anonymous) says...
It infuriates me to read comments like that by Osma. Why must there always be hostile, IRRESPONSIBLE, bitter people to sling hate at those who are doing so much good?
The Osmas of the world let their pets roam, let their spoiled children abuse pets, and don't spay or neuter, then expect others to be their slaves and clean up after them?
Why not take a lesson from a fine young person, Osma, like the Emporia State U student who HELPS OUT and JOINS in, instead of sitting idly on the sidelines and being nasty?
It is the Osmas of the world who are behind all the terrible animal abuse. They don't take care of their animals, don't spay & neuter them, let them wander, don't id them-and the animals suffer.
Clearly we need more laws to deal wth the Osmas of the world.
The shelter people are working so hard to deal with the irresponsibility. They don't need abuse from them too!
January 12, 2007 at 4:04 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
barbara61 (anonymous) says...
I agree completely with you OZMA and I want to add another story to the mix. I gave the shelter a beautiful 4 year old lab. I deeply loved this animal but knew he needed a country home so he could roam and be free. I had tried everything possible to keep him in the yard. He was clever at getting out . I hear this from everyone that owns one . He had been hit by a car twice already and I spent alot of money and effort with this dog to keep him alive. Due to my deep love for this animal I wanted him to be free to roam so I requested of the shelter to find him a home in the country. My dog was neutered and all of his shots up to date. I have gave donations to the shelter and supported them until they showed me just how UNFEELING they are. I gave this 4 year old very lovable animal to these monsters on a Friday and my dog was killed first thing Monday morning. He was never advertised or given ANY chance at life. Just Killed. When I called to see if my boy found a home. I was told with NO feeling that he was put down. When I asked.... WHY? I was put on hold for quite awhile, When the man came back on the phone he said my dog was put down because he was 8 years old. MY DOG WAS 4 YEARS OLD. They were told this repeatedly when the dog was given to them. So let me get this straight because of some ignorant and incompetent worker that claims they love animals made a mistake. My dog had to die and be stripped out of the 10 years he had left in him .(YOU ARE THERE TO SAVE LIVES) I would have took my chances with him and the cars before handing him over to the doggie nazi camp. They killed an animal that would have had no problem finding a home. Get some love for animals over there and for people like myself that deeply loved there dog and wanted a better life for him. It doesnt matter. HES FREE NOW!
January 13, 2007 at 3:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )