Let's make Rudy's legacy our new shelter

From The Aiken Standard

Submitted Article

Here's a letter that arrived last week:

Sandy,

This donation is for the Rudy Memorial Fund from Skyler (shelter name Grizzly). I met you and Rudy in May 2010, looking to adopt a shelter dog. You helped me over a couple of visits, and we settled on Grizzly. He was about 14 weeks old, and his mother was there, but his siblings had all passed away. My wife and I took Grizzly, now Skyler, on May 12th, 2010. He has grown into a 55-lb loving, gentle boy that is spoiled rotten. He enjoys all people, his long walks each day, playing with his kennel friends once a week at doggie day care and sleeping in his own king-size soft dog bed. He is so much a part of our family now that I wonder how we went 7 years without having a dog in our family.

I know Rudy will be missed terribly. He added a touch of home to the tough environment of the shelter. Hopefully others will donate to Rudy's Memorial and provide funding for some needed shelter items.

Sincerely,

Jim, Margaret and Skyler

Grizzly's story is painfully common. Unspayed females find themselves and their litters unwanted and dumped at the shelter. If no foster homes are available, the puppies (or kittens) get sick and die. Our collective push for spay/neuter must be multifaceted and relentless.

Helping shelter animals find their forever homes is the heart of our volunteer program. Hearing stories like Grizzly/Skyler's keeps the wind in our sails. We hope you won't wait seven years to experience the joys of a well-spoiled shelter pet.

The generous donations for Rudy's Memorial Fund that we have received so far will pay for half the cost of one stainless steel cage bank for the cats in holding. We hope to raise enough money to move the cats into an antiseptic environment under-roof in the fresh air. It is a stop-gap measure, as we are reluctant to spend precious dollars on expensive Band-Aids for a grossly inadequate county facility.

Twenty years ago, the current 5000-square-foot county shelter was built to house 100 animals; it then received about 1,200 a year. In FY11, 5,366 animals were brought into the same facility. The shelter received 5,509 calls on its one published phone line. That doesn't include those who gave up trying to get through.

Kennels designed to house one dog are crammed with 3, 4 and 5. The cats are held in a windowless closet and rarely stay healthy long enough to be adoptable. There are 17 kennels for the adoptable dogs, and except for the few lucky cats that make it into the relative luxury of the cat colony, all of the animals, sick or healthy, share the same air and have the same open drains running past their cages.

The need for a county facility that meets current shelter standards and can adequately serve the needs of citizens and animals is urgent and compelling.

Let's make Rudy proud of us.

FOTAS volunteers work with the Aiken County Animal Shelter, 411 Wire Road. For more information, e-mail info@fotasaiken.org or visit www.fotasaiken.org.