FOTAS and Aiken County Determine The New Animal Shelter Site

Let’s start with basic terms.  First, “Animal Control” is the jurisdiction’s obligation to protect the public from the nuisance, disease and danger of unwanted, mostly domestic animals.  Statutes regarding Animal Welfare make legal determinations about animal cruelty resulting from neglect or abuse.  Animal Advocacy, by contrast, assumes that animals’ well-being is the collective moral obligation of the community in which they reside.

Once understood, we can see these terms in operation.  Built to house 100 animals over 20 years ago, the current county shelter ‘s primary if not sole purpose was to serve the county’s animal control obligation.  Quickly the demand on the facility rose to over 200 unwanted animals, brought in by officers or surrendered by citizens, who wait 5 days for someone to claim them.  Before FOTAS, over 90% were euthanized, bagged up, and shipped to the landfill.

This 5,000 square foot facility, with no lobby, no quarantine area or infirmary, no surgical facility, no kitchen or break room, no cat area, no

HVAC, serves all 110 square miles of Aiken County, minus the cities of Aiken and North Augusta with their own animal control.  The facility never pretended to address community concerns about animal welfare or animal advocacy, nor can it effectively address the 5,400 unwanted animals that continue to arrive each year.

FOTAS and the County have been working together for nearly two years to determine the best way to provide our Animal Services Department and our community with an adequate animal shelter.  Plans are finally under way as our euthanasia rate balks above 70%.

Last month County Council designated 4.4 acres of county-owned land as the site for a new Aiken County Animal Shelter.  The lovely parcel sits on the southwest corner of May Royal and Wire Road. 

The May Royal parcel was one of four potential sites considered: a shell and 5 acres in the Willow Run Industrial Park for $695k; the current Aiken SPCA for $650k; and, the current county shelter site.

FOTAS contracted a nationally recognized shelter expert to evaluate all of the options for the county.  His assessment concluded that the most cost-effective option to provide an adequate shelter, one that could serve our county population, was to build new on county-owned land.

Last week, a committee of FOTAS and County representatives interviewed four finalists in a search for shelter design experts.   In accordance with the MOU signed last June, FOTAS will pay for the shovel-ready design, and no public funds will be spent until site work begins, if the county moves expeditiously. 

Aiken County is already seeking ways to optimize its contractor services for the shelter project as it advances our new county complex; for instance, there is saleable timber on both sites.

This innovative public-private partnership will set new standards for merging animal control, welfare and advocacy in programs for and by our animal-loving county.  This is our one opportunity to get this right, and if we do, it will serve us all well for decades into the future.  

FOTAS Volunteers work with the AIKEN COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER, 411 Wire Road.  For more information, contact “info@fotasaiken.org” or visit FOTAS on line at www.fotasaiken.org

Aiken County Animal Shelter: “By the Numbers”

Yearly Adoptions July 2006 to June 2011

Adoptions	Cats	Dogs	Total
FY07	88	366	454
FY08	95	546	641
FY09	163	467	630
FY10	185	530	715
FY11	142	620	762

“Pets of the Week” Spring Adoption Special ½ Price!

MIA – 3.5 YRS.   

Save this sweetheart! Only $20

ANGEL 1yr. 50 lbs. 

 $35 includes shots, microchip & spay

Make a Big Difference in a Little Life by Fostering

Once upon a seaside dawn a silver-haired man, deep in thought, was walking a long stretch of beach when he noticed a young woman off in the distance.  She appeared to be dancing as she reached down, picked up something from the sand, and hurled it out beyond the breakers into the sea.  As he approached her, she repeated the act again and again with curious determination.

Then he saw the multitude of starfish that had washed up on the shore.  One by one, the young woman was throwing them back into the water.

“What are you doing?” he asked in amazement.

“I can’t leave them here,” she replied, “The sun will be up soon and they will all die.”

“But there are miles of them along the beach!  You cannot possibly make a meaningful difference,” the old man chided.

Without speaking, the young woman reached down, picked up another starfish and threw it way out into the dark undulating ocean.  Then she turned and looked squarely at the old man.

“It made a difference to that one,” she replied, and returned to her task.

The old man stood for a moment and then walked on, picking up starfish and tossing them into the sea.

Puppies and kittens come by the box load to our Aiken County Shelter.  Already overcrowded with open sewage drains and horrid ventilation, there is no way to keep these tiny innocents healthy. 

The chance to save our pups to be adopted, or shipped out to no-kill shelters, requires that they be placed in foster care until they are 4 to 8 weeks older and immunized against the most life-threatening diseases.

Fostering can be truly rewarding according to our current foster families:

"Two bags of dog food for endless entertainment."

“Fostering does the heart good!”

“It is a way of appreciating God’s miracles.”

“Often abandoned without a mother, puppies sometimes died, but they had been held and pampered like the most precious creature in the world.  They knew love.”  

Please consider becoming a puppy foster parent (4 to 8 weeks), or a short-term (5 to 10 days) foster home.  Our short-term care is for dogs already approved for transfers who are taking up precious kennel space while waiting for their rides up north to no-kill shelters.

To become a foster parent for dogs or cats, please fill out a Foster Care Form, fax it to the shelter: 803-643-4006, or fill one out right there at 411 Wire Rd.  You will be contacted for a site evaluation by an Animal Control officer to

simply confirm your ability to provide a safe environment.

If you are ready to commit to a forever home for a new pet for the holidays, beginning tomorrow the Aiken County Shelter will be offering an end-of-year half-price special on all adoptions. 

Please join FOTAS this holiday season in making a difference in Aiken County, one innocent creature, one helpless litter, one bag of Pedigree, or one shelter improvement at a time.  God bless you.

FOTAS Volunteers work with the AIKEN COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER, 411 Wire Road.  For more information, contact “info@fotasaiken.org” or visit FOTAS on line at www.fotasaiken.org.  

Aiken County Animal Shelter:  “By the Numbers”

For Nov. 28th thru Dec. 4th    

Dogs taken in: 77

Cats taken in: 20

Dogs adopted: 9

Cats adopted: 5

Dogs euthanized: 60

Cats euthanized: 24

Aiken County Shelter “Pets of the Week” 

MARCO – with his pal Maggie, just itching for a run in the woods!  Two for the price of one!

PUMPKIN -  a very handsome gentle boy to warm your lap this winter for only $17.50.

 

With FOTAS, All-Volunteer Means Business

Oh, FOTAS, how far we have come!  In June of 2009 a few of us held a benefit breakfast for the Aiken County Animal Shelter.  We stood in parking lots, sold tickets and made out-of-town friends buy them for bookmarks.  We raised over $2,700, our symbolic beginning. 

Two years later FOTAS, now a 501c3 public charity, committed to raise $100,000 to partner with Aiken County on a badly needed shelter expansion project, a momentous undertaking for all concerned.  The first phase of the comprehensive needs assessment study has been completed and is now under County Council review.   

Concurrent with working on the shelter expansion project, we have ongoing program commitments. Shelter  volunteers see that the dogs get out of their cages at least once a day, six days a week.  The dogs learn that someone cares, to walk on a leash and play well with others.   And our kitties need attention every day, especially afternoons.  Our volunteers also work with local vets and council representatives in the very important work of funding and promoting spay and neuter programs.

In two years FOTAS volunteers saved hundreds of county dogs through our transfer program with northern no-kill shelters.  Each occasion for a transfer requires many volunteer hours finding shelters, assuring dogs are selected, approved, spayed/neutered, fostered, and shipped healthy.

FOTAS’ foster homes offer most abandoned litters of puppies and kittens their only chance to survive the unavoidable contamination and afflictions of shelter life.  We are blessed with too few of these angels-of-mercy and pray for more all the time. 

The money FOTAS raises makes everything else possible.  Every fundraiser is conceived and implemented by volunteers including our signature Woofstock Festival.  Our equestrians hold hunter-paces; our golfers do golf tournaments.  Also, through their good works numerous civic organizations generously make FOTAS their beneficiary on behalf of the Aiken County Shelter. 

We appreciate all the people throughout the county who find our displays or read this newspaper* and send a donation to FOTAS’ P.O. Box 2207, Aiken, 29802.  Now you can even make one-time or monthly donations on our website.

 Being an all volunteer organization, every dollar is spent directly on shelter needs.  Since that first breakfast FOTAS has provided the county shelter with: numerous supplies; shelter and flooring for the overflow pens, a large-dog play area, a unique adoptable cat and kitten facility, post-surgery and cat-intake stainless cage banks, and the committed $100k for the needs analysis and shelter expansion design.  

FOTAS volunteers have also: designed and run our website,  database,  blogs,  broadcast emails, brochures and accounting system.  Volunteers secured our 501c3 status, report to the state and IRS, do the banking and issue honorariums and thank-yous.  And the leadership that keeps it all running is all-volunteer.

FOTAS is a membership organization.  If you care about our county shelter and its animals we hope you will join us.  Make any kind of meaningful contribution and you’re in.

  *The Aiken Standard posts these BLOG post articles each week.

FOTAS Volunteers work with the AIKEN COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER, 411 Wire Road.  For more information, contact “info@fotasaiken.org” or visit FOTAS on line at www.fotasaiken.org.

Aiken County Animal Shelter:  “By the Numbers”

For October 10th thru 16th     

Dogs taken in: 56

Cats taken in: 40

Total: 96 

Dogs adopted: 15

Cats adopted: 1

 Total: 16

Dogs euthanized: 33

Cats euthanized: 41

Total: 74