Athens County Dog Shelter: Overcrowding and Allergies
By: Taylor Moore
Posted on:
ATHENS, Ohio — The Athens County Dog Shelter is struggling because they have so many dogs coming in, but too few are being adopted. according to Athens County Dog Warden, Mary Beth Brown.
“Some of the dogs have been here for three or four months, that’s a really long time,”Brown said. “We do a lot to enrich the environment for them, but it’s still not a home.”
Despite the overcrowding, Brown said this is a no-kill shelter so every dog is kept for as long as possible to get them adopted. And overcrowding is not the only problem the shelter is dealing with right now. Brown says the food they’re feeding the dogs is unhealthy and there’s not much the shelter can do about that.
More than 300 pounds of food is required to keep the dogs fed, and the shelter relies on donations for their food. The problem is the donated food is all different brands, and is high in ingredients that dogs are allergic to, such as corn.
“More than half of the dogs that have come into the shelter in the last six months have had really sever skin allergies and that corn just aggravates it,” Brown said.
People donate money to the shelter’s Sick and Injured Dog Fund, which allows them to take sick dogs to local vets. The shelter is almost 100 percent funded by dog-license fees. The shelter also gets money if a dog owner is fined or penalized for a dog-related violation. And they rely on donations and the fees they charge for adopting dogs.
Brown says the shelter is running a low on money this year compared past years because they are doing everything they can to enrich the dogs, keep them healthy, and get them adopted.