Contact: Susan Lee. Acting Director                     For Immediate release
Humane Society of Morgan County
Phone: 304-258-5592
Email: hsmc-wv@peoplepc.com

LOCAL SHELTER OVER CAPACITY - HUMANE SOCIETY URGES IMMEDIATE COMMUNITY HELP

The Morgan County Human Society Friends for Life Animal Shelter on Valley Road is currently housing more than 100 cats and kittens. The dog building is also well over capacity. Some enclosures house two dogs that get along well and several dogs are out at the homes of various county residents on “foster care”. Aside from not having enough space for all of these animals and barely enough staff and volunteers to keep up with the cats’ and dogs’daily needs, this situation is also critical because it increases the likelihood that an animal will become sick and that the sickness will quickly spread.

Susan Lee, Acting Director of the Humane Society is seriously concerned about this problem. “We make every effort to keep all of the animals healthy, but many times an animal will come in with no symptoms of sickness. A day or two later, symptoms will appear. Although new cat arrivals are placed in separate cages for a period of observation, currently there is not a separate building to completely isolate them to prevent exposure to the other animals at the shelter. When the shelter is at capacity, or over capacity as we are right now, even minor cases of mildly contagious sickness can quickly spread through the shelter.”

The Humane Society of Morgan County urges the immediate assistance of anyone and everyone who can help are to implement a three-pronged approach toward overcoming this critical issue that includes getting their own animals spayed or neutered to help reduce over-population, adopting animals from the local shelter and helping to get the cat isolation building project completed.

Everyone with a pet can help by getting their companion animal spayed or neutered. To encourage pet owners to take this important step that helps prevent pet overpopulation, increases the health and life span of pets and helps to reduce many negative pet behaviors, 9 local veterinarians have reduced their spaying and neutering prices in a program called Spay Today.

For the names of veterinarians participating in Spay Today or to find out how you can help with the very important cat isolation building project, please call the shelter at 258-5592. To find out more about the dogs and cats available for adoption from the shelter, you can access the Pet Finder link at the shelter’s website, www.hsmc-wv.org.