City councilors last week worked up to
the last minute trying to find a way to include
funding for the Tulsa Animal Welfare
Shelter on their list of proposed capital
improvement projects.
Here’s why: A lot of killing still goes on
there.
Not like it used to just five years ago,
when 90 percent of the animals brought
in were euthanized. It’s not that bad.
Now the figure is closer to 50 percent or
60 percent.
“Last year we had (approximately)
11,500 animals come into our shelter and
7,000 were euthanized,” said Jean Letcher,
manager of animal welfare for the city’s
Working in Neighborhoods Department.
So when councilors learned that nearly
half of the $2.75 million Animal Welfare
had requested would go to construct
adoption areas at the 18-year-old shelter
at 3031 N. Erie Ave., they rolled up their
sleeves and found the money.
“It all kind of came together nicely because
the initial interest (on the council’s
part) was, ‘How can we encourage and increase
the rate of adoption?’ ” said Councilor
G.T. Bynum.
In addition to funding the construction
of adoption areas, which would serve 30
dogs and 30 cats, the $2.75 million would
pay for an adoption reception area, new
administrative offices, an indoor temperament
assessment room, a “get acquainted”
room and a second crematorium.
As currently configured, there is no area
— save, too often, for the lobby — where
people hoping to adopt an animal can interact
with it. The animals are all caged —
cats up front, dogs in the back.
“We have people who come and would
love to adopt, but they cannot bring themselves —
because it is too heartbreaking — to
go back there and look,” Letcher said. “We
have rescuers who won’t go back and look.”
The adoption areas would provide more
natural settings where people interested
in an animal could interact with it, Letcher
said.
Cats ready for adoption, for
example, “would have a room
with furniture that someone
could walk into and sit
down with them to see which
animals approach and which
ones don’t,” she said.
The 16,000-square-foot
shelter is nearly always full.
Friday was no exception,
with 115 dogs, 72 cats, two
rats, a cockatiel and a horse
welcomed.
Letcher said she has to
farm out horses and other
livestock because she has no
barn to house them. The $2.75
million would help solve that
problem, too, she said.
There’s not much room for
the staff at the shelter, either.
Its adoption, rescue and foster
coordinator works out of
a phone room.
The city in 2007 moved
its Animal Control program
out of the Police Department
and into the newly created
Working in Neighborhoods
Department and renamed it
Animal Welfare.
That’s when Letcher arrived,
charged with implementing
recommendations
proposed by a mayor’s task
force and the Humane Society
of the United States.
“My charge was to see a
culture change from animal
welfare ‘catch and kill’ to true
animal welfare,” Letcher said.
“Let’s reduce our intake, let’s
reduce our euthanasia rate
and increase our live exit rate.
“It was: ‘Let’s get the strays
off the street, bring them here
and if they are adopted, fine,
if they are reclaimed by an
owner, fine — we’re not going
to expend much energy trying
to do anything different.’ ”
Letcher said the shelter’s
euthanasia rate has dropped
since it stopped doing the killing
for other communities as
part of what was a long-standing
“gentleman’s agreement.”
The shelter is also more
aggressive in promoting
adoption, spay and neuter
programs, and the use of computer
chips to tag animals.
The goal, Letcher said, is to
keep animals out of the shelter
in the first place. Because once
in, far too many never get out.
And so the need for a second
crematorium.
Letcher said that in the
summer it runs as many as six
days a week and about half
that time in the winter.
Sometimes the old thing
breaks down and doesn’t run
at all. When that happens —
as it did recently for three
straight days — the shelter
turns to Plan B.
“If the crematorium isn’t
working than we have to take
them to the public dump,”
she said of the euthanized
animals. “We don’t like doing
that, and I think the public
would find that disrespectful.”
PUBLIC MEETINGS
The City Council last
week approved a draft list
of $919.9 million in capital
improvement projects that
it will present to the public
in town hall meetings over
the next month. Councilors
will use the input from
those meetings to complete
its list before sending
it to voters on Nov. 12.
The list of meetings is as follows:
Tuesday: Hardesty Regional
Library, 8316 E. 93rd St.
(Council Districts 7 and 8)
July 30: Martin Regional
Library, 2601 S. Garnett
Road (Council Districts 5
and 6)
Aug. 5: OU-Tulsa Schusterman
Center Auditorium,
4502 E. 41st St. (Council
Districts 4 and 9)
Aug. 6: Rudisill Regional
Library, 1520 N. Hartford
Ave. (Council Districts 1
and 3)
Aug. 13: Carbondale Assembly
of God, 2135 W. 51st St. (Council District 2)
Tulsa Animal Welfare Shelter
Location: 3031 N. Erie Ave.
Telephone: 918-596-8000
To find a lost animal or to view animals
up for adoption, go to
tulsaworld.com/petharbor and click on Tulsa Animal
Welfare Shelter.
For more, go to
tulsaworld.com/tulsaanimalwelfare.
Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313
kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com
