Long-awaited relief for Swain County’s dire animal control problem has finally arrived.

For years, residents had no recourse if a vicious dog or colony of stray cats took up residence on their property. Now, county officials hope to hire their first full-time animal control officer some time in the coming fiscal year.

A $7,900 grant from a private national foundation that has insisted on remaining anonymous will cover the cost of equipment, like traps, poles, gloves and chaps.

Meanwhile, state and federal reimbursements, along with a county match, will pay the new deputy’s $27,000 salary.

County leaders are hoping the Town of Bryson City will pitch in by purchasing a truck or SUV for the new animal control officer. County Manager Kevin King estimates the truck or SUV might cost $23,000.

Town aldermen say they are still waiting on an official contract before making a final decision.

King said if the town doesn’t cooperate in purchasing a vehicle, the animal control officer would only work in the county — not within town limits.

However, since town residents also pay county taxes, they are already contributing to the salary of the new animal control officer — just as much as any other resident of the county — yet would be excluded from a service received by the rest of the county.

At one time, the county contracted with a private animal shelter in another county to swing through Swain once a week and haul off strays reported over the course of the week. But the arrangement was discontinued three years ago.

A local shelter run by the nonprofit, no-kill organization P.A.W.S. (Placing Animals Within Society) has struggled to fill the void, but cannot to keep up with the growing number of strays being dropped off at its doors.

For now, vicious animals are reported to the sheriff’s office, then passed on to the county health director Linda White. The only thing White can do is officially declare the animal “potentially dangerous,” making it mandatory to leash and muzzle the animal every time it’s taken outside a fenced-in area. The designation is pointless if the animal is a stray and doesn’t have an owner, however.

Sheriff Curtis Cochran says his office receives about half a dozen complaints about potentially dangerous animals each week.

“We have a lot of animals that are running unattended,” said Cochran.

Even so, Cochran assures residents that the new animal control officer will not be scouring the county, tracking down stray and dangerous animals.

“This is in no way to penalize the owners of the animals,” said Cochran. “We’re not going to go around and try to spot an animal running loose. That’s not what it’s going to be about.”

Since the county lacks a public animal shelter, it’s unclear exactly what the animal control officer will do with strays once they are picked up. County officials are hoping neighboring shelters in Cherokee or Jackson and Macon counties will accept the animals. Swain is still looking at the option of creating an in-house animal shelter.

“We’re entirely in the crawling stages right now,” said Commissioner Glenn Jones. “Then we’ll walk.”

Jones added that a shelter’s location has to be chosen carefully.

“Nobody wants a building put in their back door,” said Jones. “You have to be very selective when you start this process.”

While officials are hoping to move forward as quickly as possible, an animal control officer will probably not be in place by the beginning of the fiscal year.

“It’s not going to happen July 1,” said Cochran.

Bryson City Town Manager Larry Callicut said the county is hoping to have an animal control officer in place by Jan. 1, 2011.

Thousands of animals end up in the shelters of Western North Carolina each year, and a small group of volunteers, mostly retired, tries to save them.

The absence of strict enforcement of spay/neuter laws is the root of the problem. In a poor economy, cats and dogs are producing unwanted litters that their owners can’t afford to keep. Penny Wallace, board chair for Haywood Animal Welfare Association, has seen an existing problem worsen.

“What we’ve experienced is that the economy is putting a tough burden on people,” Wallace said. “They’ve got their pets, and then they lose their job, and they don’t have the money for pet food or medical bills.”

In Haywood County in 2009, the animal shelter took in just under 4,000 animals, and 64 percent of them were euthanized.

Wallace’s organization, HAWA, works hand in hand with Sarge’s Animal Rescue Foundation, to confront the problem. HAWA provides low-cost spay/neuter services and low cost pet food and supplies, so people can afford to keep their pets and the homeless population doesn’t spiral out of control.

In 2009, HAWA processed 1,921 low-cost spay/neuters, over 35 percent of them free. These days they’re doling out 1,600 pounds of free food per week.

Sarge’s confronts the problem from the other side, acting as a full-service foster and adoption network that matches people with pets that need a home. Sarge’s mission is to try to keep up with the rate of animals ending up at the shelter, and last year they helped 900 dogs and cats make it into adopted homes or no-kill animal shelters.

“What we’re doing is triage,” said Sarge’s board president, Steve Hewitt. “We’re worrying about the animals that are already on the earth.”

A regional dilemma

Similar animal rescue efforts are underway in Jackson and Swain counties, but the resources are even tighter for the organizations confronting the problem. The Jackson County Human Society shoulders the load of providing both low-cost spay/neuter services and a foster-for-adoption model.

In Swain County, PAWS Animal Shelter has to cope with the fact that the county doesn’t have an animal control ordinance or a shelter of its own. The organization serves as a no-kill shelter in addition to trying to provide spay/neuter, adoption and transfer services.

“We are truly stressed to the max,” said Ellen Kilgannon. “We are seeing a lot more animals wandering the streets. Last week, someone found a purebred Rottweiler tied to a guardrail on U.S. 74.”

Kilgannon’s little shelter is inundated. In 2009, PAWS received more than 900 requests to take in animals, and they were only able to take 106.

“In the past two years, the numbers have steadily gone up,” Kilgannon said. “We don’t discriminate between animals. It’s really just how much room we have.”

At any given time, the PAWS shelter can hold about 15 dogs and 15 cats.

“It’s gotten to the point where we’re pulling out hair out with what to do with these animals,” Kilgannon said. “Between the three organizations (in three counties), there’s thousands of animals that need homes.”

Meanwhile, getting money for programs has also gotten more difficult.

“With the economy the way it is, it’s hard to find grants for animal-focused programs because it’s going to people or disasters,” Kilgannon said.

Mary Adams has worked with ARF in Jackson County for 13 years. In spite of ARF’s efforts to spay/neuter over 500 animals per year for the past two years and transport another 200 to no-kill shelters, the number of animals coming into the Jackson County Animal Shelter is still high.

“The numbers haven’t gone down fast enough, but adoptions have gone down, and that’s something that goes back to the economy,” Adams said.

In 2009, the Jackson County Animal Shelter euthanized just over 600 pets, about half the number of animals they received. The county saw an increase of nearly 50 percent over the previous year.

Melissa Hawkins, who processes the intakes at the Jackson County Animal Shelter, has been amazed at the volume.

“Last year, we saw more animals than I’ve ever seen before,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins said a collateral effect of the economy has been that people are moving in search of work, and they can’t take their pets with them.

Hawkins sees the full brunt of the rescue crisis. Stray dogs and cats get three days in the shelter before they are euthanized to make room for more animals. Animals turned in by owners can be killed the next business day.

According to Hawkins, hounds, pit bulls, and black dogs are least likely to make it out of the shelter.

“We see a lot of hunting dogs and unfortunately most of them get put to sleep, because people don’t see them as pets,” Hawkins said. “I’m sort of biased to hounds. I’ll get one myself once our herd thins out, but I’ve got five right now.”

Small dogs do well, particularly through online pet search Web sites like Petfinder.com.

For Adams and the volunteers at ARF, the trends are upsetting.

“A lot of the progress we’ve seen has been offset by people’s misfortune and that’s forcing them to give up their pets,” Adams said.

ARF has changed its emphasis in order to save its volunteer network from total burnout.

“More and more our efforts have been going towards spay/neuter, because adoption numbers are down and volunteers get burnt out,” Adams said.

ARF relies on a core group of five foster volunteers and another six who work on the spay/neuter program. Fosters are notoriously hard to keep, because the volunteers get attached to their animals, decide to keep them, and drop out of the rotation.

“I would say most of the fosters we attract do the same thing,” Adams said. “They’re afraid to come back because they don’t want to get too attached.”

A system that works

In Haywood County the partnership between the Haywood County Animal Shelter, HAWA and Sarge’s has made significant progress in reducing the number of animals killed each year.

Sarge’s grew out of HAWA’s small adoption program when Rosa Allomong saw the need to expand the work of saving animals from the shelter. Allomong and a core group of 15 volunteers started Sarge’s as a way to foster animals and to promote their adoption.

“When I got here and saw the predicament the animals were in, I just jumped in,” Allomong said. “Some people aren’t even aware that there are animals being euthanized in this county.”

Today Sarge’s draws on a pool of nearly 50 volunteers who represent the equivalent of 15 full-time employees. Many, like Allomong and Hewitt, are retirees from other parts of the country. Sandy and John Delappa, two of the organization’s newest members, learned about Sarge’s through its annual dog walk event. Having spent the last few years splitting time between Western North Carolina and a sailboat in the Caribbean, the Delappas recently became year-round residents. They’ve thrown themselves into the Sarge’s family.

“One of the things I really love about the organization is the people,” sand Sandy. “It’s such a great group of volunteers.”

When a person comes to the Haywood County Animal Shelter, they are likely to be greeted by a Sarge’s volunteer who has spent time with the animal and knows what it’s like.

Every day the volunteers make crucial decisions to pull adoptable dogs from the shelter and foster them with a volunteer until they can be placed or transported.

Fostering is volunteer-intensive, but it makes a huge difference for successfully placing animals.

“In the foster care the animals are socialized, potty-trained, and taught directions,” Allomong said. “We know they’re healthy. You feel 95 percent sure it will be a good fit when they leave, and if it isn’t, they can come back.”

In addition to fostering, Sarge’s volunteers photograph every animal at the shelter and post them to the Web where online pet locator sites can market them to a larger audience. According to Hewitt, two-thirds of Sarge’s contacts for dogs come via the Internet.

When an animal is fingered for adoption at the shelter, HAWA gets them spay/neutered. Then, Sarge’s takes them and gets them ready to be a pet again.

“We’re life, full-service adoption counselors,” Allomong said.

HAWA has kept pace with the increased demand for its services by stepping up its fundraising efforts. With grant money drying up around the country, a full-time three-person volunteer staff has managed to keep enough coming in for HAWA to double its allocation of free pet food from 2008 and increase its low-cost spay/neuters by 50 percent.

An average spay/neuter costs about $135 on the open market. HAWA pays $53 at the Humane Alliance of Asheville and charges its customers $30 or gives them away free.

The organization also won a grant to fund a program to trap feral cats, perform a spay/neuter, and then release the animals back to their colonies.

“We have really re-doubled our efforts,” Wallace said. “I don’t really know how people have been able to support us, but for animal lovers, it’s just really important.”

HAWA and Sarge’s are working together towards a five-year goal of dropping the county’s euthanasia rate to 10 percent.

Jean Hazzard, Haywood County’s director of animal control, has thrown her doors open to the two partner organizations in the hopes of having fewer tough calls to make in the future.

“Jean has to make a decision often whether to euthanize pets after the requisite number of days that are perfectly adoptable,” Wallace said.

As Sarge’s desperately tries to increase its foster network to help save animals, HAWA continues to spay and neuter them, so unwanted animals aren’t being born. Together they’ve reduced the euthanasia rate by 25 percent, but there is still work to be done. The Haywood County shelter is still receiving close to 4,000 animals per year. For Allomong, the way past the problem is to change the culture of pet-owning into one in which animals are spayed and neutered.

“We’re trying to get the intake down,” Allomong said. “And that means spaying and neutering animals.”

With the euthanasia rate at area shelters fluctuating between 50 and 70 percent, animal rescue advocates are literally going the extra mile to save pets that haven’t been adopted.

Each month, local volunteers load crates of cats and dogs into a white van and drive through the night to deliver the animals to freedom in New Jersey, where no-kill shelters are starved for adoptable companion pets.

Last week, Ellen Kilgannon of PAWS Animal Shelter in Swain County and Annie Harlowe of the Jackson County Humane Society took their turn at the wheel. Together they drove 30 animals 700 miles from Sarge’s in Waynesville to Common Sense for Animals, an animal shelter and nonprofit adoption service in Stewartsville, N.J.

Kilgannon helped develop the Dixie Dog Transport program through a relationship she had with the Connecticut Humane Society in 2005.

“In the Northeast, it’s a cultural thing where spay/neuter is the norm. People just do it, and because it’s such a high population area, there’s actually a deficit of companion pets up there,” Kilgannon said. “With the opposite situation here in the South, we’re able to create a win-win situation. It’s been a saving grace for us.”

Once in New Jersey, dogs like Dakota, a tiny pit bull mix found in the snow in Haywood County, and Lily, a one-eyed hound that had spent the last two months in foster care, are shoe-ins for adoption.

Common Sense for Animals holds adoption open houses each Saturday, and the pets don’t hang around for long.

“When we do the transports, all of the dogs –– including the hounds –– are being adopted within a week,” Kilgannon said.

So far this year, Sarge’s has transported 123 animals to Common Sense, and ARF has sent 109.

Last year Sarge’s transported more than 500 animals north. The transport program has made a huge impact on the euthanasia rate in Haywood, Jackson, and Swain counties. In 2004, less than one-third of the animals that came to the Haywood County Animal Shelter made it out alive. Now, almost half survive.

Driving the animals north saves them from languishing in foster care or being euthanized. But the arrangement is also a reminder that the culture of pet-owning in Western North Carolina needs to change to include the spaying and neutering of family pets and hunting dogs.

Steve Hewitt, president of Sarge’s Animal Rescue in Waynesville, stressed that the number of unwanted animals in local shelters is the result of a complex of issues.

“It’s not a North/South thing,” Hewitt said. “It’s easy to point the finger, but it’s not a simple issue.”

In the meantime though, more than 500 hundred dogs and cats will get a new lease on life thanks to a hardened set of volunteers determined to deliver them to freedom.

“It’s well worth the sleep deprivation, and we’ll keep doing it for the animals as long as there is a place to take them to,” Kilgannon said.

Move over rabbits, it’s cats that multiply like crazy in Haywood County. According to the Haywood Animal Welfare Association, there are about 12,000 lost or stray cats in the county, nearly a fifth of the Haywood’s total human population.

To help curb growth of the “community cat” population, HAWA recently received a $10,000 grant from PetSmart Charities. The grant will fund spay/neuter surgery for about 200 stray cats.

Penny Wallace, HAWA president, said sterilizing the cats will make a “significant dent” in their numbers by the end of 2010.

In addition to sterilization, the cats will be vaccinated against rabies, treated for parasites, and have their left ear “tipped,” or squared off to show they’ve already gone through the trap, neuter and return process.

Since launching the pilot program, HAWA has been learning about the explosion of “cat colonies” across the county.

“Daily we’re learning about colonies of 20 or more cats,” said Wallace. “There are huge numbers of people in our county feeding the cats who won’t turn them over to the shelter because of euthanasia. Many of these people have been spaying and neutering the colony cats on their own dime for years.”

Susan Kumpf, a field coordinator and volunteer for HAWA, is currently working with “cat colony caregivers” to humanely trap the cats before transporting them to Humane Alliance for the spay or neuter surgery.

Kumpf said it’s vital to establish a relationship with the cat caregivers since they can aid greatly in trapping the cats that trust them most.

“Sometimes we set them up with traps, stand back and let them do the whole thing,” said Kumpf.

The caregivers, who are usually retired people, those with fixed incomes, and cat lovers in general, have been very cooperative with the program so far — only after they are reassured that the cats will be returned.

“You have to really exude trust and shared care about the animals,” Kumpf said.

Two such caregivers, Ruth and Bill Green of Waynesville, started off feeding a couple of cats that seemed to be starving to death. Now, they take care of approximately 30 cats in their colony.

“We got more than we can handle,” said Bill. “I couldn’t name them all to save my life.”

Bill and Ruth have named a few of their favorites, however. Both say they have never gotten sick from handling the cats.

Though cat lovers obviously have the interest of community cats at heart, they do face some stiff opposition from those who prefer birds.

The American Bird Conservancy states that free-roaming cats kills hundreds of millions of birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians each year. They are exposed to injury, disease and parasites and are capable of transmitting diseases and parasites like rabies.

The ABC launched the “Cats Indoors!” Campaign for Safer Birds and Cats in 1997 to advocate keeping cats indoors, in an outdoor enclosure, or trained to go outside on a harness and leash.

According to the ABC, managed cat colonies don’t always decrease in size because cats that have been spayed or neutered, vaccinated and regularly fed will also live longer. Cat colonies also attract more cats, whether it’s because of the food provided daily or because the colonies serve as a “dumping grounds” for unwanted cats.

While Wallace admits that the community cats do kill birds, she pointed out that they also handle the vermin population very well.

“The real danger is when they’re not spayed or neutered,” said Wallace. “They expand exponentially.”

Swain County Manager Kevin King has an ambitious idea for finally addressing the years-old issue of animal control, or lack thereof, in the county.

King would like to set aside some money to hire an animal control officer to handle the most serious calls and to possibly share a new facility for animal control with PAWS, a nonprofit that runs a no-kill shelter in Bryson City.

“We get a call at least three or four times a week concerning animal issues,” said King at Monday’s Swain County Commissioners meeting.

The county currently has no animal shelter other than the nonprofit PAWS, which is perpetually full. It also has no animal control officer to collect strays. The county had contracted with a private agency to make weekly rounds through the county to pick up strays, but the $20,000 arrangement was terminated.

Although the county is cash-strapped, King said the county could spare $10,000 for a 10-hour a week in-house position.

For now the lack of any attempt by the county to provide animal control has left PAWS to shoulder the entire burden of stray animals, overwhelming the small nonprofit shelter that relies solely on donations.

King said he has explored a diverse slew of options and is recommending a joint venture with PAWS to run an animal shelter. PAWS could house an adoption center on one side with county animal control on the other. King estimates that it would take at least $100,000 to get everything off the ground on the new facility. Although King has searched high and low for two years to find grants to fund the project, he said they simply are not out there.

King emphasized that the county should get moving on the animal control issue since the matter has been left in its hands indefinitely.

County Commissioner Phil Carson agreed with King.

“We have to start somewhere,” Carson said.

While the county has no leash law, people who meet up with a vicious dog outside the owner’s property can address a letter to Linda White, health director for Swain County. If White deems the animal potentially dangerous, it must be confined or kept on a leash and muzzled when taken outside. White said she makes routine visits to these dog owners’ households just to make sure that the guidelines are being followed. She also administers rabies vaccinations every time there’s a bite or a complaint.

“There’s a lot of dangerous dogs in Swain County,” White said. “It’s a very time-consuming effort.”

King suggested the new animal control officer could report to a seven-member board that would include the sheriff, the health director, a veterinarian, and others. The commissioners have asked King to keep refining the plan and report back to them at the next meeting.

Swain County’s complete lack of services to handle the growing stray animal population is putting a heavy burden on a nonprofit shelter and forcing county commissioners to weigh their options.

“We have absolutely nothing right now, and we are trying to develop a plan,” said County Manager Kevin King.

It’s been months since the county canceled its contract with Valley River Animal Control, an Andrews agency that made weekly rounds to pick up strays. Granted, people plagued by stray dogs or cats lurking about their yard had to corral them until the animal catcher came through. But it was better than nothing — which is what residents have now.

The contract with Valley River was the county’s sole strategy for handling strays. It doesn’t run an animal shelter or have animal control officers of its own.

A local shelter run by the non-profit, no-kill organization P.A.W.S. (Placing Animals Within Society) has long acted as a de facto county shelter. That role was tough but manageable.

But without Valley River, PAWS has been left to shoulder the entire burden of stray animals. The small shelter is overwhelmed by those trying to dump off strays or unable to care for their own pets.

“Once the contract was ended, I think our requests on a monthly basis have doubled,” said Ellen Kilgannon, PAWS’ executive director.

In all of 2008, PAWS fielded 633 requests to take in stray animals. In December alone, the organization took 85 calls. The economic downturn isn’t helping — Kilgannon said lately, PAWS has seen a spike in “people that can’t afford to keep their animals anymore.”

If the trend continues, PAWS could field more than 1,000 requests in the next year.

PAWS is already stretched to capacity, said Kilgannon. It only has slots for 16 cats and 15 dogs at one time. She wishes the county would build a shelter that could accommodate more.

“We would very much to like to see the county have an open admission shelter, that being, you could take an animal to the shelter and then they would accept it and there would be no limits on the numbers they could accept,” Kilgannon said.

Any takers?

Building a shelter is one option on the table, King said. But the county isn’t eager to bring animal control services in-house. Swain would rather contract with an outside agency to handle strays — whether it’s to haul them off or house them in a shelter somewhere else.

The county has been in negotiations with several agencies since August, but without much success.

“Up until this time, we still don’t have a contract with anybody,” said King.

One problem the county is running in to — other counties are already struggling to handle their own stray populations, and are hesitant to take on that of another county.

“The majority of people we’ve talked to have said if they had the space, they would be talking to us more seriously,” King said.

It’s a problem that PAWS is already familiar with. If their shelter is full, it’s often forced to tell disbelieving callers that their only option is to hang on to the stray until space opens up.

“We apologize and say we can put an ad in the newspaper to try and find the animal a home, but that’s about all we can offer them,” Kilgannon said.

First things first

Building a shelter is not the county’s top priority. First, the county is attempting to put an animal control ordinance in place. The ordinance has already been drafted and is currently being reviewed by the county’s attorney. Then, the county would like to hire an animal control officer. After those things are in place, the county may consider building a holding facility or even a larger shelter facility.

It’s all a learning process for the county, which has always contracted out for services to control the stray population.

“This is the first time we’ve had to do it ourselves,” said King. “This is starting from ground zero. We’re trying to get educated on the pitfalls of the process, crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s.”

Part of the process is figuring out how to fund in-house animal control services. The county’s former contract with Valley River was a bargain at only $21,000 per year. King estimates it will be at least triple that to hire an animal control officer and give them the equipment to operate. That amount wouldn’t include an animal shelter building, which could cost roughly $150,000 for a bare bones facility, King said. Macon County recently spent $500,000 to open up its shelter facility.

PAWS: We need help now

While the county looks for a solution, commissioners seem unwilling to help PAWS deal with the flood of animals in the meantime.

Commissioners recently ignored a request from PAWS board chair Julie Thorner for $10,000 that would supplement the organization’s low-cost spay and neuter program. For the past year, PAWS has been operating with a grant that allowed individuals receiving Medicare, Medicaid or food stamps to get their animals fixed for a mere $8. That grant expired in January. Without it, PAWS will have to return to charging between $40 and $50 for spay and neuter surgeries.

The $8 bargain was effective in getting people to fix their animals. In 2008, the number of people spaying and neutering their animals through the program increased 25 percent over the previous year, said Kilgannon.

Though the county couldn’t give PAWS the money, King said commissioners still appreciate the work the organization does on behalf of strays.

“I really commend PAWS for all that they’ve done for the county, because they have a tremendous spay and neuter program which eliminates the need for euthanizations,” said King. “They’ve done a fabulous job.”

But kind words alone don’t provide the financial support that PAWS desperately needs.

The situation in Swain has become so dire that PAWS is taking a serious look at whether it can continue to operate.

“The economic downturn and lack of animal control have really caused us to consider, ‘Do we stay open?’ and ‘Can we continue and afford to keep our doors open?’” said Kilgannon. “Any support that we would see from the county government and the community at this point in time would be a huge morale boost and give us hope.”

By Jennifer Garlesky • Staff Writer

Dealing with stray dogs and cats has been a problem for Macon County officials for some time now, Sheriff Robbie Holland said.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

Sarge’s Animal Rescue has scrapped its plans to build a no-kill animal shelter in a location that was fiercely opposed by nearby residents.

The Haywood County non-profit originally won approval to build the shelter on Oct. 9 by asking the board of aldermen for a text amendment that would allow for animal shelters to be a permitted use in the Hall Top Road Rural District, a residential area located off Russ Avenue near K-Mart in Waynesville.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

It’s a typical neighborhood with houses, trees, bikes in the yard, a basketball goal and — an animal shelter?

Jackson County accidentally gave away the county’s animal shelter to the Jackson County Airport Authority 10 years ago, and now it wants it back.

The blunder was only recently discovered. The error dates back to 1998 when the county transferred both the management of the facility and the airport itself to the Jackson County Airport Authority, a separate entity from the county. The animal shelter is adjacent to the airport and was part of the same tract.