Published: August 26, 2006 01:07 am      

Clarke County paying the cost of having no animal shelter

No one knows for sure how many stray dogs and cats populate Clarke County. To hear locals tell it, the number is way out of control in this rural county of 18,000 humans. And while no plans are currently on the drawing board for a county animal shelter, residents are grappling with the cost of not having one.

Just ask Dr. Ashley Miller and the staff of the Milam Animal Clinic — Clarke County’s lone veterinary practice. With no shelter available, Milam has unwittingly become a home of last resort for countless abandoned animals brought by clients, or simply dumped without permission on the clinic’s doorstep.

A litter of kittens greeted Miller’s staff when they showed up for work a week ago.

“We have people who throw animals out here twice a week. They leave them by the front door, or throw them over our fences,” Miller said.

She points to a feisty-looking beagle-terrier mix, happily rolling around in an outside pen.

“We caught him at a gravel pit. He had mange, and was eating food out of a take-out dish.”

The private clinic receives no subsidy from the county for housing as many as 30 strays at a time, and estimates it spends at least $150 per month to feed them.

“I have a hard time putting them to sleep,” Miller said.

Many of the strays are so infected with fleas, ticks, mange, or other maladies by the time they show up, that the clinic has no choice other than to euthanize them.

Without a shelter at their disposal, many Clarke County residents have resorted to the inhumane practice of dumping unwanted animals at random on the side of roadways.

Emotional topic



April Lightsey, of Quitman, says it breaks her heart to encounter the strays during her morning runs.

“Normally, they’re not in good shape. I’ve seen them starving, infested with ticks, with part of an ear gone,” she said.

Lightsey is somewhat emotional when she tells the story of her recent encounter with an abandoned litter of five puppies who immediately adopted her.

“I was gonna go back and get the truck to save them. But they actually tried to run with me for a half a mile. So I picked them all up,” she said.

That story had a happy ending, as the puppies were eventually given away in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Lightsey’s fiancé, Dr. Blake Thomas, who operates a dental practice in Quitman, recently brought two shepherd mixes with mange to the Milam clinic to be saved.

“People just come down our country road and drop dogs off,” Thomas said. “They can smell food from a mile away and they happen upon us.”

Thomas and Lightsey agreed that Clarke County would benefit from a county-supported animal shelter.

The nearest official animal shelter is Lauderdale County’s Animal Control facility, but Clarke County strays are not welcome there.

“We have people who try to bring animals from Clarke County, Kemper County, even Alabama,” said director Dewayne Sosebee. “But we have to turn them down. We’re not obligated to take animals from outside of Lauderdale County.”

One Clarke County resident admitted to using a friend’s driver’s license to fudge a Lauderdale County address, so that she could deposit a stray at the Meridian shelter.



Sad image



No one in Clarke County is immune from having stray animals show up at their front door. Not even Arthur Nelson, president of the county’s board of supervisors.

“People drop them off at will at intersections, on the road, or near people’s homes,” Nelson said. “I’m the first house north of the city limits (of Quitman) at the intersection of Mississippi 513 and County Road 151, so the animals show up.”

Nelson said he’s had to relocate at least four stray dogs this year — first trying to find homes for them, or, as a last resort, “putting them on my truck and taking them to another area of the county.”

While Nelson agrees the county could use an animal shelter, he challenges the economic feasibility.

“It would be another burden on the taxpayer,” he said.

But others believe the county — and individual residents — are already paying the cost of not having a shelter.

“It’s a real problem in Clarke County,” said Sheriff Todd Kemp. “People dump dogs and cats on the side of the road, and the animals have to fend for themselves.”

Animal dumping occurs throughout the county, Kemp says, although rural stretches of road are the most commonplace.

“The dog or cat then has to travel several miles to get something to eat,” Kemp said, which usually results in the animal rummaging through the property of the nearest home it can find.

Homeowners then contact the sheriff’s department to complain about the presence of unwanted strays — pressing law enforcement into animal control duty.

“It gets burdensome. We’ve got law enforcement duties to tend to,” the Sheriff said.

It’s not that the sheriff’s department doesn’t have a soft spot for helping the animals.

Kemp said he and his staff routinely attempt to locate an animal’s owner, if known, and often find themselves bringing animals to the Milam clinic if there’s room to store them in the outside pen.

But Kemp’s hands are routinely tied. If the animal is not deemed dangerous, it’s generally a matter the property or business owner must deal with themselves.

Clarke County resident Donna Thomas said she and a partner took it upon themselves last year to set up an animal shelter as a non-profit corporation.

Named “Raven’s Hope,” the facility took in and found homes for between 75 and 100 animals, Thomas said. But the shelter folded, partly due to damage to the uninsured kennel area caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Thomas remains adamant that her dream of a shelter for stray animals in Clarke County should be resurrected.

“We need one down here. We need one really bad,” she said.

For the time being, though, Thomas bemoans the fact that stray animals have become synonymous with the county’s image.

“They talk about getting business in Clarke County. But you drive either way on 45 and what’s the first thing you see? It’s a starving dog walking down the road.”