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It’s not your average dog pound
By Stephanie Hutson, Staff Writer
Coppell Animal Services has a new director, and she is operating the shelter more like a community business than a dog pound. With new initiatives, such as staff training on customer service, and a greater presence in the community, more and more abandoned animals are finding their permanent home.
Heather Blair has been the shelter manager for more than three months, and in that time she has seen adoptions nearly double and the shelter environment evolve into an inviting place for the pets, staff and community.
“Before, the shelter was a very sterile environment, but we’ve tried to make it a warm, community place where people want to come,” Blair said. “The ultimate goal is to adopt out our pets to good homes and keep the community healthy and safe.”
“It has been great, and we’ve already had one cat found in just three weeks,” she said.
One of Blair’s main objectives is promoting community awareness, and she and her staff have taken steps to make adoptable pets visible in the community, increasing the chance of finding their forever homes.
“I’ll take them to City Hall or the police department and it’s been great,” Blair said. “Every one of the animals we’ve taken out into the community has been adopted.”
In the summer, children from the community will attend the shelter daily for a three-week educational camp to learn about caring for pets and animal safety. According to Blair, educating the community is key and it drives many of the new features she has implemented at the shelter.
There is an area in the lobby stocked with coloring books, magazines and books on dog and cat breeds for children to use when they come in. The staff also has resources to help community members pick the right kind of pet for them, whether that’s in Coppell or not.
“Even if they don’t find an animal here, they will leave with a better idea of what they want to look for,” Blair said.
The ultimate goal is to find the right owner for each adoptable pet, and Blair said she will not send an animal home with someone she does not feel is a match, even if the shelter is overcrowded.
The community isn’t the only group Blair is interested in educating. She has implemented weekly in-service training for the staff aimed at equipping them to place animals with an owner suited to meet their needs.
“Let’s try to give these dogs a permanent home, and we educate the staff so they can educate the pet consumer on how to keep the pet safe and happy,” Blair said.
One of the newest changes, animal services officers have extended their hours to patrol parks earlier in the morning and later in the evening, times when owners are more likely to be out with their pets.
“We have gotten a lot of complaints about dogs not being on leashes, and most of the time it is a matter of not knowing or realizing that there is an ordinance,” Blair said. “The first time we will give them a free leash, and after that we can issue a citation, but people have been so receptive that we have never had to do that.”
In the past, animal services did not accept donations, but since Blair’s appointment as manager, that has changed. Donations help the shelter buy towels, detergent, toys, food and other pet supplies. Many of those donations are returned directly to the community.
“We like to set our adopters up where they don’t have to go to the store for anything, whether it be food, litter and litter boxes or toys,” Blair said. “Those things are given to us as donations, and we turn around and give it all back out.”
Local businesses, such as Sherrill Veterinary Hospital and Wal-Mart in Lewisville, donate vaccination services and broken bags of food. If there is extra food in danger of going bad, Blair prefers to send it to smaller shelters in surrounding cities, many of which don’t receive any donations at all.
In addition to accepting donations, the shelter utilizes volunteers to socialize the animals. Blair relates the animals in cages to prisoners in jail. Too much time behind bars and the animals begin to loose their personality.
The shelter utilizes volunteers to take the animals outside, brush them, play and show them love and affection. The more socialized the animals become, the more likely a family will be willing to adopt them.
Unlike other cities, Coppell gives animal services the freedom to keep pets as long as they want, withholding a strict time frame to euthanize them.
“It is really generous of the city to do,” Blair said. “They don’t give us a strict time frame and allow us to use our own discretion.”
In Blair’s more than three-month tenure, adoptions have greatly increased and no pets have been euthanized. Their longest resident, a cat that stayed at the shelter more than four months, was adopted on Monday.
“We really try not to go that route [euthanization],” Blair said. “And if it is done, it is done for medical reasons and to be humane.”
Gus, currently in the care of animal services, is a small mostly hairless dog with thin patches of white fur on parts of his body. According to Blair, he is an animal many shelters would have put down, but Coppell is trying to help him recover from the neglect and abuse that caused his fur loss.
Many of the animals that come to the Coppell shelter are brought in by owners who can no longer care for them, or they are captured in the city when a resident reports a stray.
“We immediately respond when there is a call,” Blair said. “Every dog we have been called out on we have been able to catch.”
The fee to adopt a pet from Coppell Animal Services is $20, and the adopter must agree to have the animal fixed if it is not already. The available animals are posted on petfinder.com, and the list is updated every Wednesday.
“We’re really trying to get the pets out into the community and focus on being proactive,” Blair said. “Also, through staff education, we know more about the pets’ personality and we are able to tell residents confidently that ‘this is the perfect pet for you.’”
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