SANGER - City leaders heard an informal report Monday from Noah's Ark in Gainesville, the nonprofit animal shelter that has provided the city animal adoption services for more than a year.
Shelter manager Jennifer Keahey did not submit any written materials, but gave a general overview of services and answered questions from the council for about 30 minutes during a workshop before the council's regular session Monday night.
Council members peppered Keahey with questions about how the shelter deems an animal adoptable, the group's relationship with volunteers and other rescue groups, and the shelter's euthanasia practices.
Sanger signed a five-year contract with Noah's Ark in December 2010 to house its stray animals. The summer before, the city had come under fire when residents learned the city had no animal welfare board, as required by law, and that hundreds of adoptable animals were being euthanized each year.
The city pays Noah's Ark $2,400 per month for up to 15 animals per month. The money funds the veterinary services needed to make animals adoptable, shelter officials have said.
The city also funded $40,000 in construction costs to double the shelter's capacity for housing dogs.
Noah's Ark also serves as the shelter for the city of Gainesville and Cooke County. The shelter has the capacity for about 125 animals, and has had to euthanize only two dogs from Sanger for lack of space in the past year, Keahey said.
Keahey did not provide specific numbers on how many animals were euthanized in 2011, but said that 40 percent to 50 percent of the animals that came into the shelter were euthanized. Most of those, she said, were too sick, too old or too aggressive to be adopted.
Sanger keeps animals for five days in its small shelter to give residents a chance to retrieve their pets before taking the animals to Gainesville. The euthanasia numbers for Sanger's animals were slightly higher than the numbers given in Keahey's oral report, according to documents obtained by the Denton Record-Chronicle, some through an open records request of Noah's Ark.
Generally, nonprofit groups can be subject to the same open-records laws as governmental entities when their activities are funded by taxpayer money. Noah's Ark's attorney, Thomas Claxton, has argued that the shelter's records are not subject to the law. But in reference to requests from the Record-Chronicle and others, the Texas attorney general's office has ordered the group to release its Sanger numbers.
Of the 97 dogs Sanger took to the shelter in 2011, about 59 percent were euthanized, most for medical or temperament problems. Seven were listed as euthanized for "breed," a controversial practice of euthanizing pit bulls for liability reasons.
Keahey said that when she calls pit bull rescue groups, she often is told not to call back because they are full. She told the council that Cooke County has a problem with illegal dog fighting.
"I didn't think it could be so bad until I moved there," Keahey said, adding that Gainesville also has a problem with dogs being stolen from people's yards, ostensibly to be used as bait dogs in fights.
Of the 45 cats Sanger took to the shelter in 2011, about 73 percent were euthanized because they had medical or temperament problems, or were feral.
In all, Noah's Ark adopted out all but two of Sanger's adoptable cats in 2011, and those two were still in the shelter at the end of the year. The shelter also adopted out or transferred to rescue groups all of the adoptable dogs, except the two that were euthanized when the shelter ran out of space, records showed.
Council member Marjory Johnson asked for details about four kittens that were euthanized after the city brought them to the shelter. The kittens were only two or three weeks old and were being bottle fed, Keahey said. But after a few days, their health began to deteriorate.
"They lost the nursing reflex, and then they are just crying all the time," Keahey said. "It's called 'failure to thrive.'"
Keahey has two volunteers who foster animals for the shelter, one for kittens and one for puppies. The person who fosters puppies often places the animals herself, Keahey said, but those that come back to the shelter for adoption have been crate-trained and can obey simple commands.
Keahey told the council that she could always use more fosters and volunteers.
During the citizens' input segment of the meeting after Keahey's report, Sam and Kelli Alexander spoke to the council about animal control, as they have done for 18 months.
Kelli Alexander told the council that volunteers don't want to put their time into a shelter where there's no hope for the animals. She challenged the shelter's temperament test and she challenged the council to consider a "no-kill" policy, meaning that 90 percent or more of adoptable animals are placed.
"There are others who have programs for the hard-luck cases," Alexander said.
Also during the citizen's input segment, kindergartners from Chisholm Trail Elementary School brought in more than 200 items for the shelter, surpassing their goal to collect enough cleaning supplies and animal toys to mark their first 100 days of school.
"I gave them a list of choices of what they could do for their 100 days," said their teacher, Crystal Trejo. "This was at their direction."
PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com .
