They're not asking for a lot, just a little bit of time, and you don't even have to leave the warmth of your computer chair to give it.
The local shelter is in the middle of a nationwide contest to win a $1 million makeover from Zootoo.com and the only way it can boost its chances of winning is for people to log onto the Web site, www.zootoo.com, and register their pets. As part of the registration, people have to put in their ZIP code and select a local shelter they want to support.
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People earn "points" for the humane society just by registering, but they can earn even more if they do things like upload photos of their pets, create a pet profile, play games like pet wars and connect with fellow animal lovers by building a "friends" network.
Earlier this week, the humane society was ranked No. 37, which sounds incredible for a nationwide contest, but it's not good enough. Only those in the top 20 by March 13 will get to move on to the next phase of the contest. Every shelter that makes it the top 20 automatically wins $5,000, said Mary Lenau, pet adoption specialist at the Franklin County Humane Society.
That money would come in handy for making much-needed repairs at the shelter, said Lenau, but she's still dreaming about winning the $1 million makeover.
To pick a grand prize winner, Zootoo officials will visit all of the shelters that make it into the top 20, said Lenau, and they will narrow the list to the top 10. From there, America will vote on which shelter is the most deserving to win.
Lenau has faith that the Franklin County Humane Society can win the makeover if it gets enough points to make it into the top 20.
"This contest is for real," she said, noting people may remember last year's winner, Stray Rescue in St. Louis. "We can win. We just need to get our points up and stay in the top 20 until March 13."
Lenau has been handing out fliers about the contest and how people can log on to boost the shelter's ranking.
"This is a legitimate contest, and you won't get put on a bunch of e-mail lists when you register," she stressed. "Zootoo's ultimate goal is to be another pet adoption avenue, like Petfinder."
According to the Zootoo site, the purpose of the makeover contest is to "connect communities with their shelters to raise awareness for needy animals and increase adoptions."
Shelter in Need
The staff and volunteers at the Franklin County Humane Society are eager to win the makeover contest because conditions at the current facility are fast deteriorating and without the makeover, the time will come in the next 10 years that it will have to hold a capital campaign to build a new facility, said Karen Tudor, executive director.
"This shelter has a limited lifetime," she remarked. "And it takes a beating every day."
The humane society has made improvements to the shelter as recently as last year, and earlier this year a local window company donated new windows to create "cat condos." But the demands continue to snowball.
Right now the main problems at the shelter are a lack of space and worn out or crumbling structures.
"This building was not designed to be a shelter," Tudor noted. "It was built as a boarding facility for Pet Station, and it was used as that for years."
The history of the Franklin County Humane Society goes back nearly 25 years, but for the first 10 years it operated without a shelter, rescuing animals and housing them with various volunteers until they could be adopted. In 1993, Pet Station's boarding facility became available to purchase and by early '94 the humane society was able to raise enough money to get a loan to buy it, said Tudor.
"We brought it as far forward as possible to be a real shelter, but there were limitations," she said, mentioned as one example, the fact that there are no drains in the floors, which would make cleaning easier.
"We could use better conditions for the animals," she added, highlighting, again as just one example, the fact that the hot water heating system that warms the concrete in the dogs pens on cold days is not only broken, but not even repairable.
"This shelter has served its purpose for us all of these years, but now its sliding down the hill," Tudor remarked.
She means that literally. The facility was built on a slab and the back of it is now sliding down the hill. In the indoor/outdoor dog pens, there are cracks so large in the cinder block walls that the sun shines through, and outside, there are 1-inch or more gaps between the concrete pad and some of the walls separating the pens.
Other conditions at the shelter also are less than ideal, said Tudor. For one, the lobby serves as both an intake and adoption area, which causes a lot of stress for the animals and people involved, but also can pose health concerns for the animals.
"We don't know if these animals when they first come in are carrying something, if they're infected with something or not," said Tudor. "And we don't have the room to be able to graduate them - they all go straight into the dog or puppy 'iso' (isolation) room."
Ideally the shelter should have four "iso" rooms. Right now, they only have two - one for dogs/puppies and one for cats/kittens. And these are the same rooms where nursing moms are kept with their babies.
"They need to be in a place where they feel completely unthreatened and there is true peace and quiet," said Jackie Foster, shelter manager. "The mom trains the babies and if the mom feels stressed or scared, she will pass that on to her babies."
The shelter staff dreams of one day having space enough that the moms and babies could have their own room or private area.
The shelter has only one pen near the lobby area to hold a dog while it's being registered, which during peak periods often isn't enough. There have been occasions where a dog was held in the shelter's only bathroom because the pen was already being used.
What's worse, the pen has to be cleaned and sterilized in between each dog. Right now space is so tight in the shelter that in the medical room, the exam table doubles as a desk for the medical manager.
And the only outlet where someone can plug in a hair dryer to dry a pet after grooming is in a narrow, busy hallway where staff pass through to clock in and out, check their schedule or go back and forth to the area Tudor refers to as "grand central station" at the shelter.
"This is where we do grooming; where we wash, sanitize and store the food dishes; where we do the laundry; and we also use it for storage," said Tudor. "It's too small of a space for all of this activity."
In the manager's office, Foster noted that ideally when she's working at her desk, she should have a pet or two at her feet because it can help so much with socialization and reduce stress. But that's not possible at the current shelter because the manager's office is too small and she's in and out of the room so much that it would be too complicated to make sure the pets didn't get out.
Wish List for New Shelter
The space issue isn't one that can really be adequately solved at the current facility, said Foster. The property is landlocked.
If the Union shelter were to win the $1 million makeover, it would likely use the money to relocate elsewhere, she said. "But $1 million can go fast when you're talking about buying property," she noted.
It would be wonderful if the shelter was able to build an entirely new, thoroughly modern facility, because, among other things, it would enable the staff to create a better floor plan.
Right now, for example, someone who comes in wanting to adopt a dog has to pass through the puppy room to get to the dog kennels, but because puppies are so adorable, many people stop right there, said Tudor.
And the dog kennel area is so loud, in part, because of the layout of the space, she said - males on one side, females on the other, and nothing in between preventing the dogs from seeing each other and getting each other wound up.
"There are other shelters that have a big planter down the middle of the aisle, which serves as a visual barrier for the dogs and also helps absorb some of the noise," said Tudor.
The hope for a bigger facility isn't intended to be able to take in more animals, said Tudor. When the shelter first opened in '94, it filled up right away and has stayed that way every since. Providing more room to take in more pets only means more will come, said Tudor.
"The reason we want more space is to be able to provide better conditions for the animals while they're here to be able to offer a more enriching environment for them," she said.
"Modern shelters reduce the stress in their animals, which helps them stay healthier, increases the efficiency of the staff and reduces the cost of running the facility."
Their wish list for a new shelter includes things like:
*ÊAn area for training dogs and educating new owners.
"We have a lot of animals that are brought in to us because of behavior problems that a lot of times could be easily remedied if we had an area to train them or educate the owners about how to stop the behavior," said Foster.
*ÊAn area to hold dog socialization classes.
*ÊA soundproof area to conduct behavior analysis, because a noisy environment doesn't provide a fair assessment.
*ÊLarger kennels for the dogs.
"If we had larger kennels, it could stop some of the dogs from temporarily developing some of these bad behaviors that develop out of anxiety," Foster noted.
Plus, co-kenneling is desirable because it helps with socialization and gives the dogs entertainment.
*ÊMore room to house the cats; Currently there are cat cages in the lobby and in hallways.
*ÊA private area to interview potential adopters.
"Sometimes we have to ask hard questions of people to make sure these animals are going to good homes, and that needs to be done in private, but right now, we don't really have a good place to do that," said Foster.
*ÊA lobby area large enough to sell pet products, which would provide another source of revenue for the shelter at the same time it would offer things new pet owners need right at their fingertips.
*ÊMore storage to hold the many donations that local groups provide.
*ÊAn area where volunteers can meet.
*ÊBetter meeting area for staff. Their current area serves as a break room, lunch room, office, storage and catch-all room.
The wish list could go on and on, and the humane society staff is dreaming of all that is within their reach.
Shelter Serves 14 Counties
Last year the Franklin County Humane Society took in 3,200 animals - the lowest number it has had in years. This year it expects intake to jump to about 4,500 because St. Clair recently closed its shelter. Now all of the stray, lost or abandoned animals that might have gone there will likely end up at the humane society, said Tudor.
"We serve 14 counties," she noted. "And there have been times that we even took in animals from out of state.
"We are an open admissions shelter, which means we don't discriminate. We don't turn people away, because we know in the end it will only hurt the animal, and it's not fair to play politics like that."
People bring their animals to the Franklin County Humane Society because their community doesn't have a shelter and they have no where else to go, said Tudor. Of course, Franklin County animals make up the bulk of the in-takes, she stressed.
In October this year, 67 percent of the animals taken in were strays from Franklin County. Others were animals that owners were surrendering for whatever reason. Several were clearly lost pets.
One dog brought in recently came in wearing a hunting collar, said Foster, and one of the cats came in wearing a bright yellow collar with shiny crystals and a bell.
The staff doesn't let the weary situation of many of these animals get them downhearted. They love and care for them the best they can and work hard to find each one a forever home.
"We turn lemons into lemonade," said Tudor. "We say, 'We have solutions. We can make good things happen for them.' "
For more information, people can contact the Franklin County Humane Society at 636-583-4300.
