Why Can't We Do This Here?

Dorchester is almost a ‘no-kill' community: Unprecedented partnership for animals set to begin

CAMBRIDGE - With the opening of Snip Tuck, Inc. a low cost spay and neuter clinic focusing on the neglected animal population of the DelMarVa Peninsula, Dorchester County becomes one of the very few communities in the Unites States that can say, "we are a no-kill community."

There are now five animal welfare organizations in Dorchester County practicing the philosophy of No-Kill.

The mission to become a No-Kill Community began in 2002 at the Humane Society of Dorchester County (HSDC). At the time HSDC was the only organization within the county saving homeless animals. It fell onto HSDC to provide shelter, animal control, cruelty investigations, spay and neuter services, food assistance, education and any other services required by the Dorchester citizens regarding animal care. It was an overwhelming task.

In 2003 the county government took over the responsibility for enforcing animal control ordinances. The animals picked up by animal control were still housed at HSDC and it fell to this group to find homes for the animals. Still an overwhelming task with the intake of animals nearing 1,500 per year. The organization implemented many life saving programs; a spay neuter clinic, Trap Neuter Return (TNR) for feral cats, a no-kill cat sanctuary, PetsMart and other offsite adoption events. Many of the volunteers migrated to the program that they loved the most and focused their energies there. In 2008 it became apparent the shelter could not efficiently handle all of these programs by itself.

Many of the volunteers branched off to form new non-profit animal welfare groups and the county animal control took over the responsibility of sheltering the dogs they pick up. Each group focuses on a special need.

Snip Tuck provides low cost spay and neuter services to feral cat colony caretakers and citizens that cannot afford to have their pet sterilized at a traditional veterinary hospital.

Wags and Wishes Animal Rescue (Wags) specializes in pulling adoptable dogs from kill shelters and assisting county animal control officials in finding homes for their dogs or transporting them to no-kill rescues.

Kitty City Rescue specializes in assisting the cats of the county by sheltering, fostering and trapping feral cats for Trap Neuter Return program.

HSDC has transformed into a no-kill rescue, Baywater Animal Rescue (BAR), handling dogs and cats from Maryland and pulls from kill shelters in other states. BAR also transports animals for low cost spays and neuters for citizens within Dorchester County, provides pet behavior assistance and has a food bank for pet owners who need assistance. These programs help keep pets in their homes and out of the rescues and shelters.

County animal control enforces the county animal laws and the Maryland State animal anti-cruelty laws and picks up stray and loose dogs. They work with rescues like Wags, to adopt out the dogs and return owned dogs to their owners. Animal control also has funding for TNR and works with KCR assisting feral cat colony caretakers trap and transport cats for sterilization to local veterinarians and Snip Tuck. The county also has a dog/inmate program that helps to rehabilitate both.

In 2011, these rescues and animal control took in 820 animals, saved the lives of 600 animals through adoption, transfer to rescues or returning them home and spayed and neutered 1,277.
No animals were killed for space.

Only 35 were euthanized and these were for illness, injury or excessive aggression. The rest are still in the shelters or foster care awaiting their forever homes. All of these groups are 501(c)3 non-profits or government agencies and all take donations and have volunteer programs.

In 2011, the Dorchester County Council declared Oct. 16 Feral Cat Day giving recognition to these much maligned animals as having value and deserving of compassionate, humane treatment. Snip Tuck has received assistance from the city of Cambridge Mayor and Council in obtaining a grant from the Snyder Foundation in 2010 and provided funding for the spay neuter clinic at HSDC in 2004 and 2005.

Our veterinarians in Dorchester County are very supportive of TNR and low cost spays and neuters. They perform feral cat surgeries at their hospitals for their local towns, for animal control or have their own programs in house.

There is still much work to do to assist our community to reduce the number of un-wanted, homeless animals being produced within our borders.

"Seven dogs & cats are born every day for each person born in the U.S. Of those, only 1 in 5 puppies and kittens stay in their original home for their natural lifetime. The remaining 4 are abandoned to the streets or end up at a shelter (The Humane Society of the United States)."
"Each day 10,000 humans are born in the U.S. and each day 70,000 puppies and kittens are born. As long as these birth rates exist, there will never be enough homes for all the animals (Spay USA)."

"In a study of relinquishment of cats and dogs in 12 U.S. animal shelters, 30 percent of the surrendered dogs were purebreds. The same study indicated that 55 percent of the surrendered dogs and 47 percent of the surrendered cats were unaltered. (Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science)."

For every human being living in Dorchester (2010 census 32,618, 13.4 precent of whom are below the poverty rate) it is estimated that there are .25 feral cats. That is 8,154 feral cats in Dorchester County alone. A female cat can produce as many as five litters of kittens every year, averaging four kittens per litter. That is 20 kittens for each female cat each year. This means more than 80,000 kittens will be born this year in Dorchester County alone. We need to spay and neuter 70 percent of those cats to start the process of attrition allowing the population of feral cats to begin to decline naturally.

Many of these organizations are supported by local foundations and receive grants to do their life saving work; The Mid Shore Community Foundation, the Choptank Electric Trust, the Snyder Foundation for Animals, Petsmart Charities, the Nathan Foundation, Two Mauds Foundation, the American Legion, the Elks, the Moose and the local governments.

It has been 10 years since the idea of a No-Kill Community was introduced to Dorchester County and these groups have saved thousands of lives since then. But the work is not done and they will continue to save lives until there are no more homeless, un-wanted animals in Dorchester County. The collaboration of these five organizations and the local governments is what has resulted in the success the community is seeing to control overpopulation of animals.

You can help by supporting all of these organizations and thanking your local representatives for their caring response to the needs of the neglected animals of Dorchester. More information can be found at: www.sniptuck.org, www.wagsandwishes.org, www.baywateranimalrescue.org, Kitty City Rescue, PO Box 1259, Cambridge, MD 21613, 410-228-2880, www.facebook.com/dorchestercountyanimalcontrol

Editor's note: Cindy Smith is acting President and Treasurer, Snip Tuck, Inc.