Shelter draws wide support

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April 12, 2010 - 12:00 AM

LAHARPE — Allen County Animal Rescue Facility took in $2,950 and fed close to 500 people during a fund raiser at the LaHarpe Veterans of Foreign Wars Post Friday night. Proceeds go to the agency’s spay and neuter fund.
Josh Oberley of Modern Woodmen of America will match $2,500 to help purchase large animal cages.
Expenses were kept to a minimum with pulled pork and coleslaw donated by Iola’s Jump Start Travel Center, buns donated by Moon’s Market in Humboldt and homemade desserts and sides brought by volunteers.
“At one point, we had people lined up down the street,” organizer Ona Chapman said.
A steady crowd from 5 to 7 p.m. kept workers challenged.
“We ran out of potato salad twice,” Chapman said. Buns, chili and “just about everything” were also gone or in short supply by night’s end.
Iola elementary schools’ Drumming Circle and Iola Middle School’s Bucket Brigade and band entertained the packed Post throughout the evening.
Tours of the shelter followed, with supporters informed the original plan of filling the space with two-sided kennels has been put on hold in favor of less-expensive box kennels available through Orscheln’s.
“We’re going to buy enough of these so we can open,” tour guide Jeanne Cloud said. “Orscheln’s has given us a wonderful deal.”
The new kennels can be sponsored for $200 each which includes the donor’s name affixed to it.
Two of the six previously purchased deluxe kennels already bear the name of the late Mike Diebolt, animal lover and ACARF supporter.

LOVE OF animals and understanding they are victims seemed to be the main motivation for people’s support of the new shelter.
“These animals add so much to our lives,” long-time ACARF supporter Ray Shannon said of cats and dogs. “I think there’s an intense need,” to help them once abandoned.
“It’s ridiculous how people dump dogs and cats,” agreed Gas resident Larry Robertson.
“We had one cat come last winter —  it had been declawed.” Obviously, it was someone’s pet, Robertson said, but no longer wanted. Another of his cats, “We got at the Iola Vet Clinic” Robertson said. It, too, had been abandoned.
Erin Rhoads’ family also adopts foundling pets.
“My mom and dad have 80 acres outside of Neosho Falls,” she said. “Every one of their pets has been dumped — 15 years of pets. Right now, they’ve got a litter of kittens,” Rhoads said. The mother cat, ready to give birth, was dumped at their farm, she said. “They’ve had them all spayed and neutered,” Rhoads said of the kitten clutch.
Her parents’ Irish Setter cross was also an abandoned pet, she said. “It’s a beautiful dog.”
As a teenager, Rhoads used to work at Topeka’s Helping Hands Humane Society.
“There’s a real need” for a local shelter, she said. “One of the big things when people are looking (to dispose of a pet) is where would we take them to be responsible?” she said. With no shelter, the side of the road is often chosen.
Pets are sometimes discarded when people have to move, Rhoads said. Rental policies that ban pets lead to them being dumped out in the country.
But the life of a stray isn’t healthy for anyone, Rhoads said.
“They can carry diseases; it’s not good for them.”

THE ACARF shelter will open once enough kennels are purchased to line the walls, Cloud said, and a shelter director is hired.
The shelter needs 31 more of the kennels.
Applications for the director position are being accepted. Interviews will begin soon.

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