There have been recent comments about the immediate need for a new animal shelter building, including the heartfelt comments in the recently published Top of the Morning by Mississippi School for the Arts Junior, Sydney Eidt. She wrote very descriptively about the terrible smells and crowded living conditions endured at the Natchez-Adams County Humane Society shelter and the sadness she felt as she looked into the faces of animals there.

The first time I walked through the shelter in 2007, my feelings were quite similar. Even though I have since spent several thousand volunteer hours with NACHS, I‘ve never gotten used to it. And I don’t plan on getting used to it. I dream of the day in the coming year that sheltered pets and employees are in a cleaner, safer facility.

This sentiment among the NACHS Board prompted a recent decision to move forward to build a new shelter using the available funds raised by the building committee ($565,000 to date).

In this economy, we are extremely fortunate and grateful for those donations and we can afford to build a decent, clean and safe facility now. It is simply bad stewardship to allow the sheltered pets to live in current conditions (while we wait for more funds to be raised to build a mega-facility) when we have the ability to build a larger, efficient facility that they really need right now. It’s time to stop the bantering and start building!

The new shelter facility will bring many positive changes including:

4 The ability to properly disinfect to reduce transmission of disease and eliminate the most unpleasant smells we now endure.

4 Provide an attractive environment for potential adopters.

4 Make additional space available, reducing overcrowded conditions.

4 Allow trained volunteers to exercise and socialize pets (something we have been unable to do in the past because of liability issues in the current dilapidated building).

Unfortunately, the new shelter building will not change many things. Animal abuse, neglect and abandonment are common. That will always be very sad, no matter how modern the facility. NACHS is the only “open to all comers” shelter in our area. Many of those abused and neglected animals arrive at our door and are part of what Miss Eidt described. Indiscriminate breeding and pet overpopulation cause shelter overcrowding and the need for euthanasia throughout the Southeast United States. NACHS sometimes receives more than 30 new animals per day and there simply aren’t enough loving homes for them all.

There are things you can do:

1. Spay/neuter your own pets and influence your family and friends to do likewise. Money spent on spay/neuter surgery is money well spent — much cheaper than raising unwanted litters and much more responsible than dumping those unwanted litters into the already overcrowded shelter. Do your part to create a community in which indiscriminate breeding of pets, and abuse and neglect of those pets, is not socially acceptable.

2. Adopt a family pet from the shelter now. We get purebred dogs at our shelter (even Shiba Inu), but there are far more “mixed breeds” and “special needs” animals with physical disabilities. Please consider giving one of those a chance.

My husband and I adopted three female mixed breed “yellow” dogs that were past the cute puppy stage (all factors that reduce “adoptablity”). We could not ask for more devoted and loving dogs. We also adopted three shelter cats. From personal experience, shelter dogs and cats have a special capacity to love their rescuer and generally give far more to their owner than they ever expect to receive.

The NACHS’s mission is to help unwanted, abused and neglected animals. Everyone knows the current building is inadequate and well-reasoned steps to build a new facility are under way.

Our employees do not have college degrees in animal science and they aren’t exotic dog experts — just hard-working people — spending up to 10 hours or more a day cleaning cages, medicating dogs and cats and dealing with the daily heartbreak associated with taking in unwanted animals.

I am thankful that they are able to greet the public with a smile. Doing otherwise discourages shelter visitors reducing the adoption rate.

I am also thankful for the many people who brave the current conditions to visit our shelter and adopt. If you have room for “just one more,” please consider adoption now. Our website at www.natchezpetadoptions.org features many of our adoptable pets. If you see a pet on the website that you are interested in but you just cannot stand to visit the shelter, please contact us by e-mail at natchezpetadoptions@gmail.com or by phone at 601-442-4001. We can often make special arrangements with you to meet that pet.

Kathy Fitch is a member of the NACHS Board of Directors.