Published: April 07, 2008 05:14 pm            

Enid SPCA a lifeline for area’s canine, feline waifs

You put me in the car, and we go for a ride. I thought maybe we were going to the park or maybe for a walk. Then, you let me out, and when I turned around, you were gone, and I waited. I waited for you to come back. I don’t know what I was to you, but you were everything to me, and I don’t understand.

Now I am here. I spend most of my time in this cage, but I see you walk in the door, and I sit up. I look at you, and I hope you look at me. I hope that you will see me, and you will not be able to look past me. I begin to pant, my tail begins to wag, my spirits are high, and then you walk away.

Every shelter pet’s life reads like a Pedigree Adoption Drive commercial. And, the biggest problem is there are so many of them and not enough room for them to stay alive.

For this reason, the Enid Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) is building a new facility where they will be able to house more dogs and cats until the animals are adopted.

“We’ve obviously outgrown our old building,” said Gabriella Wilson, co-founder of the SPCA in Enid.

Wilson runs the SPCA with co-founder, Vickie Fox. They started the organization in Enid almost 10 years ago and have seen the need for a larger facility each year. The amount of dogs and cats Wilson and Fox are seeing is very high relative to the the size of the current Enid SPCA facilities. Fox said they see at least 40 new animals a month, and the reasons people give for leaving their pets is often saddening.

“The decision to build a larger facility was two-fold,” Fox said. “Enid SPCA, when you have to house animals in cages, you are going to be limited on what you can house. The care of animals living in cages is very taxing.”

The new facility will host about 22 dogs. Wilson said the number of cats will be dependent on the circumstances.

Each of the dogs will have their own housing. Each house will be accessible to the outdoors, where there will be individually fenced in grass yards for them to play and a gravel area for bathroom use. Wilson said dogs will prefer to use hard surfaces to do their duty, if they are trained to do so. The gravel is more like a grassy or dirt surface, and it will make the transition to home life easier for dogs and allow SPCA workers to clean up more easily.

Each housing facility will have a window for the dogs for sunlight.

“The reason we put windows in was because we wanted them to have natural sunlight,” Wilson said. “In most shelters when the staff leaves at 5 p.m., and the lights go off, the dogs are in pitch dark. It’s like living in a cave.”

Wilson said they are doing this so the animals don’t get used to going to sleep when the staff leaves.

“When they are adopted, that is not the sleep pattern we want them to have,” she said. “We want them to go to sleep and wake up when their people do.”

In the spring and summer, the dogs will not only have access to the sunlight, they will also be able to play outside after the staff leaves. Closed-in and dark environments can cause temperament problems for dogs, Wilson said.

“Some of these dogs are here with us four or five months,” she said. “The socialization problems that can happen with their personality when they are locked in little cubes, they become un-adoptable very fast. We want to make sure, space permitting, we create as much of a home environment as possible.”

Wilson said the new facility will have a place for people with other dogs to “meet and greet” if they are wanting to adopt another dog.

“We always suggest a meet and greet in neutral territory,” she said. “You bring the new dog home, and there are some territorial issues. We wanted to make sure we had enough space where the dogs could get friendly but not be in each other’s faces.”

The SPCA in Enid is a no kill facility. Every dog or cat they receive will stay with them until they are adopted.

“Being a no kill facility, we don’t euthanize to create space,” Wilson said. “We can’t help more animals, unless adoptions occur, so we like a pretty quick, rapid turn-around rate.”

Wilson and Fox have heard and seen it all. Last summer a box with two dogs was left under an automobile in front of the building in 100 degree temperatures. They have had people come in who have had their dogs or cats for 10 years and want to give their animals away because of new carpeting or new furniture.

These animals are like children, Fox said. They become attached to their owners the same way a child would. People have their friends, families and entertainment. All the animal has is their owner.

“The most destructive dogs are dogs left on their own,” Fox said. “You are their pack, and they are so excited when you give them one ounce of attention, and, yes, they are going to be unruly, because they are beside themselves with joy, because you are finally in front of them.”

Fox said there are dogs and cats always being dumped on their doorstep or at the animal shelter in Enid. Over the weekend when the shelter and SPCA are closed, Fox said there are often animals dumped in nearby locations, left to fend for themselves. They recently had a crate of puppies dumped on their doorstep.

“Abandoning animals is a huge problem,” Fox said. “What happens is people get an animal, and then they move, and they just don’t take it with them, or they dump it. Sometimes they try and get the animal in here. I don’t blame them for wanting to bring the animal in, but when all the cages are full, there is really not much you can do.”

The SPCA tries to diversify the size of the dogs. Fox said big dogs get adopted much slower. The facility has specific cages geared toward the size of the dogs.

Fox and Wilson believe the over population of pets can easily be prevented through spay and neutering.

“I like to think we have been part of the solution,” Wilson said. “The solution really is preventative programs. We have a pretty aggressive spay and neuter program. I think we probably do 25 spay and neuters a month. You don’t have to deal with the moral and ethical dilemma of killing the animal if it is never born.”

The SPCA would like to see Enid have a mandatory spay and neuter program put in place. Wilson said they have reached a plateau on euthanasia, which means the adoption rate is static in the community.

“There just isn’t enough strength in our community for that adoption rate to go up,” she said. “The only way the euthanasia rate is going to continue to drop is with spay and neutering, because we have done everything else. We have built the new facility and instituted the programs.”

The price for spay and neutering is between $10 and $35. When people bring their animals in, the price will be determined based upon the size of their family. When it is as low as $10, Wilson said there is no reason not to get it done.

“The natural evolution of what we are trying to do is enforcement,” she said. “The communities that do have mandatory spay and neutering ordinances have not only seen their animal control disappear, their euthanasia rates have plummeted to almost nothing. That is what we would like to see, no euthanasia unless it is a severe medical issue or a severe aggression problem.”

Fox said people don’t seem to understand that each animal needs to be quarantined when they come in. It isn’t a situation where the dogs can just be placed out in one of the pens. They can’t just accept the animal and put them in the population.

The hardest part for Fox and Wilson is realizing they can’t fix it all, and for them the feeling is sometimes overwhelming, but they try and come in each day and do as much as they can. They hope the new facility will help them increase the amount of what they can do.

“It is just going to be a much better living environment for the dogs and cats,” Fox said. “I think it will be much better for their character and make them much more adoptable.”

If more people would do their part, there could be hope that maybe someday there won’t be anymore commercials with animals speaking in first person, begging for a home and someone to love.