Price of stray pets rises in Manatee County

 Manatee County Animals Services Division Chief Sarah Brown can think of a million reasons the department needs a new home.

That’s good considering the county expects to spend $8 million on a future pound and animal adoption center, tentatively slated for 8 to 10 acres on the northern end of the Lena Road Landfill property.

The site, already owned by Manatee County, would be separate from the landfill and is located generally across from Haile Middle School on the south side of State Road 64. A road between River Club Car Wash and an under-construction retail plaza would lead to the future site.

County commissioners have  allocated $8 million in infrastructure sales tax revenues to the project, and the animal advocacy group Animal Network has committed to raising another $2 million to help enhance the facility.

“We’ve waited and held our breath here for 30 years at a facility that can’t quite keep up,” Animal Network President Pam Freni said, adding the formal fundraising campaign likely will kick off around July 1. “There’s an opportunity for people to link arms to be able to upgrade a lot of infrastructure.

“Our goal is a minimum of $2 million. We want to be able to provide high-end medical (service to the animals), and maybe help make (the

facility) bigger.”

Freni visited with Brown as she walked through the existing facility. Brown pointed to kennels where about 250 animals are housed each day, compared to their supposed capacity of about 80. Dog runs, typically with indoor and outdoor spaces for each animal, are divided into indoor and outdoor spaces.

In the administration building, there are holes in the floors and buckles in the concrete block walls, where water intrusion is evident. The department had been using its board room as a surgical suite while the building was remediated for mold.

Brown said the facility, at 302 25th St. W., in Palmetto, requires a plumber at least once a week because the pipes are not built to accommodate such large quantities of hair and fecal matter.

“The purpose of this building was strictly for an animal control center,” Brown said. “This was designed as a pound, a holding facility. It wasn’t made for an adoption center. Over the years, the public has demanded it. We can’t expand here at all.”

Brown said electricity also is at its max — even plugging in an extra fan could knock the whole campus off the grid. There has been a rat infestation. And, if a hurricane comes, the windows should hold up, but the roof and walls might not.

Manatee County Commissioner Carol Whitmore said the situation has become a public safety issue.

“This building can’t go any bigger,” Whitmore said. “If people don’t care about the animals, they should care about the employees.”

Whitmore said the county could spend money on other things, but a new animals services building is a matter of necessity. Manatee County’s original animal shelter was built in the 1940s and rebuilt in 1985 to hold about 80 dogs and about 40 cats. Today, that same campus houses about 250 animals at any given time.

The division’s eight field officers cover about 720 square miles, capturing strays, investigating animal abuse cases and responding to other animal-related complaints, like incessant barking. Most of the calls, however, are for stray animals, Brown said.

“It’s mostly dogs, except in kitten season,” Brown said. “We have taken in pigs, chickens, rabbits and birds.”

Horses and livestock brought to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office are held at the Manatee County Jail, where there is land for them, Brown said.

The county adopted a no-kill policy in 2011, at which time it committed to having a save rate of at least 90%. That means less than 10% of animals are euthanized. Brown said euthanasia is reserved for instances in which animals are too injured or ill to be saved or if an animal is a danger to society, for example. In every other instance, Animals Services tries to save the animal.

“For medical, we go above and beyond and treat things that would normally be a death sentence,” Brown said. Such conditions include feline immunodeficiency virus, Parvo virus and paralysis.

Before that, the kill rate was around 50%, Freni said.

Whitmore said the proposed State Road 64 location would give Animal Services the space it needs to expand, but also be centrally located as the county’s population continues to grow eastward.

Brown said the current facility is about 20,000 square feet, and the new one would need to be bigger, although how much is to be determined by need and funding.

Manatee County does not yet have a design or timeline for building a new animal services campus. Whitmore said design should take place in about a year and construction is expected to begin within the next five years.