MANSFIELD — Willard has been looking for a forever home for more than a year, peering from inside his kennel at the Richland County Dog Shelter as prospective families walk by.
The 3-year-old mixed breed came into the shelter’s care on Feb. 9, 2022 — he is the longest-held canine at the 810 N. Home Road facility.
Willard, currently in the Mansfield Correctional Institution inmate-dog program, is about 3 years old, is crate trained, neutered and knows basic obedience commands, according to Dog Warden Missy Houghton.
Willard is also now available to be adopted for just $50.
Richland County commissioners on Tuesday approved a tiered adoption fee schedule at the county dog shelter with the goal of finding homes for animals that have been at the kennel the longest.
Houghton said the facility at 810 N. Home Road had 119 dogs on Tuesday — in a kennel with 101 fixed dog cages.
“We do have some dogs that have been there over a year. We have several dogs that are approaching a year,” Houghton told commissioners.
“We have some that are been there over nine months, six months, things of that nature,” she said.
The county’s adoption fee had been set at $175 for any dog, a fee which includes the cost of spaying/neutering, deworming, first round of vaccines, microchipping and the current year dog license.
At Houghton’s request, commissioners set a new adoption fee schedule:
— $50 for dogs that have been at the shelter for more than a year.
— $100 for dogs there more than six months.
— $125 for dogs there more than three months.
— $150 for dogs there less than three months.
In a recent count, Houghton said the shelter had two dogs that have been there more than a year, 22 dogs there more than six months and 25 that have been there more than three months.
“I am hoping to move some of these guys through to get some of our long timers out. Which in turn will reduce the ones that we have there that are showing some of the poor behaviors where they start to get aggressive towards the front of the cage.
“They’re not aggressive towards people. They just have pent-up energy from being in their kennels too long,” Houghton said.
“We have volunteers who come in every single day to walk the dogs so we can ensure every dog gets out of their kennel every single day.”
Houghton said in late February the shelter had 102 dogs and the situation has only worsened.
“We have dogs in our food room. We have dogs in our playroom. We have dogs in our clinic and we have rolling dog cages that we are putting dogs in that we typically use for our spay/neuter days.
“So we have them kind of tucked everywhere. We did have a dog that was staying up front in our office. She just got adopted yesterday,” Houghton said.
Commissioner Tony Vero said the reduced fees will mean about $25,000 less revenue from the dog warden’s office, though that loss may be offset by a reduced canine head-county in the shelter.
The Richland County Dog Shelter has had a “no-kill” policy for the last nine years because less than 10 percent of the dogs who enter are euthanized by a local veterinarian — almost always for untreatable medical reasons.
Click the link below to see photos of dogs available at the Richland County Dog Warden and Adoption Shelter.
https://www.richlandcountyoh.gov/departments/dogwarden/AdoptableDogs
The shelter also has an active Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/R.C.D.W.OfficeandShelter/
Vero also said there has been no consideration given to changing that policy, despite the overcrowding.
“We’re not even entertaining that possibility right now. We’ll never say never, but I think that’s one of the reasons why we have such good community support.
“I think this is an attempt by Missy to get creative and proactive to ensure we maintain that status,” he said.
Houghton said in February all dog shelters began seeing an uptick in population beginning in early 2022, “once people started going back to work and inflation hit and people stopped getting COVID assistance.”
The dog warden said the shelter has been able to keep operational costs down by volunteers giving of their time and also community donations.
“We haven’t paid for dog food since I’ve taken over as dog warden (in 2021). We’re lucky the community donates as much as they do.
“We had one of our dryers break down and we had somebody donate a dryer within three hours of us posting (on social media) that our dryer broke. So we get everything that we can donated to save our budget as much as we can,” she said.
Houghton said it costs $15.69 per day to care for a dog with all of the donated items. She said that would rise to $18.55 per day without volunteers, community support and the assistance of the Phillips Animal Hospital.
