Press Coverage:

New group trying to improve Montgomery County shelter
Sunday, April 25, 2004
By Donna Alvis-Banks

VA PAWS recently organized a new group, Friends of the Montgomery County Animal Shelter, to help improve the existing shelter and find ways to raise money for a new shelter in the future.

"Right now, there's no funding," Montgomery County Administrator Clay Goodman said. "By working together, you never know what you can find out. We want to open doors for cooperation between a number of groups so that we can all work together as a team. I've been brought up to believe if someone is trying to help you, you try to make an effort to let them help you. I'm eager to learn by listening to everyone."

VA PAWS president Lila Borge Wills believes the group can provide the leadership necessary to make a difference now.

"If a shelter is a couple of years down the road," she said, "at least we can make this one more inviting and nice for the public to visit, thereby increasing adoptions and lowering euthanasia rates."

To that end, Friends of the Montgomery County Animal Shelter have proposed these suggestions to county officials:

• Put up more signs directing people to the existing shelter

• Create a volunteer program to help animal control officers

• Increase hours the shelter is open

• Spruce up the landscape at the shelter

• Provide information packets for people who adopt shelter animals

• Study the possibility of increasing fees

• Launch a spay-neuter program ensuring that those who adopt dogs comply with
     sterilization requirements

Finally, the group has even suggested changing the county's department name. Members would like to see it become Montgomery County Animal Care and Control.

Care, they believe, is central to what the department does.

Anyone in the community wanting to get involved in the effort may come to the next Friends of the Montgomery County Animal Shelter meeting May 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the Christiansburg Library.