New lease on life: J.B. Ogle facility to become no-kill shelter

JEFFERSONVILLE — Within a year, the J.B. Ogle Animal Shelter in Jeffersonville plans to be a no-kill shelter.

To help accomplish the goal, the Jeffersonville Board of Public Works approved a partnership agreement with No Kill Louisville, a nonprofit organization, at its Wednesday meeting.

“This gives No Kill Louisville absolutely no control over the shelter, any city funds [or] anything like that,” said Jeffersonville Corporation Attorney Tom Lowe. “What we’re committing is our best efforts to comply with their standards as far as the no kill. What we get in return is their fundraising capabilities, partnership and volunteers.

“It really is a win for the city.”

J.B. Ogle Animal Shelter Director Sarah Green said the goal for the shelter is to adopt the mission statement of No Kill Louisville and implement it by August 2013.

The standard for a no-kill shelter means euthanasia is at 10 percent or less at a facility, said Jessica Reid, president and co-founder of No Kill Louisville. And those pets that are euthanized are hopelessly ill, injured or are dangerous to people or other pets.

It’s a challenge Green said the shelter will work to meet or exceed.

“No healthy adoptable animal should be euthanized,” Green said. “In this country, millions of adoptable animals are euthanized just because there’s not enough homes for them. Their philosophy is if they’re a good dog or cat then they shouldn’t be put down. But to make that a reality it’s more than adoption.”

In return, No Kill Louisville’s goal for entering into the partnership is simple.

“We’re going to save more pets and that’s really it,” Reid said. “For us, it does not matter if an animal is saved in Germantown or if an animal is saved in Jeffersonville, just that an animal is saved.”

“We’ve already been partnering with them,” Reid said of J.B. Ogle Animal Shelter. “This is just really a formalization of that.”

The agreement is set to last for one year.

Fostering change

Green said becoming a no-kill shelter is a massive undertaking.

One of the largest hurdles is finding foster homes for the animals that are brought into the facility, which is one of the reasons J.B. Ogle Animal Shelter sought the partnership with No Kill Louisville.

“No Kill [Louisville] is so established ... and well respected in the community; they’re a lot more far-reaching than we are now,” Green said. “I’d like to get there on our own, but I just don’t think it’s possible. Using their resources and volunteers and fundraising capabilities [will] help us move in that direction to be a no-kill shelter.”

Green said the Louisville nonprofit vastly increases the availability for foster homes where the shelter animals are cared for until a permanent home is found.

“If I have a 12-year-old dog here [and ask] can anyone find a place in their home for it? That goes out to [more than] 18,000 people,” she said, referring to No Kill Louisville’s Facebook page. “That’s huge.”

By getting the animals into foster homes, it also allows the shelter to accept the animals that are picked up throughout the county. Jeffersonville’s animal shelter accepts stray animals throughout Clark County and its municipalities. The agreement with No Kill Louisville would allow the organization to pull animals from the shelter and place them in foster homes to clear space for the other animals that are brought to the shelter. The return for No Kill Louisville is that its volunteers will be able to support a shelter that will be following the no-kill model, Reid said.

“You have to give them an outlet and a way to take part,” Reid said of volunteers that support the no-kill philosophy. “J.B. Ogle is making it a goal.”

She added that the Louisville nonprofit will still partner with other animal shelters in the area, but will focus on J.B. Ogle because it is trying to adopt the no-kill model.

No-Kill Philosophy

Some of the goals of a no-kill shelter are already being met at J.B. Ogle Animal Shelter.

“By the standards of a no-kill philosophy, we’re already no-kill with dogs,” Green said.

She explained the standard is that 90 percent of adoptable dogs are placed in a permanent home, which Jeffersonville’s shelter is meeting. But she added that cats are still a big issue for the shelter.

“Cats come in by the bushel full,” Green said.

In a week-and-a-half in June, she said the shelter received 200 cats.

J.B. Ogle Animal Shelter’s availability for dogs is about 100 kennels and another 100 kennels for cats.

“I have a lot of resources, a lot of rescues for dogs — there just aren’t those rescues for cats,” Green said. “The one’s that there are, they’re full.”

She said ideally the goal is to get the cats into those foster homes before they come to the shelter, especially litters of kittens that she said don’t thrive in a shelter environment. Green said she believes going no kill is feasible because of the volume of animals the shelter receives.

“Our intake is a lot lower than LMAS [Louisville Metro Animal Services],” she said.

Reid said any shelter can become a no-kill facility and per capita J.B. Ogle compares to Louisville Metro Animal Services.

According to a press release, J.B. Ogle Animal Shelter takes in an average of 2,500 pets a year. Reid said the shelter would need only 2.2 percent of the county’s population to adopt a pet in order to sustain the no-kill model.

“If 2 percent of the population would adopt you would never have to kill another animal,” Reid said. “We’re putting in the steps to help them get there.”

She said the same is true if 2 percent of Louisville’s population were to adopt a pet.

Another major service No Kill Louisville will provide for the Jeffersonville animal shelter is to help educate the public on the importance of spaying and neutering pets, and increase awareness of the trap-neuter-release programs for feral and unowned cats.

But Reid admitted transitioning to a no-kill shelter is not an easy undertaking.

“It’s going to take an immense amount of community support with foster homes and other things to make this happen,” Green said. “I want to sleep at night, and what makes me sleep at night is to know I’ve done everything for every single animal.”

Future of the shelter

Along with the goal of becoming a no-kill shelter by this time next year, Green said she is hoping to receive some additional funding from Jeffersonville in next year’s budget.

“The operating budget in the past has not included vaccinations, spay and neuter surgeries, microchips and heartworm tests,” she said. “That has never been budgeted before.”

Green added she is hoping the shelter can build into its budget funding for a veterinarian to come to the shelter twice a week to do regular check-ups and treat sick animals. In addition, she said the shelter likely will be seeking a grant to build a quarantine area on-site.

The shelter’s policy now for dealing with sick animals is to remove the animal and take them to the vet every time an animal is sick. The shelter, at times, must also take animals to clinics to get them spayed and neutered.

By having a standard operating procedure in-house, Green said it would save the shelter a “significant” amount of money.

“It’s imperative to being more efficient and having healthier animals,” she said.

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New lease on life: J.B. Ogle facility to become no-kill shelter

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