Van enters into animal control agreement

The Canton Animal Shelter is the only animal shelter in the county and it is overwhelmed with animals, particularly dogs!   All other municipal shelters and short-term holding facilities in the county have closed due to the cost of state mandated regulations and liability.  Our shelter costs for next year are approaching $210,000.  This amount comes to about $50 for every man, woman and child living in the City of Canton.   The sad thing for our citizens who pay for running the shelter through their taxes is that about 80% of these animals come from outside our city limits. 

Unfortunately, the Canton Animal Shelter is not a “no-kill” shelter.  Recently, almost 100 animals were put down in a month, and no one disagrees that this is way too many!  Statistically, that’s 20 from the city and 80 from outside the city limits.   The shelter employees do a great job getting animals out to rescue societies and to new homes through the social media and adoption clinics, but there are simply more animals than homes.  Your city council just recently amended the number of pets allowed from 2 to 4 in hopes that some of these doomed  animals can be adopted out to more homes within the city.

To help ease the Canton taxpayer’s financial burden of running the shelter for this year, we requested each town and precinct in the county help defray the operating costs of the shelter by contributing $5,000.  Wills Point, Van, and Grand Saline readily agreed and considered it a bargain to be relieved of the liability.  However, the Van Zandt County Commissioners’ Court will not be contributing any funds citing they do not believe that animals from the rural part of the county are a problem. 

I would like to point out that many think most of the animals at the Canton Animal Shelter come from First Monday.   This is not true.   Records show that no more animals come into the shelter after First Monday weekend than any other time of the month.  Records also indicate that the largest intake of animals is in the summer and those are mostly puppies, from puppies that were never spayed or neutered to begin with.   Again, 80% of the intake comes from outside the city limits and that’s where many owners allow their un-neutered animals to roam freely.

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