To the editor:
As I’ve written previously, I no longer live in Houlton and each week I get to catch up when my copy of the Pioneer arrives. I hadn’t really noticed Ms. Hughes’ letter regarding the care of the animals, choices made regarding the ringworm outbreak, or how hard the workers work, or how clean the shelter is, until this past week’s paper when others wrote their feelings and facts about what she had written. Well low and behold I went back to the prior week’s paper and was appalled by what Ms. Hughes had written. Apparently she didn’t see my recent letter regarding how “humane” the Houlton Animal Shelter actually is compared to those in other cities and states.
I know as fact, one thing that Cathy Davis would and will always do what is best for any of the animals in that shelter. I have seen news reports of entire populations of shelters, right here in Tennessee euthanized due to some sort of outbreak. In Tennessee from the Animal Shelter’s own Web sites they explain there are two kinds of animal shelters that operate — Open Door Shelters and Limited Intake/No Kill shelters.
The Limited Intake/No Kill shelters don’t euthanize animals, except in the case of illness. They can afford this luxury because of their limited intake or closed-door policy. It is simple: when they become full, they stop accepting animals until they adopt out enough animals to generate more room.
Conversely, Open Door Shelters accept all animals and must therefore, at times, euthanize on the basis of adoptability to create room for incoming animals. The Houlton Animal Shelter has never, to my knowledge, even tried to classify itself as one of the two, but have tried to help any and every animal that needs aid. My point is this, maybe you should research other shelters, their policies and procedures, in other cities and even other states before you talk harshly of a shelter that most people would be proud and are proud to call their local animal shelter. Imagine if you lived in a city where the hold time before being euthanized for any cat — healthy, sick, abused, abandoned, 5 months old, or 5 years old — is only 72 hours. I wonder, do you volunteer or donate to your local animal shelter? I have a feeling you might not, because if you were involved with the shelter in some way, you would have known how these situations occur, how they are handled, how well the situation in the Houlton Animal Shelter was handled, and how heart wrenching that any euthanizing of any of the animals there was for every person involved.
Mishalyn Stone
Clarksville, Tenn.
