St. Landry animal shelter shows major improvements over 6 months with Bissell Foundation

Catherine Bissell reflects a mixture of happiness and concern as she maneuvers past the rows of fenced dog kennels that help make up a St. Landry Parish Animal Shelter complex that has undergone a major structural transformation during the last six months.

As she moves past the chain-linked enclosures where a variety of canine breeds bark and seek her attention with pleading eyes, Bissell witnesses a scene drastically different than the one she inherited in December.

“It’s not beautiful, but it’s better,” said Bissell, founder of the non-profit Bissell Pet Foundation which has agreed to a partnership with parish government to rectify previous conditions at a facility which at times was overwhelmed with the number of sheltered animals.

While she walks through an enclosed section of the shelter where dogs are separated by gender, Bissell reaches into small buckets attached to the fences.

That’s when she receives spontaneous responses of barking and excitement.

Bissell gingerly begins handing each dog a treat from the bucket.

Some devour their desired morsel quickly and look for more, while another smaller canine seems more enterprising as she takes the treat and buries it in her bed, perhaps saving it for another time.

While Bissell and members of her shelter teams have comprehensively cleansed the facility and treated the intake animals with complete health examinations, vaccinations and heartworm treatments, there is still work remaining, she says, to develop the St. Landry shelter into one that is safer and healthier.

There is also the challenge of reversing a parish mindset about pet care and overpopulation, Bissell admits.

“At this point, we are trying to limit the number of animals in the shelter to no more than 70 and that means we have to limit surrenders. Every dog that is accepted into the shelter now is spayed by us or through organizations like Spay Nation and thoroughly examined by a licensed veterinarian,” Bissell noted.

That decision Bissell acknowledges hasn’t been entirely popular.

Some people have become indignant, Bissell recounts, since the shelter is no longer freely accepting the large number of animals that were there a year ago.

“When I and members of my team got here several months ago, there were about 300 animals. Due to that amount, there weren’t any proper kennel counts and it was very discouraging to see the number of strays that were here and not vaccinated. There were no records about what animals had been here, their histories, or who surrendered them,” Bissell says.

To care for animals and prepare them for adoption, Bissell maintains that the condition of the dogs needs to be recorded upon intake. In addition to the vaccinations and care, Bissell says each dog is also microchipped for identification.

Cats are no longer being accepted. Instead, Bissell says that some of the cats that previously resided at the facility are now spayed, neutered, released and performing important duties.

“We have a place where the cats, climb the fences, return and eat here every day. Our feral cats are working now and help abate the mice population that was once here,” Bissell says.

Bissell adds members of the foundation have been in St. Landry since December at the request of parish president Jessie Bellard and attempting to redesign a facility and train a new staff along with the parish inmate trustees who perform a variety of duties.

“Without the Bissell Foundation coming in here, we would be in a pretty serious bind. With the number of animals we had here, no one can manage that. Since they arrived, we’ve been able to get a great number of those animals adopted and have professionals train a new team on operation and care,” Bellard said.

Bellard said both the parish and the Bissell Foundation have each provided funding to develop a new procedural regimen.

There’s also been a strategic attempt, Bissell says, to educate the public about spaying and neutering their pets to reduce the number of potential pet surrenders that had previously burdened the shelter personnel.

To combat the problem the parish, with the help of the Bissell Foundation, has offered $100 vouchers to individuals who agree to spay and neuter their pet and free vaccination clinics, reducing the costs for a parish where many residents are financially impoverished.

Bellard added that the Foundation has also developed a procedure that attempts to help people who might otherwise want to give a pet to the shelter.

“We understand that many people cannot afford to pay for the food and care, so they see no other option than to bring their pets to the shelter. In those cases, the Bissell Foundation has a program to provide food and other products that might help a family keep their pets, rather than wanting to drop them off,” Bellard pointed out.

Facility infrastructure was abominable when members first arrived, Bissell says.

“I’ve never seen such filth and it’s taken a long time to get (the shelter) in shape. One thing we’ve done is remove the dogs from walking around in the small gravel, because that’s where they pick up diseases. Now each dog resides on concrete. There are windscreens for weather protection and exiting places where the dogs can move out into the open,” says Bissell.

Now there are separate buildings where newborn puppies are kept and another where mothers are weaning newborns.

There was also a significant need, Bissell points out, to train the shelter administrators.

“We have a whole new staff now. There is a new director now and staff who are being trained about intake. We have emphasized that everything that goes on here has to be done right. Our staff has undergone training sessions and that has really involved a process,” Bissell says.

This article originally appeared on Opelousas Daily World: Improvements, smaller population help dogs at St. Landry animal shelter