All Critters Great and Small

Back in August 2012, two women were driving down Solitude Road in West Feliciana Parish when they saw what looked like a dirty stuffed animal on the road. When it moved, they stopped. Crouching there was a dirty, scared, tiny dog. The women took her to the animal shelter, which had been open for only four months.

Six years ago, West Feliciana Parish had nowhere to house or treat lost, strayed, or abandoned animals. The sheriff’s department picked them up and euthanized them after attempting to reunite them with their owners. 

“When we took over, 99 percent of the cats and 80 percent of the dogs were euthanized,” said volunteer Ruth Waller, who started working with the West Feliciana Animal Humane Society (WFAHS) two months after it opened in August 2012. 

The society’s mission is to provide a safe, healthy, loving, environment for each animal until it finds the owner or adopts it to a new home. It also works to reduce pet overpopulation. 

Today WFAHS shelters as many as 100 cats and dogs in two parish-owned facilities built on land owned by the sheriff’s department. The cat facility is 1,024 square feet, and the dog facility is 3,200 square feet. 

A C-Can storage container, purchased by the parish, allows WFAHS to accept large donations of pet food. Waller's ten-year-old granddaughter Rylie Berry also volunteers, “with Maw Maw’s supervision.”

The group depends heavily on its fifty-six volunteers, not all of whom work at the shelter. They handle dog walking, brushing, and bathing; cat grooming; administering medications; cleaning kennels; washing bedding; purchasing supplies; taking animals to the vet; cleaning the office—and the list goes on. 

Volunteers with talents as grant writers, fundraisers, carpenters, photographers, and seamstresses are welcome. A group called the Guardian Angels pays for specialized surgeries and extra medical care such as heartworm treatments. “With their help we can save the lives of more animals,” said volunteer Josette Lester. Because black cats are often the last ones chosen, a special group pays the fee for anyone adopting an ebony feline.

Inmates from the West Feliciana Work Release Center, nonviolent offenders, perform many tasks and often bond with the animals. “We couldn’t run the facility without them,” said Lester. 

Some of the most dedicated volunteers are veterinarians from local animal hospitals who work rotations at the shelter on Thursdays. 

The group works closely with such organizations as Pets For Patriots, which pairs veterans with companion animals; the PetCo Foundation, which donated funds for the Trap-Neuter-Return program for feral cat colonies; the Pennington Foundation, which donated $100,000 for construction of the cat facility and refurbishing the dog facility; and Dr. Wendy Wolfson, who teaches shelter medicine at the LSU Vet School, makes site visits, and consults with volunteers by phone.

Many volunteers have fostered and/or adopted rescued animals. Lester tells this story about a rescue cat.

“Last year a litter of kittens came to the shelter. One had her rear legs turned backward. It was doubtful she would ever walk.

“Dr. Penny Serio treated her back legs with a series of splints—more than fifteen splints in ten weeks. She was placed in a foster home, which gave her a good start for a long recovery. A Guardian Angel stepped up to help pay for her medical bills and later adopted her and named her Bitsy.

Bitsy now races around the house, zooms up and down the stairs, and pounces on her siblings. “She’s growing into a strong, agile, beautiful cat,” reported Lester.

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Lester’s dog Molly is the tiny, dirt-covered animal that two good Samaritans found on Solitude Road and took to the newly opened shelter. 

“She weighed less than seven pounds, with a distinct limp,” said Lester. “Her fur was light brown and yellow and so matted and thick that it looked like she had casts on all four legs. 

“When she came in, Dan Klein, our animal-control officer, started cutting her fur and a two-inch mat came off. He couldn’t get to her legs, which were three or four inches in diameter. She was so tiny that she could have slipped through the drain in the back of the kennel, and she was scared, so I took her home to foster her. 

“The next day professional Bridget Nichols volunteered to groom her. It took seven hours! It turns out that she was white with black patches, an eight-year-old miniature poodle mix, with a birth defect that made her right front leg longer than the other leg and with misshapen pads. So she walks and runs with her right paw up in the air, flapping as she goes, which only adds to her charm. 

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“When Dr. Serio spayed her, she said that Molly had a uterine infection, pyometra, and would have died if she hadn’t been brought in. 

“After a month of fostering her my husband said, ‘You can adopt her if you want to.’ But really, she had already adopted me, and she’s been my constant companion ever since.”

In November 2017, the shelter started working with Paws4Rescue, an organization that rescues dogs from shelters and find homes for them in the Northeast.  

“After a month of fostering her my husband said, ‘You can adopt her if you want to.’ But really, she had already adopted me, and she’s been my constant companion ever since.”

“Our main contact is Wendy Gilder, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina,” said volunteer Val Koubek. “Together we decide which dogs would be good matches, and the information is posted on Paws4Rescue’s website. Once homes are found, the dogs travel up north on a climate-controlled semi-truck with Rescue Road Trips.  

“They are well cared for on their journey. Groups of volunteers meet them along the way to walk them, feed them, and give them a little love. By the end of April, twelve of our shelter dogs had found homes in Pennsylvania, Vermont, New York, Connecticut, South Carolina, and New Jersey.   

“A bloodhound named Scarlett went to her new home in style! Cedric Palm and Bradley Brouillette, both of St. Francisville, flew Scarlett in Cedric’s private plane to Charleston. Cedric said she was the perfect passenger, and a group was there to greet her when she arrived, like she was a celebrity.”  

The society depends heavily on donations, and its annual fundraising gala, Wags and Whiskers, has entertained as many as three hundred. This year’s event, at Hemingbough on July 21, will feature food, live music, a silent auction, and a dog-kissing booth. Donations for the auction include cat and dog portraits. “This little community has a lot of artists,” said Waller.

Waller said summertime means the shelter needs water misters, shade screens, and plastic pools for dogs. “We put a notice on our Facebook page, ‘It’s that time of year,’ and people buy them and bring them over.”

The adoption fee is $100 for dogs, $75 for cats, and includes all shots as well as spaying and neutering. “We are also now putting chips in them, a new program we started this year,” said Waller. “Volunteers donated the money, and we found a nonprofit that sells the chips.”

Waller herself has succumbed to what she calls Failure to Foster. “That’s when people say ‘I don’t want to take this one back.’ I ended up with one of the puppy dogs, a terrier mix I named Cookie. We bonded. She’s five years old and I’ve had her for almost five years. She’s very attached to me.”

Summing up the group’s philosophy, she says, “We’re a bunch of animal lovers, that’s all.”  

Ruth Laney, who is partial to black cats, can be reached at ruthlaney@cox.net. For more information about the shelter, check out wfahs.org or its Facebook page, West Feliciana Animal Humane Society Friends.