Among the issues discussed at Roswell’s Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday was the reopening on Monday of the city’s animal shelter.
It was closed Sept. 27 after a dog tested positive for distemper and others were coming down with upper respiratory illnesses. Subsequent testing of dogs at the shelter turned up no more distemper cases, but the presence in some animals of an upper respiratory infection commonly referred to as “kennel cough.”
“Are we picking up dogs running at large?” asked Councilor Juliana Halvorson, who is also the chair of the Public Safety Committee.
That service has also been restored, said Nicole Wisneskie, interim director of the shelter and director of Best Friends Animal Society’s embed program.
City Manager Chad Cole asked Wisneskie to talk about some of the other things going on at the shelter since she arrived last month.
She explained that efforts to get access to local veterinary care are ongoing. The most important need now is finding a veterinarian to spay and neuter animals. A Best Friends veterinarian has been helping fulfill the shelter’s medical needs, but this person lives out of state.
The city’s animal control officers have been receiving training from representatives of the National Animal Care & Control Association, which certifies these professionals. The association is creating protocols for Roswell’s officers and “is a leading driver of animal control policy,” Wisneskie explained.
Halverson, who represents Ward 2, also asked about a situation within that north-northeast section of the city that has been a site popular with feral cats.
During last week’s city council meeting, a Bent Tree Road resident stated she found a dead cat in her yard and a property owner said some other people living on that street were doing things to attract the cats, such as leaving out food for them for long periods.
Animal services employees went to the site and put up several “cat deterrents.” Spaying and neutering cats that are successfully apprehended and working with those cat-feeding neighbors so they do more “responsible feeding” are among ways to ease that situation, Wisneskie said.
It’s a location that cats seem to favor because it’s near the city limit and “surrounded by open fields,” she explained.
According to Best Friends’ embed report for September, the animal advocacy organization has so far provided the Roswell animal shelter with more than $27,500 to carry out various improvements that would help Best Friends representatives reach their goal of making the city’s shelter a no-kill facility.
Last month, they provided the shelter allocations for a variety of purposes, including a $10,000 grant for cat spaying and neutering, $3,900 for rescue disinfectant cleaner, $3,300 for vaccinating dogs and cats on arrival at the shelter, and more than $4,200 for “operational and enrichment supplies.”
About $3,600 was provided for a tag engraving machine and 300 tags to “increase pet identification for adopted and filtered pets.”