The fatigue is evident in the voices of those caring for Malheur County’s stray or abandoned dogs and cats.
The two local shelters, one for dogs and one for cats, are out of room.
They are out of volunteers and they are short of money.
Yet, the dogs and cats keep coming.
“We don’t take surrender dogs anymore,” said Amanda Grosdidier, who runs the nonprofit Ani-Care in Nyssa. “I don’t have the capacity. On average, three to five people a day call to surrender.”
At the Ontario Feral Cat Project, volunteers long have done all they could to create room for even more cats.
“We truly have stacked cages on top of each other,” said Amy Kee, a project volunteer since 2011. “We’re no longer going to do that.”
Malheur County has no other shelters, and the Cat Project and Ani-Care both work with shelters elsewhere in the region to find foster homes or arrange adoptions.
But they encounter among those organizations what’s true in Malheur County: No room.
Shelters across Oregon and the nation are reporting surging populations of dogs and cats with fewer options for new homes.
Authorities say the pandemic is in part to blame. When people were forced to stay home, people brought in dogs, cats and other pets for company. Those new pets in some instances seemed like nuisances as people returned to jobs or school.
“Stray and abandoned dogs is a problem that has steadily increased over the last several years,” Malheur County Sheriff Travis Johnson said in an email. “The last two years it has increased significantly.”
Grosdidier said that “one of the huge issues is covid and the amount of people who ended up getting dogs. Life went back to normal.”
The pandemic population of pets didn’t always get the care they needed, including spaying or neutering. Covid restrictions meant veterinarians had to limit access.
Grosdidier said the circumstances led to a boom in puppies.
“A lot of the dogs we get are about a year old,” she said.
Angela Hunt, a volunteer at the Cat Project, said cats are prolific breeders, with kittens as young as six months able to breed.
“We can’t get people to understand that you’ve got to fix your cat. They’re going to create more babies,” Hunt said.
Police agencies typically don’t deal with stray or abandoned cats.
Malheur County and Nyssa contract with Ani-Care to house dogs recovered by police.
“We will pick up stray and abandoned dogs if we have room in Ani-Care,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, the problem is bad enough there isn’t always room. When there isn’t any room, we try to find people to take the dogs in but that hasn’t been very successful.”
In Nyssa, Police Chief Don Ballou said his agency first tries to find the owner of a dog on the loose. If that doesn’t work, the dog is taken to the police department and officers resort to Facebook posts to find the owner.
“If no owner is located at that point, then the dog is transported to Ani-Care,” Ballou said in an email.
The Ani-Care Story
The county’s only dog shelter operates from a residential property on the east edge of Nyssa.
Kennels have been set up in a shop building. The only source of water is from a shower head in a small bathroom.
The dogs who call this home have free run of a large fenced area. At the arrival of a visitor, the dogs launch into a chorus of howls, barks and yips, crowding in front of one another to get scratched on the nose or behind the ear.
Out on the lawn, other dogs tethered to trees lounge in the shade.
Mella, a large husky-shepherd mix, has been at the shelter the longest, more than a year.
Kratos, a pit bull-basset hound mix, is ready to say goodbye. Boise Bully Breed Rescue was arranging to move the stout dog into a prison training program.
Grosdidier said the shelter holds up to 20 dogs “tops” because of limited kennel space. On a recent August day, the shelter held 14.
When someone reports a stray dog, she posts a photo to Facebook, hoping to find the owner.
“Sometimes we can match them up before they come in,” Grosdidier said.
Foster homes are one resource to house dogs but “I don’t have a lot of fosters anymore. Most of them have adopted a dog,” she said.
She handles adoptions by appointment, and has new owners coming from as far as Seattle. Grosdidier screens potential owners.
“Not everybody can have a border collie. Not everyone wants a chihuahua,” she said.
Grosdidier said Ani-Care could care for more dogs with more resources.
The operation relies heavily on funding from Nyssa and Malheur County. Ani-Care’s operation in 2020 cost about $100,000.
“We have a few people who send $50 to $100 a month to help with dog food,” she said.
She said more money is needed to cover veterinary services for the dogs.
And she could use more kennels, which cost about $400 a piece.
She has some older kennels that could be pressed into service, but they are missing $150 doors. Grosdidier said getting those kennels in service would provide room for four more dogs.
She confirmed that the IRS recently revoked the tax-exempt status of Ani-Care. The nonprofit Guidestar, which tracks nonprofits, reported that Ani-Care’s revocation came because it had not filed tax returns in three years.
“We are working with our accountant to get it fixed,” she said.
Grosdidier said she would like more foster homes, but that means a place with no other animals or small children and a fence yard.
“We do not want to set anyone up for failure,” she said.
Ontario Feral Cat Project
Some 45 cats are at home in the McCullough House, the Ontario residence converted into a shelter.
They live comfortably in large cages, attended to at least twice a day by volunteers.
They are all looking for new homes.
Until they do, no other cats can move in.
“When we’re full, we’re full,” said Amy Kee, one of the volunteers. “We can’t make more cages.”
Adoptions for some reason have slowed recently. Kee speculates that the higher costs of food and vet care might be a factor. The project holds an adoption event nearly every Saturday.
The project gets no government funding or grants from foundations.
Most of its yearly costs of about $120,000 are covered by adoption fees, donations and, in 2022, the $6,200 collected from gathering pop cans.
“Everything we earn is from our incredible supporters,” said Hunt, another volunteer.
The project used to hold an annual benefit, stopped during the pandemic. Volunteers have been reluctant to bring the auction back to life.
“We feel bad asking places of business to donate when so many businesses are struggling,” Kee said.
The biggest cost is veterinary service, which runs about $90,000 a year. That covers spay and neutering procedures and emergency care, such as the leg amputation recently for a kitten.
So far in 2024, 155 cats have been fixed and 145 has been adopted.
Since the project launched in 2009, 3,545 cats have been adopted.
An immediate need is more foster homes to provide temporary care for cats. The project now has about 50 cats in foster care and three more foster homes could help.
“We don’t want these kittens being raised in cages,” said Kee. “We want them in a home where they can run, play and learn the sounds of a home.”
The project could also use help at the McCullough House.
“It is work,” Hunt said. “It’s not just come in and pet the kitties.”
Volunteers clean cages, wash dishes and do laundry.
A volunteer shift can take up to three hours.
“Even if it’s an hour, that’s huge for us,” Kee said.
She said volunteers want to cats’ lives at McCullough “to be as comfortable as they can be. We let them know they are loved. We fall in love every single day over and over again.”
How to Help
Ontario Feral Cats Project
Contact: (541) 823-2427; [email protected]
Needs:
• Foster homes
• Cat supplies – cat and kitten food, litter for fosters
• Donations for veterinary and other services
• Shelter volunteers for cat care
Ani-Care
Contact: [email protected] or via Facebook page
• Dog supplies, especially Pedigree brand dog food
• Funds for 4 doors for kennels
• Donations for spay/neuter
• Shelter volunteers
Note: The tax-exempt status of Ani-Care has been revoked.
HOW TO SUBSCRIBE – The Malheur Enterprise delivers quality local journalism – fair and accurate. You can read it any hour, any day with a digital subscription. Read it on your phone, your Tablet, your home computer. Click subscribe – $7.50 a month.