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Residents tour animal shelter at dog chip event
By Tricia Goecks
EditorBELVIDERE – A converted vet’s clinic on Appleton is the current home of the Boone County Animal Services and Adoption Center. The BCAS sponsored a low cost micro chipping clinic and offered visitors with a rare glimpse of the cramped facilities.
Kris Toohey and Christy Spurlock from the Measuring Cup were on hand to sell baked goods outside of the shelter. The duo donated 50 percent of the proceeds to the BCAS.
“We want people to see the facility. Where the kennel is set up we have intake dogs with dogs who are waiting for a foster homes in the same ward so we cannot allow public entrance,” operations supervisor Roger Tresemer said. “If we have a new facility we will have a ward for intake dogs, an adoption ward for dogs as well as an intake ward for cats and an adoption ward for cats.”
Because of the tight space, the BCAS keeps new arrivals at the facility during a seven day incubation period. For dogs that are picked up as strays, BCAS staff posts the dog’s photo on their Facebook page with the hope of reuniting the dog with its humans. Approximately half of the time, the dog owners come in to retrieve their dog.
For the dogs that remain, many of the dogs are sent to live with 1 of 11 dog foster families. “The foster carer’s job is see what behaviors they have and to help them get healthy. We see if they have issues with children, housetraining, and we work on that,” BCAS volunteer Kathy Coil said.
Coil and her husband have fostered 24 dogs over the past 2 years and eyed a black and white Shih Tzu as her next foster dog. “He looks like he has been loved. Those little things get out,” Coil said.
Coil admitted that it she gets attached to the dogs that she fosters and cries when it is time to send her foster dogs to their new forever family. “I feel so bad for her,” Tresemer said. “Every single time she tears up.”
“I tried two different ways to foster them out. Sometimes I come in and meet the family and I find that is harder on me. I try to tell them about the dog and I find that I break down,” Coil added. “So I found now that I bring them in here before the new parents get her and then I just cry all the way home.”
“I don’t want them to feel like I am giving up my dog to them.”
“I was a foster failure that’s why I don’t do it,” Tresemer said. “I adopted them all.”
“You’re a softie,” Coil chided him.
Coil explained that among the benefits of the BCAS placing dogs with foster families. “These dogs are not living in the kennel,” Coil said. “And these people are trying like heck to make them adoptable.”
The love that the BCAS staff has for the animals in its care is obvious. Animal control officer Justin Unger slipped into the kennel with a pit bull mix that he picked up along the side of the road a week earlier. The dog leapt for joy into Unger’s arms as though they had been separated for eons.
One of the most tragic cases that the BCAS had was a newborn puppy who was found in a Wheaties box outside of the shelter’s front door. Someone had attempted to force open the puppy’s eyes which resulted in the dog losing its eyes. The puppy was named Wheatie and was adopted by a member of the BCAS staff.
Tresemer hoped that the shelter will be able to move into a larger facility. “We want a more efficient effective animal control program for the county,” Tresemer said. “Many board members have toured the board and come to the consensus that we need a new facility.”
The BCAS accepts monetary and product donations. Items that the BCAS needs are cotton balls, paper towels, canine shampoo, stainless steel water dishes, collars, treats, dog foods and bleach. The shelter is located at 1230 S. Appleton Road in Belvidere.
Residents tour animal shelter at dog chip event... - Belvidere Daily Republican
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