In response to what she has called a “horrible situation” at the Carroll County Animal Shelter, county Commissioner Vicki Anderson has spearheaded an animal protection task force to raise awareness about the situation at the existing shelter and ensure the new building under construction fully addresses the needs of the animals and their future owners.

She was prompted to form the group when a number of local residents came before the board and presented them with information regarding the treatment of the animals, noting the alarming number of dogs and cats that are euthanized on a yearly basis.

According to estimates from shelter Manager Mike Jacquinot, the shelter processes 9,000 animals a year on average, and only 10 percent of those find a home with an adopted family. The rest are put to sleep, sometimes within three business days after arriving.

And these numbers do not take into account the mass euthanization of all dogs at the complex after a deadly airborne virus broke out in early May of this year.

“When I found out we euthanize between two and three thousand animals a week, that was appalling to me,” Anderson said. “We wanted to see what we can do to avoid that situation in the future. We want people to adopt these animals.”

During the hot summer months, in what is the breeding season for dogs and cats, the shelter experiences an annual spike in the amount they take in. It is oftentimes given entire litters of kittens or puppies at one time, and because of the limited cage space at the facility, Jacquinot said, he is forced to decide which ones to keep and which ones to put to sleep.

The winter season pales in comparison. While during the colder months the shelter might see as few as 10 or 15 animals a day, July and August annually produces a constant stream of unwanted pets, sometimes as many as 45 or 50 a day.

The majority of these tend to be cats, because of their speedy reproductive cycle. In seven years, a mother cat and her litter can produce as many as 420,000 offspring.

With such a high rate of reproduction, Jacquinot said, it only makes sense such a small percentage are adopted.

“I’d love to have 100 percent adoption but we have just under 100,000 people in the population in Carroll County, and you can imagine how many more cats there are when compared to the population. You strive to get in 100 percent but I don’t realistically see it happening in my lifetime, unless you can talk everybody into spay and neutering.”

Therein lies one of the chief goals of the task force. The group exists, Anderson said, to educate the public about the necessity of controlling the pet population. In addition, she said, it will address the needs of animals as they enter the shelter. Its goal is to ensure that the people adopting get animals that are clean and healthy.

“We want people to be able to adopt animals that are healthy,” she said. “It’s a difficult situation all around, and it’s so important for our community to be educated to what’s going on.”

As of late, the group is working to learn more about the shelter and its workings, including how a sick animal is diagnosed upon arrival, how many people work at the shelter at one time and what kinds of foods the animals are fed.

It is her hope that the group’s effort will aid in the establishment of the new shelter that’s now being built. Slated to be finished in roughly a year’s time, the new complex will be able to house many more animals as it is more than twice the size of the existing building.

The shelter will also have isolation rooms to prevent the spread of airborne diseases such as the one that forced the universal extermination of the dog population earlier this summer.

While this is a step in the right direction, Anderson said, it will be important for the task force to continue to work to ensure the county’s animal population is properly cared for.

“Right now, the environment for animals is not good,” Anderson said. “So the goal we have is to improve everything in any way we possibly can.”