Ruff times

MOSES LAKE — Grant County Animal Outreach has run out of room.

“The facility was built in World War II,” said Kar Vanerstrom, GCAO’s vice president. “And there haven't been any updates on it, so it's kind of in dire straits.”

The 4,886-square-foot shelter sits on a 0.61-acre tract of land owned by the City of Moses Lake, off in a corner of the Larson Wastewater Treatment Plant. The shelter actually owns another patch of land, about 2.83 acres, about a quarter-mile up the road but can’t expand onto it, ironically because of animals.

“That was donated to us, and come to find out, we have some endangered ground squirrels living on it,” Vanerstrom said. “So we can't build on it. No one, of course, is going to want to buy it, because you can't build on it. That makes it hard because a lot of people can see that and be like, ‘Hey, why aren't you guys building here?’ But we have two little ground squirrel nests in there. And we were told by one of the assessors that they have a radius that goes around them where you cannot touch anything.”

A small building combined with a growing population of animals makes for some very cramped quarters.

“We are supposed to be at 45, I think, is our max,” Vanerstrom said. “And we are way, way, way over that.”

Vanerstrom added that she wasn’t sure how many animals the shelter currently has, as it fluctuates from day to day. But the Grant County Sheriff’s Office and the police departments continue to drop off animals they’ve picked up, and some pet owners do the same.

“When COVID hit, everybody and their mom went and got a dog, which is fabulous,” she said. “But I don't think any of those animals were ever spayed or neutered. And when COVID kind of ended somewhat, everybody got rid of said animals and left them with us. We can drive up to the shelter and have animals be tossed over the fence. We've had animals tied up to the front gate.”

One dog had been left outside tied to what appeared to be an engine block with an extension cord around its neck, Vanerstrom said. When shelter staff arrived, the dog was lying across the road where it had been hit by a car.

“The dog that I have in my Jeep right now is a foster dog,” Vanerstrom said. “(The sheriff’s office) stopped on the road to pick little Puppet up, and she was still alive. So they rushed her immediately to us, (and) we rushed her immediately to the vet. She was under two pounds, was basically knocking on the Rainbow Bridge, but she's healing from her wounds. She was thrown out of the car, her face was all mangled, and her side and her front leg, and she was a hot mess, but she's doing better.”

Many of the staff do the same thing, fostering animals who have been too badly hurt or traumatized to leave at the shelter, Vanerstrom said.

Grant County Animal Outreach may not have enough room, but it does have a couple of things going for it. One is its working relationship with the veterinary college at WSU, which does the spaying and neutering for the shelter.

“Partnering with Washington State University has really been an awesome blessing because the spaying and neutering of animals is so expensive. In Grant County, if you, Joe Blow customer, try and call up (a veterinarian) and just say, ‘I need to get my animal spayed or neutered,’ you're looking at $200, $400. And then they're booked way out. By the time they're even able to get those animals in to be spayed and neutered, ‘Are we pregnant now? Have we impregnated someone else now?’”

The other asset GCAO has is its people. Besides volunteers who come in and pet the animals, the shelter has 11 paid staff members who clean kennels and feed, water and exercise. Laundry is a never-ending job, Vanerstrom said, because the facility isn’t wired for an industrial-sized washer and dryer and has to use residential-size machines.

“We replace those quite a bit,” she said.

Being an animal shelter worker isn’t for everybody, Vanerstrom said. Dealing with animals who have been abused or neglected can be heartbreaking.

“When I hire here at the shelter, I always tell them, ‘You always hear the shelter is a hard place. But I really need you to understand it's not only a physical job; it's a very emotional job. It just pulls at you.’ I've had grown men . . . last one day, and call me the next day crying. I get it, I do. I understand.”

While dogs take up the most space, GCAO also has plenty of cats for adoption and has had other critters brought in.

“We've had guinea pigs come through here. This last summer we had chickens. So any kind of animal that comes in here, we're finding a home or finding a resource or a rescue that can take it.”

“There’s lots of good animals here that need homes,” staffer Adam Sutter said.

Grant County Animal Outreach is a no-kill shelter, which means animals stay until they’re adopted rather than being put down after a certain amount of time. In cases where an animal is too badly hurt to survive, a veterinarian will make the decision and perform the euthanasia. One local veterinary clinic, Pioneer Veterinary, helped GCAO make an arrangement to buy Science Diet pet food at a discounted rate, Vanerstrom said, so that the animals can have a consistent diet and not be eating one brand one day and another the next. This cuts down on tummy problems for animals that are already frightened and unsettled.

The space issue doesn’t look like it will be resolved any time soon, Vanerstrom said.

“We can have a good day of having dogs adopted, like three move out, come in the next day and have the sheriff's department or the Moses Lake Police Department have five more in the back kennels, so it's kind of like we're just chasing our tail,” she said. “It is what it is. Until we get a facility that's going to be able to hold us, I think this is our new norm. I don't think we're ever going to get pre-COVID again. I think this is our new norm.”

Joel Martin may be reached at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.