Valencia County animal shelter lags despite upgrades

While improvements have been made, the Valencia County Animal Shelter still comes in for scathing criticism in a newly released report by the Humane Society of the United States.

[VC Needs to Change]

I truly believe everyone needs to get out to the County Commission and Animal Control Advisory Board meetings and let them know we want better treatment for these homeless animals, and we want better shelter hours so animals have a better chance at being seen and reclaimed (Tue-Sat 8-4 is not good enough- most good owners are working!). We also need to really put some pressure on them to do more to get these animals out and transferred to other state rescues/shelters, into rescue organizations, and basically build their media relations. Let everyone know what wonderful beautiful animals we have in this shelter!!! They also need to make everyone aware that strays are held only 72 working hours (about 3 days) and owners releases are euthanised usually the next day!!!! They need to start posting on the dogsindanger.org website!!!!

[Are you kidding]

What kind of bad-woods operation is this????? Is that dueling banjos I'm hearing out there? Why do you need an inspector to tell you that stuff is out of line? You don't have those fancy tools called EYE BALLS???? Absolutely ridiculous.

[jenna]

Yea, living out here is like living in a third world country! There are no "eyeballs". They are all the same old dumb***** that have lived here forever and are raising their children the exact same way they were raised! To heck with the problems at the shelter..........you should drive around Valencia County on any given day and take notice to all the dead cats, kittens, dogs and puppies that are all over the roads. It's a HUGE problem that we have here in New Mexico. NO RESPECT FOR LIFE. Human or animal.

Did anyone see the latest story about Meadow Lake??

So sad!

[Chris]

Around the time this article came out (hadn't read it until today (May 10 2008)), my wife and I adopted a black lab from here.
I was reluctant on adopting a pet because of attachment issues, but my wife had her heart set on adopting a new family member. As adament as I was about NOT adopting for fear of losing something I had grown close to, the love and happiness of my wife prevailed. We adopted a Black Lab from here and named him Max. My wife had already met him somewhat via an online pet seaarch and had already fell in love with him. I, however, fell in love with him the moment I held him. My heart was overjoyed with the love I was reluctant to give.
The day after we adopted Max, a bit of fear set in both my wife and myself. He was not acting as a Lab puppy normally should, but we figured it was probably just him being nervous in his new enviroment. Later that evening, we tryed to feed him....no such luck. Max wasn't eating. It was now Friday and everyone was closed.
Holding on to hope, my wonderful "giving tree" wife went out and bought him some nutrilite/pedialite and a syringe to force feed him. We nurtured Max for as long as we could until we decided it was PetER time.
My head was in a spin, my only concern was for Max to pull out of this. The doctors at PetER (Bless Them), gave us the bad news...Max had distemper. My wife and I were heartbroken, mortified, furious, and all the rest of the unsavory feelings you get when something like this happens.
Hundreds of dollars later and Max's health going up and down, we laid him to rest. It has been about 2 months since this incident and the images of him pouncing on my chest and licking my entire face in the ONE rare instance where he showed his love still tug at the strings of my heart.
Thankfully, I have a truely beautiful wife that helped me through this (I know it affected her as well, but she's obviously a tad bit stronger than I). At a point after Max passed away, I became more furious at the Valencia County Animal Shelter that I wanted to just go over there and slap managment silly (just being colorfully expressive to get my point across). But my wife said, "Chris, we did all we could for Max and gave him a home that he otherwise wouldn't have had. He died knowing he was loved."

Now, my wife would still like for us to get a Big Dog, and of course now, I am less reluctant as she has helped me to see things in a differant light. However, until the Valencia County Animal Shelter can FIX their situation and managment (which is truley sad because there are alot of animals that need good homes and who are suffering at the afformentioned shelter because some dimwits don't know how to run the place), i'll look elsewhere.