By Sierra Shepard
Copy Editor
sshepard@smwc.edu
One black kitten with green eyes sits quietly in a pet cage in the front room of the Terre Haute Humane Society, while its sibling plays in the litter box. The room smells of a mixture of dog, cat and filth. Five more cats play and rest in two other cages to the left. A tortoiseshell colored kitten chases its tail and spins around in circles in its litter box. Another lays by itself and hisses at any people or other cats who come by it. The others reach between the spaces in the cages to paw at the children admiring them, struggling to pick out their favorite kitten.
Dogs bark, whine and growl in a room down the hall. Some lay asleep on their pet-cots, and a few sit quietly and wag their tails at people passing by. One of the quiet ones is an emaciated Mastiff.
Some of the dogs have notes on their cages that warn of traits like jumping fences, aggression or chewing. Other notes have happy faces drawn on them and say the dog has been adopted.
Photo by Sierra Shepard/The Woods
The puppy room is the most crowded, with kids and couples searching for a pet to love and care for. The puppies are just as eager to love back, wagging their tails and jumping to get as close as they can to people leaning over the gate, then licking hands and chewing sleeves of sweatshirts and coats.
“A lot of them have never known love,” said Jessica Hoffman, manager at the Terre Haute Humane Society.
Hoffman graduated with a Master’s in Leadership Development from SMWC in 2011. Hoffman said she entered the program “specifically so I could do this job.” She started out as a volunteer, but said “giving animals a second chance” inspired her to do more.
Hoffman’s own dog came from the Terre Haute Humane Society. He was aggressive, she said, and was about to be put down. The dog had burn marks on his legs and sores from over-licking them. Hoffman took him in with the intention of just fostering the dog, but fell in love with him.
“He went from scared and insecure to secure and loving,” Hoffman said. “When you’re scared you want to put up a wall.” Hoffman said that is where her dog’s aggression stemmed from.
“You’re really saving a life [when you adopt from a shelter],” Hoffman said.
The Terre Haute Humane Society helped over 6,400 animals in 2009 and 2010 and found homes for 93% of those animals, compared to saving 33% of their animals in 2000.
Photo by Sierra Shepard/The Woods
“The importance of getting your pets spayed and neutered cannot be stressed enough,” said Tiffany Rusin, an SMWC senior.
A goal of the Terre Haute Humane Society is to “control animal overpopulation by spaying and neutering every animal that goes out our doors.”
Rusin sometimes works with her mother, a veterinarian, at the Clay County Humane Society.
Shelters also stress the importance of “adopting pets, rather than buying them from a breeder,” said Rusin. Hoffman also made this point.
While the animal shelter does not ask for donations particular to the winter months, they always appreciate donations from their wish list, which be seen in complete form on their website. One of the best ways to help, though, is to volunteer, according to the Terre Haute Humane Society.
Volunteers must first go through a volunteer orientation. Orientations are the fourth Saturdays of every month. SMWC students are sometimes involved in volunteering with the Terre Haute Humane Society, including at PetSmart’s adoption events.
“I had some free time, and I know how much humane societies appreciate help. There are always so many animals and usually so few people, so helping a humane society really means a lot to both the animals that live there and the humans that work there,” said Lauren Sutton, a junior at The Woods.
“I’ve adopted two pets from the shelter in my hometown,” said Sutton. “One was a two year old dog named Lexi. We’ve had her about four years now, and she loves us as much as we love her. The second was a little black kitten named Peri that my mom and I fostered this past summer. We were supposed to give him back to the Humane Society to be put up for adoption once he was old enough, but we fell in love with him and decided to keep him.”
For more information on how you can help out, go to www.thhs.org and look for emails from SMWC to see when other students are helping out.
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