(Lyman) A local veterinarian is surveying the citizens of Cass County about whether or not they would support a county shelter and animal support system.
Doug Swain, with the Lyman Vet Clinic, said as a veterinarian he personally sees the need.
“We’ve really struggled over the years with cases of stuff that’s either been hit and brought in by customers or the Sheriff’s Office inquiring. For example one Sunday, we take emergency work, but the Sheriff’s Department called us five times on a Sunday afternoon to locate a dog’s owner and really the County doesn’t have anything formal set up with protocols on what the Deputies or local veterinarians or public is really supposed to do with it, so it kind of initiated my going after trying to get something formal set up,” explained Swain.
Doug Swain said the County Supervisors claim there is not enough initiative in the County to want to get a shelter started.
“My argument, at least so far the results that I’ve got seems to be pretty encouraging. I’m going to try to shoot for about 10-percent of the County population on the survey, so we’re probably going to try to do some door-to-door stuff because not everybody in on Facebook,” said Swain. “The County has about 13,600 at the last Census and so we’re going to shoot for 1,300 to 1,400 survey takers and then we’ll actually really know what is going on.”
The survey states that ‘support of a Cass County shelter will involve consideration of remodeling of an existing building/property that will fulfill the goals of the animal support system prior to consideration of building a new facility. Several grants are available for the initial organization and startup, but, donations and county wide support will be needed.’
“We don’t need a Cadillac facility, we need something that is very functional and so from a taxpayer standpoint we certainly don’t want to put a burden on the County,” said Swain. “I think there really is a need. In modern society the generation that is going to get the most benefit out of this is certainly not retirees, it’s young people. I really encourage some of the younger population to come together. I think with the younger generation, the perception on animal care has really changed. The spending, for example, in the veterinarian medical world has went up in the last ten years about 30 to 40-percent. Most animals are considered members of the family and so I think we can really do better.”
A copy of the survey can be found here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf52LulNwBdEarKyBmiEbdLMxNhZEvOp_J9pSTfVttvisEjEg/viewform?fbclid=IwAR1P7r0uLPgRQYfobz4hDxYFG68eyqUyJiSG_5KgzdJklbLhTjCrTpO9ANE