Every organization needs volunteers.

Monday, October 16, 2000

Every organization needs volunteers.

In fact, the appropriate question may be, "Who doesn’t need volunteers?"

Non-profit, reaching out, lending a helping hand, all for one and one for all – community betterment groups depend solely upon volunteers to accomplish their missions.

So important have volunteers become that each April they have their own holiday, when National Volunteer Month is celebrated. It is a time for volunteers to bask in the glow of recognition and appreciation.

It lasts but for a moment, and then it’s back to work in relative anonymity. In hospitals, nursing homes, school classrooms and other places where there are those who need help.

To be sure, most volunteers help others for the pure satisfaction of doing good and that’s the way it should be.

In most cases, the volunteer’s most treasured reward is a simple "thank you" for the person receiving the help.

But there are no "thank yous" uttered in one benevolent organization, which may need volunteers more than any other.

The Mower County Humane Society is that organization. Sure, a dog can lick a palm and a cat can purr its contentment, but that’s all.

Can a dog smile? Can a cat grin?

The volunteers of the Mower County Human Society are the best example of those volunteers who are selfless in their work. The animals come first.

Animals that others abandoned or abused.

Dogs that were cute when they were puppies, cats that were charming when they were kittens, but disposable when they grew older.

Left in roadside ditches in a rural area far enough from the city homes they knew so they won’t find their way home.

Discarded like garbage.

The animals are often weak with hunger after running wild for so long. They may be injured or diseased. They may also be emotionally damaged victims of someone’s cruelty.

The Humane Society volunteers will have to do everything for them. They will have to wash them, feed them, attend to their wounds, nurture them back to some sense of normalcy, win their trust and when they are done, they will have walked in their feces and urine.

These are, after all, animals.

Their work will also be dangerous at times. A dog’s bark could be followed by a bite. A cat’s scratch could draw blood.

Still, the volunteers will have to prevail and endure, because they were abandoned. Unwanted by their owners.

If the Mower County Human Society doesn’t care for these pets, who will?

People caring for animals

It is an October Sunday afternoon, and another open house is going on at the Humane Society’s headquarters along 10th Drive SE in Austin.

This is when people come to visit the dogs and cats and, maybe, adopt an animal.

The dogs bark excitedly, whenever somebody walks by their kennel. They thrust their noses through the bars or raise a paw to be petted. Their eyes are wide with excitement.

The cats, being the peculiar feline animals they are, are more reserved. They may pace in their cages, sit and stare at the passersby or ignore the eyes staring at them.

Nini Johnson is there. She’s a volunteer who adopted an abandoned dog in 1994. She writes a bimonthly column about the Humane Society’s work and attempts to induce readers to consider adopting a pet.

She’s also a frequent visitor to the shelter, feeding and watering the animals, cleaning kennels and cages.

"It breaks my heart. People just don’t think when they buy a pet that they have a life-long responsibility to that animal," Johnson said.

Andrea Holt, an Ellis Middle School eighth grade student and the daughter of Debbie and Bob Holt, is another volunteer. She owns a purebred Siamese cat, Sabrina, but shows every stray cat the same affection as her own.

"It’s really sad to see so many abandoned animals," said the teenager. "I don’t know why people can’t take time to take care of their own pets; especially now that it’s getting colder and winter is coming."

Molly Peterson, 11 and an EMS fifth grade student at Banfield Elementary School, was recruited to be a Humane Society volunteer by her older sister, Nicole. "I remember when she first brought me here. The dogs all looked so sad," she said.

Peterson has two fish, two dogs and three cats at her mother’s and father’s residences; so her loyalty to animals is not questioned.

Neither is Kayla Eibner’s. The 12-year-old EMS seventh grader is another Sunday afternoon volunteer. At home she has three cats, a dog and a rabbit.

"It’s really sad to see so many pets in one place that nobody wanted," she said.

On this Sunday, Jane Roden, president of the MCHS board of directors and herself an indomitable volunteer, is pleased with the number of volunteers.

There are veterans, such as Nini Johnson as well as Dianna Bryan and Audrey Weiss and the preteen and teenage girls.

The girls busy themselves with exercising the dogs in a new fenced, outdoor area or taking a cat from a cage to show someone.

Roden, Weiss, Johnson and Bryan answer questions about adoption.

Among them walks a man peering into each cat cage. "He’s been here for a couple of weeks now. He lost his pet cat. It ran off and he’s done everything he can to find it. He’s an exception," said Roden.

MCHS at capacity

Across town, the Austin Animal Shelter is less than half full.

With a capacity of 20 dogs and 20 cats, thanks in part to an expanded outside kennel area, the city’s shelter has eight dogs and eight cats at this point in time.

The city of Austin shelter keeps animals for 10 days of quarantine, but all dogs and cats found running at-large are kept for only seven days. If they are not claimed within the period of time, they are put to death.

Under a reorganization of the Austin Police Department, the city’s community service officers are now charged with the added responsibility of operating the shelter. The officers have aggressively implemented a new plan that includes pictures and posters of the pets found running loose in order to expedite their return to their rightful owners.

Contrary to the city, the Humane Society has a "no kill" policy. Except in rare situations, where illness threatens, every animal found abandoned is kept alive by the volunteers until adopted or until it dies a natural death in captivity.

Thus, a man visiting the 10th Drive Southeast shelter twice a week, searching for his lost cat, is an anomaly.

The vast majority of pets kept here face an uncertain future. The shelter is likely to become their home.

With 70 cats and 21 dogs, the Humane Society has reached its legal capacity. If the Minnesota Board of Animal Health should make one of its spot inspections and discover more than the legal limit, it could be closed down.

That’s why it doesn’t need the infrequent "surprises" that greet the volunteers when they report to work.

"The other day, when I came here there were two dogs stuffed into a cat cage we left outside the building," Roden said. "Can you imagine that?"

The animals were rescued from the cage and placed in a clean kennel, fed and watered and added to the list of pets in the shelter.

Ironically, the owner of one of the dogs came to the shelter and asked for his pet. "We couldn’t give it to him," Roden said. Pointing to a sign prominently posted in a window over the spot where the dogs were placed in a cage, the Humane Society volunteered said, "It’s against the law to do that."

The Humane Society’s new home for just over a year now is the best it has ever enjoyed, according to Roden.

She remembers, when abandoned pets were kept in the beef barn at the Mower County Fairgrounds in Austin. Each August, the animals would have to be moved to foster homes, during the annual Mower County Fair.

Then came the notorious Dixie Kennedy incident, when over 30 dogs and cats were discovered in a LeRoy Township farm home owned by the Grand Meadow woman.

The house had no electricity, and its windows were covered with black plastic garbage bags.

Inside feces and urine covered the floors. Carcasses of dead animals lay where they fell. The food and water supply was non-existent. Many of the animals had open wounds.

The Human Society’s volunteers faced their greatest challenge ever to find temporary homes for the pets, held as evidence while Kennedy was prosecuted in district court.

Richard Lang, Austin’s Third Ward city council member, rescued the rescuers, when he made available a building and property along 10th Drive Southeast, which was spacious enough to accommodate the demands placed on the shelter and visible enough for people to find it.

Now, Roden thinks the organization can better serve its four-legged clients.

Plans for updating

"We plan to replace the carpeting with linoleum and tile," she said of the portion set aside for cats. "We have a furnace in that area to keep the temperatures higher for the cats and another furnace in the dog area, because they don’t need it as warm."

New air exchanges help ventilate the interior and out front, old kennels have been recycled into fencing for a large area, where the dogs can run, while their kennels are cleaned.

The area came in handy recently when another "surprise" greeted the hard-working volunteers.

"There was this couple on their way home to Colorado, when they came along this obviously pregnant dog lying in the median of I-90," said Roden. "They picked her up and brought her into Austin and went looking for the animal shelter and found us. They left the dog with the Humane Society."

The dog, a Dalmatian, gave birth to 11 puppies.

After they were weaned, the puppies were placed for adoption. Four of the 11 pups remain.

With a grant from the Hormel Foundation, a new exercise area was constructed complete with dog runs that allow the volunteers to exercise the animals. Horsman Fencing Company of Rochester erected the fencing around the area.

Membership in the Human Society is $10 per person. "We have a lot of members and we appreciate them, but what we don’t have are a lot of active members to help us do the work," Roden said.

It’s dirty work, but necessary for the health and well-being of the animals. Cages and kennels must be cleaned. Droppings scraped and disposed. In the case of the dogs, large animals, it’s a smelly experience, but the kennels must be hosed down and then dried.

Two people working three hours can take care of the dogs and two people working about two and a half hours can handle the cats, according to Roden.

Each Tuesday, there is an open house from 4:30 to 6 p.m. and again on Sundays, 1-3 p.m., the shelter is open to the public.

Anyone wishing to volunteer may call 437-9262 and a volunteer will call back with information. Cash Wise Food and Drug and Double K Speciality help the organization with discounts on bulk purchased of pet food and kitty litter.

The Austin Veterinary Clinic continues its magnanimous efforts to help the organization with health and nutrition needs.

Spurred by the exposure of the Dixie Kennedy situation, the public responded with generous donations, that, Roden said, keep the Humane Society financially solvent.

"What people don’t understand is that we are not a government agency or service," she said. "That’s because we use the name ‘Mower County.’ We have nothing to do with county government. We are a private, not-for-profit organization depended upon all our funds from private sources."

So money and people are a concern.

Three days a week, Audrey Weiss cleans cages of kennels. Johnson writes publicity for the organization and works at the twice-weekly open houses supervising the junior volunteers in their work. Naomi Larson transports pets to the Austin Veterinary Clinic when needed. Terry and Kathy Culton are among the foster homes for pets and Mrs. Culton recruits volunteers.

Suzanne Schocker, Melody Williamson, Jill Wedeking and the Rev. Beverly Finley-Shea, pastor of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church of Lyle, also are invaluable volunteers. And, of course, the redoubtable Jane Roden.

The Humane Society is over 50 years old. When it began, it had no shelter. Abandoned pets were simply kept in foster homes, usually in the countryside, until they were claimed. For a few years, it enjoyed a kennel at a farm outside Austin or cages were rented at the Austin Animal Shelter. Then, the beef barn at the fairgrounds, with no electricity or running water and a dirt floor, was the Humane Society’s animal shelter for years.

Bob and Donna Gerlach opened their rural Austin farm to the organization’s cats and dogs when the agency was forced to move from the fairgrounds, and now the Humane Society has a home of its own.

Dianna Bryan is among the corps of long-time volunteers. "This place has made a world of difference," Bryan said on a Sunday afternoon in October, while surveying the scene of cat cages stacked neatly in rows.

Then, Bryan launches into an impassioned plea for people to consider adopted a spayed or neutered pet, while a group of junior volunteers gather around her to listen.

A couple excuse themselves and walk by the rows of cages pausing to stick a finger into a cat cage.

Minutes later, they leave the building pet-less.

On the way out, they pass a bulletin board with wanted posters.

Somebody wants Hollie, an Australian shepherd to be found and returned. Another asks for help in locating a female cat and another asks about an adult male cat, and still another asks about a dog named "Rio."

Just like the man, who keeps coming back to find his lost cat, the Humane Society is a clearing house for some pet-owners with a conscience.

Unfortunately, 70 cats and 21 dogs indicate there are more pet owners lacking a conscience.

"What we need is more people. More volunteers to do the work. There’s really only a small group of us, Audrey, Nini, Dianna and a few others. We need people," she said before chuckling at the irony. "We’ve got enough pets as you can see. We just need more people to take care of them.