New Leadership at the Animal Care Center

GRANTS, N.M. – With the retirement of Sheri Baisden from the Animal Care Center in Grants, a new director has been hired to fill that void. His name is Dale Kuehnert. He started his career in public service with parks and recreation in California. He has also traveled throughout the country for several different national and international companies in a corporate setting up until he settled down here earlier this year. The staff at the Animal Control Center is currently up to five people including him. According to Kuehnert, he would like to put a focus on communication with the community about what the facility does, as well as how the public can assist them in stabilizing the overcrowding that the shelter constantly faces. He stated that his biggest concern is educating the community on the need to sterilize their animals to reduce the continuing issue of overpopulation. Transports to rescues are crucial to keep the volume of animals under control. The shelter is almost always at full capacity due to this issue. Because of this, he also said that some people have even taken to dropping off animals randomly at the gate, making the issue worse. Kuehnert said that the ordinances that the shelter is currently working on improving could lead to citations and even the arrest of people responsible for this. He believes that through a better connection with the community and growth through education on these subjects, the issues they face can be overcome in the future. A goal he currently has is to increase public awareness by starting to plan events to talk with kids in our school district and at other public entities about the responsibilities of pet ownership.

Kuehnert reiterated that the main problems the community here faces are that people are choosing not to spay or neuter their pets, get them all their vaccinations, and don’t keep them contained on their property. This leads to much of the overcrowding issues they face. He stressed what he would like to work towards is that if a pet is picked up off the street by them, the pet will not be released from the shelter unless it is sterilized and the owner pays for the fees. He would also like for people to understand that the shelter needs to keep some form of space available for emergencies, such as someone getting into an accident and their pets will need to be picked up and cared for, or if an animal attacks someone and they have no choice but to bring it in. This leads into the topic of euthanasia. Kuehnert said that the way they handle this will not change and the Animal Care Center will only ever do so if absolutely necessary. Most of the staff is currently in training in order to do so.

The shelter would still like to accept volunteers who would like to help stressed and nervous animals become ready for adoption. They are however looking to change the hours of public access in the care center to make more time for staff to clean the facility in the morning and before closing. The hours in the future could be from 10am to 3pm, Monday through Friday. He did say that if volunteers are walking dogs, staying until 4pm may be fine.