Time for new kennels

Dear Editor:

My heart goes out to the animals that were recently seized and being kept at the Animal Control facility on Rt. 9. I see them every day when I pass by. Jason Pearce and Jody McClintock have done a wonderful job in trying to care for them under far from ideal circumstances.

The situation brings home the point that the county kennels are inadequate and inhumane. They were never meant to be permanent and after more than 10 years, it is time to close them. There is no point wasting money to try to fix something that is unfixable.

The county has many pieces of property other than the hospital grounds where new kennels could be built. Amy Lane wrote in her letter last week that if the county sold the current kennels, the price to build new kennels would be about 1% of the cost of the courthouse. Since Animal Control makes up 1% of the total budget, that seems like a reasonable and rational solution to the current problem.

The recent animal seizure is not an anomaly. It might have been unusual for the number of animals involved, but it happens several times a year. So do litters of puppies and large numbers of abandoned dogs. Commissioners Dugan and Close need to realize that keeping the status quo is not a solution but merely a continuation of the problem.

The problem cannot be solved with bandaids. New kennels should have been built long ago. It is time to solve the problem. That can only be done by closing the current kennels and building new ones elsewhere.

Christine Lina
Berkeley Springs