New Web Site For County Animal Shelter

By Ted Cox
tcox@garrardcentralrecord.com

Garrard animal lovers now have a near virtual location in which they can get to know area animals in need of adoption.

The Garrard County Animal Shelter launched garrardanimals.com on February 10 with adoption information for the pets available through the shelter.

“I'm absolutely pleased with the work put into that by Sue Dawson, Sharon Graham and Traci Cole at the shelter,” Judge-Executive John Wilson said. “It's a first class web page that I think everyone in Garrard County can really be proud of. We've come a long way. When I was elected to office there was no web page at all for the entire county. Now we not only have a county web page the animal shelter even has it's own page. We've come a long way and we're very proud of that.”

The site focuses on main the mission of the shelter. “One of those focuses is to support adoptions and the second educate the public to have healthier, happier and safer animals within our community,” Dawson, who volunteered to design the site, said. “To focus on that we needed to get our adoption information up on there to really see the animals, see their pictures and engage with them through a story we call a 'tale' which gives some background on the animals.”

Dawson is hoping to continue the website to support the rest of that mission, which is to get more education and information out to the community focusing on animals, how best to care for them, how to keep them safe and keep them healthy.

“The adoptions down here have increased since Sue has done this for us,” Graham said. “It has made a world of difference. She was a godsend to us.”

Due to scheduling conflicts the site was delayed until the second week in February.

“We gave her free reign. She's in charge, and she's the administrator. She's put 100 percent into this website.” Graham said of Dawson.

The process of adoption remains the same as in the past, despite the new technology used online.

Patrons must still come in and you meet the animal to see if everything goes good as far as communication between the owner and the animal.

“We get their reaction too just as well as yours. The animals and their feelings come first,” Graham said.

Costs for adoptions are $76.50 for dogs, including spay or neutering, worming, rabies vaccination, parvo and other vaccinations and county license if the animal is kept in Garrard. The cost is $55 for cats.

Microchipping is available as an option left up to owner through Lancaster Veterinary Clinic. The shelter urges everybody to participate, but does not require it.

The shelter has also set up a Facebook page allowing them to raise awareness and send information to a large group of people.

“The Facebook page allows us to spread information such as how to contact us, how to surrender an animal or how to adopt an animal, but for more specific information it allows us to traffic people over to the website,” Dawson said. “The other thing the Facebook page does is allow us to use it as a feedback mechanism. People can give suggestions. It becomes a two way portal for sending and receiving information whereas the website only allows to get the information out.”

The site will receive constant updates on a nearly daily basis depending upon activity at the shelter.

“Stay tuned to the website. We'll have information about events that help support our adoption activities, hopefully it will become an information hub for those who are interested in adopting or have adopted and for people in our communities that may see animals in need of rescue to get the information to us. So make sure to stay tuned and not just check the website once because new information will be flowing in continuously,” Dawson said.

You can visit the Garrard County Animal Shelter Facebook page or web site at www.garrardanimals.com for more information on the shelter, adoptions and other contact information.

“We have a shelter full of sweet babies here,” Graham said.