LIVINGSTON — Residents of Livingston Parish could see a new animal shelter facility with new services by next year after officials and supporters broke ground this week. Executive Director of the Humane Society of Louisiana Jeff Dorson said the new shelter will not only be good for Livingston Parish, but for the entire state, which has shelters in less than half of its parishes.
The new shelter will be offer to help with services like “animal control,” owner surrenders, and responding to animal welfare calls. These services are something that the parish has been in need of for a long time, according to Dorson.
Dorson said he personally started attending meetings in Livingston regarding the creation of a parish-wide shelter 30 years ago because of the need that was already present.
“Livingston has been full of strays and abandoned animals for decades,” he said. “This is a huge moment for those here who care about animals.”
A new animal shelter was one of Parish President Randy Delatte’s campaign promises. Dorson praised the parish president and council for keeping their word and starting the process of a parish-wide site to ease the burden of the local shelters and rescue organizations.
The Humane Society of Louisiana is based out of New Orleans, but Dorson said he and his team regularly travel to Livingston Parish to help out rescues and others with abandoned, mistreated and abused animals.
Dorson said the new shelter will mean relief for the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office, which regularly receives many calls about neglected and abused animals but may not always be able to respond.
The new shelter will also ease the burden on local rescues that take in animals using their own expenses and rely on donations to operate, he added. Many of these rescues also lack space and other resources for the influx of animals that they take care of every year.
Dorson hopes that this new shelter in Livingston Parish will be a way to get more shelters started in the state. He said over half the state does not have an animal shelter.
“It’s an enormous problem when you have half of our state unable to provide these services. That means there’s probably hundreds of thousands of stray animals reproducing or suffering because there’s no place to put them,” he said.
Livingston Parish as an example to the state
The Humane Society of Louisiana has a 10-year plan regarding pet overpopulation to help convince lawmakers and government leaders across the state to focus on building more animal shelters. Dorson said the new animal shelter in Livingston Parish will be the example to illustrate how other parishes can also create their own fully functioning animal control and shelters.
“Livingston is an example; it’s a quasi-rural area finally addressing the problem and funding it appropriately. It does take money and resources, but if we don’t do it, we look bad in the eyes of the nation that we can’t take care of stray animals,” Dorson explained.
Louisiana and other states in the South have problems with both the overpopulation of strays and a lack of adopters, which in turn means relying on other states to take on animals not getting adopted here. This is why so many rescues will transport dogs to other states.
He said spay and neuter programs and breeding ordinances are methods other states have used with great success, but Louisiana remains behind the pack.
Currently, the Livingston Parish Shelter runs with a small staff, and only has services for dogs, according to info on its website. It also does not pick up strays or allow drop offs/owner surrenders.
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