I love my animal shelter. I love it in ways that are perhaps similar to the way one loves a spouse or a friend; even though it is difficult, and requires hard work, even though it makes me sad and at times very angry, it also makes me very happy and full of joy. My shelter is a municipal shelter. It is technically what is termed a "pound". Even though the word seems archaic, and the connotations it evokes make me cringe, a "pound" is different from other animal services. It refuses almost no animal through its doorway. We accept all strays from our county, regardless of whether or not we have an open cage. We take in hundreds of what we call "owner relinquish" animals each year. These are pets that are no longer wanted by their owners. Rarely do we turn these owned animals away. We, as a municipality, are funded by the city. We have definitely felt the impact of our wounded economy these past couple of years, as our budget was cut and shrunk to almost nonexistence. We exist within the city's police department, and so are also charged with animal control. This means that we enforce local and state laws and do public safety as it is concerned with stray or roaming animals, animal bites, wildlife issues, neglect or cruelty investigations, as well as education and disaster response. We offer support and assistance to the community in the form of subsidized low cost spay/neuter funding, emergency housing for pets and a pet food bank. We depend heavily on our volunteers and donations. We are a small shelter in comparison to many other places, we take in approximately 3,000 animals per year. We are able to house about 80 cats and 30 dogs. We are almost always full to capacity. Winter is a little slower than spring and summer (currently, we have 73 cats in the shelter, plus more in foster homes, and 16 dogs). Because we have a smaller intake than some other shelters, we are able to get around some of the more difficult issues other places deal with; We are able to interact with and get to know each individual animal very well. We are also able to not have a time limit on our animals' stay. Iowa City is growing, and we are feeling those changes. Even before we lost our facilities to the flood of '08, we had outgrown that building years before. Now, we are almost able to hold as many cats in our temporary location as we had in our old one, but there are times where every cage is occupied and we have plastic kitty carriers stacked upon each other with cats inside of them, as well. The time for a new animal shelter has long since passed, but the devastation of the flood has allowed the community to really see where we are lacking and give us the publicity we needed to gain support for a capital fund raising campaign.
Visit the shelter online: www.icanimalcenter.org
and our fund raising foundation: www.facf.org