by Elizabeth Cortez
Staff Writer
A dog waiting for adoption paws at its cage at the Kern County Animal Service’s former location
Kern County Animal Services Department, formerly Kern County Animal Control, has moved. According to Maggie Kalar, marketing and promotions and public information officer, “We (KCASD) are preparing to move 350 to 400 animals on Sunday with our staff and volunteers. Any animals that don’t get adopted or rescued out Sept. 27 which is our last day of open business to the public, will be transported and relocated to our new facility at 3951 Fruitvale Avenue on Sunday, and we’ll be open [Oct. 1st] for normal operations.”
“One of the reasons that we see so many animals coming into the shelter everyday every day, and sometimes we can see as many as 50 to a hundred animals coming to the shelter every day is because we don’t have people spaying and neutering their pets,” Kalar added “If people want to spay and neuter their pets we have some resources available that they can log onto our website and find.”
With the separation of the county and city shelters, the animals were moved on September the 27th. In response to the change, volunteer Jacqueline Cameron felt mixed emotions. “I feel like it’s a two sided story,” said Cameron. “I feel like in one way it’s going to eliminate of having both shelters connected, and a city and county overflow here. It’ll split it up to where the county has more space for their dogs, and the city does as well; but, I feel like they went about this the wrong way, and that is putting a lot of pressure on the community to pull the dogs faster.”
As the last day of the facility being open, it was packed with people. On the way out, Steven Grins brought over a stray dog. Grins said, “Amanda (Steven’s girlfriend) and I found the dog. I was getting my car fixed on 19th and Baker. I found him on the side of the street and Amanda has a really big heart for dogs so I just pulled over and he came right back to us.”
Grins added, “He (the dog) was really well behaved, and we took him back to our house, so we could find him a home.”
The overwhelming advice of KCASD was to spay and neuter the animals in an effort to stop putting them to sleep. In an effort to help the animals, Kalar and Cameron encouraged the public to foster animals because they are either too young, ill, or injured. For more information, the public can call (661) 321-3000.
