Hooray For Rathdrum!

Every once in awhile my heart soars. Such was the case this morning when I read the headline in the Coeur d'Alene Press Rathdrum inks contract with Humane Society!

I write posts quite often questioning why the county and the towns within will not get together on one regional shelter for our unwanted furry friends.

We have a no kill Humane Society. Why don't we make it into what it should and could be? Last go round the Sheriff and Coeur d'Alene were trying to figure out the funding for a new pound. A kill facility. Why? The county apparently has the land. Why not work with the Humane Society? The question has yet to be answered. Though I have a few thoughts of my own.

Maybe the first step has been taken by Rathdrum. Good things are happening there. They now have a professional city manager. The new mayor is dynamite. I met him while attending organizational meetings for the skate board park effort. The police chief, who is responsible for this transaction, is a dog lover. I know that for a fact for I had a long phone conversation with him last spring when Rathdrum was having problems with loose dogs. He too was looking at a pound but, fortunately, the funding wasn't there. He was looking at it reluctantly. That I know.

The Coeur d'Alene facility was closed and was contracting with Post Falls. Post Falls is now overloaded, thus the county's renewed effort. And here sits the Humane Society working with Rathdrum because there was no place else to go. Lucky dogs, those Rathdrum strays. They have a chance at life.

Other small communities have similar problems. Where to go and what to do? Killing the animals isn't success. It's failure. Failure of those who can make a regional no kill facility happen and refusing to do so. Failure of the community to get behind one concept and make it work. It seems to me if this community can build a house for Shasta they sure as heck can build one for those who have no options of their own.

What's happening between Rathdrum and the Humane Society may seem like a baby step - but let me tell you, to those of us who love animals it's huge!