Humane Society makes a summer plea for help

It was a typical day Thursday at the Whitman County Humane Society in Pullman – dogs barked, rats paced, cats meowed.

The only thing missing was a human volunteer.

Leslie Krieger, director of shelter operations, said despite having 50 to 75 active volunteers on deck, many, especially college students, leave for the summer. At the same time, the need for their help increases.

“We had, at one point, over 50 cats in the building,” Krieger said.

“When you don’t have help, we have to feed, medicate and clean and make everything presentable before the public comes in at 1.”

Krieger is experienced in working at animal shelters, coming from a previous job with Seattle Humane in Bellevue.

Having spent a year so far in Pullman, Krieger said she has noticed trends unique to a college town demographic that affect the needs of the shelter, including the number of animals in need of re-homing and large turnover rates for the shelter’s volunteers.

The total number of animal bodies in the cat shelter, which also houses rabbits, rats and mice, is now at about 40. A handful of dogs stay in a separate shelter on the property.

The shelter has even started to close its doors to the public Thursdays to catch up on work and prepare for veterinarians to do check-ups on the animals.

“It definitely gets very crazy here and we very much value our volunteers,” animal care attendant Carly Borba said.

Borba, a student of animal science at Washington State University, was missing her pets she left at home when she started college, so she started volunteering for the shelter a year ago.

Now, Borba fosters three animals off-campus while working in a paid, part-time position for the shelter. When volunteers are scarce, she and other staff members are doing laundry, cleaning litter boxes, walking dogs and socializing with animals.

Management has asked for help through the shelter’s Facebook page, advertising a need for weekend volunteers to help with animal care and cleaning.

“It is a lot of hard work and some of it’s not so glamorous,” Krieger said, laughing as a cat kicked litter in its litter box.

Still, everything boils down to helping an animal’s stay be shorter, Krieger said. Without volunteers to make sure animals stay clean and healthy, they could become sick, making their stay at the shelter longer.

In addition, the shelter has recently posted about its need of clumping or non-clumping cat litter, fresh fruit and vegetables, CareFresh Timothy Hay, cat toys, long-string cat toys without feathers, laundry soap, Pate dog and cat food and bedding.

A Facebook post from the shelter asking for cat food says the shelter goes through more than 20 cans of wet food a day for kittens.

“This summer, we just had a really great response with posting those pleas,” Krieger said.

But the need is always there, no matter what time of year, Krieger said. With a litter box for each cat, resources deplete quickly.

The shelter accepts donations 1-6 p.m. every day but Sundays and Thursdays. Donations can also be shipped to the shelter’s address at 1340 SE Old Moscow Road, Pullman, WA 99163. Those interested in volunteering for the shelter can visit http://www.whitmanpets.org/volunteer/.