MASON, Mich. (AP) - For the first time in its history, Ingham County’s animal shelter last year didn’t euthanize an adoptable animal because of lack of space.
Shortly before Christmas, the shelter held an all-night adoption event that led to more than 60 adoptions and cleared out the shelter for the holiday. That also had never happened before, according to the Lansing State Journal ( https://on.lsj.com/1jtwag0 ).
The shelter offers toys and blankets for animals, dog runs, and special rooms for adoptable cats, including one known as Kitty Kingdom. A few years ago, a “surgery suite” opened.
“It’s not a dog pound. It’s a safe place where animals can be comfortable,” said Jamie McAloon Lampman, who is leaving at the end of this month after nine years as Animal Control director. She has taken a job with a Chattanooga, Tenn., animal shelter. Anne Burns, the current deputy director, will serve as interim director.
During her tenure, McAloon Lampman has transformed the Mason-based agency into what many consider the best in the state.
“She has brought the shelter light years away from where it was when she got here,” said Lorna Elliott-Egan, a former chair of Animal Control’s volunteer advisory board. “It’s probably the number one government-operated shelter in the state, as far as policy and innovation.”
When McAloon Lampman arrived in late-2004, the agency was selling animals for research. Animals were even being traded for containers of saw dust, which the shelter was using instead of kitty litter. There was no program for spaying and neutering.
In 2004, the shelter took in more than 6,000 animals - the majority of those dogs and cats. Among McAloon Lampman’s first initiatives was to require that animals the shelter offered for adoption had to be spayed or neutered.
The agency also has led or participated in numerous spaying and neutering efforts.
As a result, the shelter has seen a steady decrease in the numbers of animals it takes in annually. Last year, it received just over 3,300, the lowest number in at least a decade.
McAloon Lampman - a native of upstate New York who previously headed the Calhoun County Humane Society, a nonprofit, and an animal sanctuary in Norman, Okla. - brought a nonprofit mindset to the county agency.
“Whatever we wanted, we raised the funds for it,” she said.
The agency had a $1.4 million budget last year and generated more than $710,000 in revenue, county records show. In recent years, it has averaged about $170,000 in donations and grants.
The surgery room, for example, was paid for through donations, a state grant and county funds. Each comprised about one third of the total, McAloon Lampman said. It’s used for spaying and neutering and minor surgeries.
An annual dog walk pays for most of the animal cruelty investigations.
Three years ago, when county budget cuts threatened to eliminate one of the officer positions, the agency raised enough money to pay the officer’s salary and benefits, about $67,000 a year. There are now seven officers.
The shelter, which has a staff of 16, also has a small army of more than 300 volunteers, as well as about 75 homes available for foster care of animals. Back in 2004, there were a few dozen volunteers, McAloon Lampman said.
“Without Jamie’s direction, the shelter wouldn’t have the vast volunteer resource pool to carry out the programs she has set in place,” said Liz Kranz, who adopted a dog from the shelter in 2006 and now chairs the advisory board. Those programs include mobile adoptions, vaccination clinics and an outreach center in Lansing.
The outreach center, which opened a year ago in a house on West Saginaw Street, offers services including vaccinations as well as a pet food bank that has dispensed thousands of pounds of food. Animal Control pays the county Land Bank $1 a year for the house.
Julia Palmer, president of the Capital Area Humane Society, has witnessed the transformation of Animal Control during McAloon Lampman’s tenure.
“Historically, animal control is viewed as a negative thing,” Palmer said. “She’s worked really hard to present her organization in a positive light, showing the good things they do - saving lives and preventing cruelty.”
McAloon Lampman said she is proud of her accomplishments. She said the support of the community and county board of commissioners was essential.
“People in Ingham County are so loud and vocal about how animals are treated,” she said. “It made my job easy.”
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Information from: Lansing State Journal, https://www.lansingstatejournal.com
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