Fundraiser successful

LAHARPE — Allen County Animal Rescue Facility took in $2,950 and fed close to 500 people during a fundraiser at the LaHarpe Veterans of Foreign Wars Post Friday night. Funds will go to the agency’s spay and neuter fund.
Josh Oberley of Modern Woodmen will match $2,500 of the proceeds to help purchase large animal cages.
Expenses were kept to a minimum with pulled pork and coleslaw donated by Iola’s Jump Start Travel Center, buns donated by Moon’s IGA in Humboldt and homemade desserts and sides brought by volunteers.
“At one point, we had people lined up down the street,” organizer Ona Chapman said.
The crowds kept flowing in, all the way through 7 p.m.
“We ran out of potato salad twice,” Chapman said. Buns, chili and “just about everything” were also gone or in short supply by night’s end.
Iola elementary schools’ Drumming Circle, middle school Bucket Brigade and Band entertained the packed Post throughout the evening.
At about 7, the crowds flowed across the street for shelter tours.
There, they were told the original plan of filling the space with “primo” two-sided Starlight kennels with a guillotine door between has been temporarily put on hold in favor of less-expenses box kennels available through Orscheln’s.
“We’re going to buy enough of these so we can open,” tour leader Jeanne Cloud told one group. “Orscheln’s has given us a wonderful deal,” she said.
The new kennels can be sponsored for $200 each. A plaque with a person or pet’s name will be permanently affixed to the kennels if so sponsored, Cloud said. A couple Starlight kennels already bore the name of the late Mike Diebolt, animal lover and ACARF supporter.

LOVE OF animals and understanding they are victims seemed to be the main motivation for people’s support of the new shelter.
“These animals add so much to our lives,” long-time ACARF supporter Ray Shannon said. “I think there’s an intense need,” to help them once abandoned, he said.
“It’s ridiculous how people dump dogs and cats,” agreed Gas resident Larry Robertson.
“We had one cat come last winter — it had been declawed.” Obviously, it was someone’s pet, Robertson said, but no longer wanted. Another of his cats “We got at the Iola Vet Clinic” Robertson said. it, too, had been dumped.
Erin Rhoads’ family also adopts foundling pets.
“My mom and dad have 80 acres outside of Neosho Falls,” she said. “Every one of their pets has been dumped — 15 years of pets. Right now, they’ve got a litter of kittens,” Rhoads said. The mother cat, ready to give birth, was dumped at their farm, she said. “They’ve had them all spayed and neutered,” Rhoads said of the kitten clutch.
Her parents’ Irish Setter cross was also an abandoned pet, she said. “It’s a beautiful dog.”
As a teenager, Rhoads used to work at Topeka’s Helping Hands Humane Society, she said.
“There’s a real need” for a local shelter, she said. “One of the big things when people are looking (to dispose of a pet) is where would we take them to be responsible?” she said. With no shelter, the side of the road is often chosen.
Rhoads doesn’t blame the animals. Pet-unfriendly rental policies often lead to dumping, she noted. “When people move they can’t keep their pets,” so they dump them, she said.
But the life of a stray isn’t healthy for anyone, she said.
“They can carry diseases; it’s not good for them.”
And she said, it’s not good for the community.
“There’s fifty thousand stray dogs in Neosho Falls” she said. “If you don’t have a place to put them, no one enforces catching them.”

THE ACARF shelter will open once enough kennels are purchased to line the walls, Cloud said.
“There is no one on the face of this earth more anxious to (see ACARF) open than this board,” she said.
Interviews for a shelter director will also begin soon, she said.