Animal Clinic Faces An Uncertain Future Kootenai Humane Society Vet To Leave In June, Threatening Low-Cost Spay, Neuter Availability

The veterinarian at the Kootenai Humane Society announced on Thursday plans to resign, leaving the future of the shelter’s spay and neuter clinic in doubt.

The shelter, which has gone $55,000 in debt over the last three years, had considered dropping or down-sizing its low-cost sterilization program. Still, Dr. Sherron McKelvey’s announcement came as a surprise to director Pete Nikiforuk.

“Right now, I just don’t know which way the board is going to go on this,” Nikiforuk said. “Are we going to cut down on hours? Are we going to cut this completely? I don’t know.”

McKelvey will remain at the shelter until mid-June, fixing pets and giving shots to a backlog of animals.

But the clinic stopped taking appointments two weeks ago.

The clinic was set up in 1993 to fix animals that arrived at the shelter and were to be put up for adoption. Animals that were already fixed, officials said, would be more attractive to potential owners.

The shelter also wanted to offer low-income clients an affordable chance to sterilize their animals. Costs are are roughly 25 percent less than at other veterinary clinics.

“But over the years, it seems like the public wasn’t very good at keeping their appointments,” said Nikiforuk, who returned 10 days ago to the shelter’s helm after resigning a year ago. “And there have been very few appointments lately.”

In April, for instance, 117 animals were sterilized at the clinic. A hundred animals were destined for the shelter’s adoption center - a scant 17 were from paying clients.

The shelter’s adoption price for a dog is only $38 - but neutering a 100-pound animal costs over $50. Board members elected just two months ago began wondering whether McKelvey’s $22-an-hour position wasn’t helping create the financial burden.

Why not raise the price of adoption to help defray the costs?

“You can’t do that,” Nikiforuk said. “There are just too many people giving animals away. You can’t compete with free.”

Another big stumbling block is that even after animals have been sterilized, many are still not adopted. Those animals eventually have to be euthanized - some 2,000 animals in 1996.

Board member Joan Klein has been assigned to assess the clinic’s financial situation and whether the Humane Society will offer those services after McKelvey and her veterinary assistant, Kamiah Brown, are gone.

“We want to keep the clinic, that’s the bottom line,” Klein said. “But right now, it’s up in the air.”

She said that one problem with the clinic was that even when people made appointments, many failed to show up. Two days ago, for instance, there were four no-shows, Klein said.

“And nobody called to cancel,” Klein said. The clinic still has to pay its veterinarian, who works three days a week.

For McKelvey, the combination of uncertainty about the clinic’s future and the “need to move on professionally” fueled her decision to resign. She remains concerned that the board of directors was blaming the clinic for its accumulated financial woes.

“Eighty six percent of the animals that we did we were losing money on. When you compare adoption prices in Spokane, there’s about a 100 percent difference,” she said. “We’re doing an awful lot for pet overpopulation. It’s just not paying the bills.”

Newly elected board president Rick Lopes has more on his mind than simply the spay and neuter clinic. He still hopes to keep that open, if only for the shelter’s own animals.

But Lopes said that the shelter was designed two decades ago to accommodate animals from a county of 35,000 residents. Kootenai County now boasts a population of nearly 100,000.

With a meager 149 members of the Humane Society - whose other sources of income include the Humane Society Thrift Store and a pair of modest contracts with the city and county to help with animal control - finances are already stretched to the breaking point.

“The Humane Society is being overwhelmed by the community,” Lopes said. “Some people feel because we’re a nonprofit, we don’t need to make money. But we’ve got to replace equipment. We need help financially from the community, but we’re doing our best.”

, DataTimes