Waterville Humane Society: Finding homes for lonely animals

Located on Webb Road, the Humane Society Waterville Area shows that shelters should always guarantee animals the treatment they deserve. 

Beyond simply providing a temporary home for animals to stay, this no-kill shelter also implemented several programs to increase pet adoption rates while ensuring that every animal’s physical and emotional needs were met. Even during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this animal shelter has kept their programs afloat, improvising whenever necessary to meet its mission. 

Though COVID-19 has complicated the operations of the organization, the Humane Society Waterville Area developed better ways to run in spite of the recent challenges. For instance, the Doggy Day Trip program allowed Waterville residents to check dogs out from the shelter for a few daytime hours.

“There are so many benefits to the program,” Lisa Oakes, the Humane Society Executive Director, said. “A lot of times people will take them out for a hike, or, during the summer, out for a swim. It gives the dogs time out of the shelter, which is so critical. And it also gives us more insight into their behavior outside of the shelter and some socialization.”

The shelter also offers a Slumber Pup program  an extension of the Doggy Day Care program where dogs can be checked out for two nights. On several occasions, participants in these programs grew attached to the dog they checked out, even so much as to permanently adopt them. 

“With the Slumber Pup Program, you go ‘Oh no, now they’re a part of my household! I have to keep them forever,’” Oakes remarked with a laugh. 

Pet adoption rates have also increased nationwide, a statistic many have attributed to the continuing pandemic. The Humane Society Waterville Area witnessed this increase first-hand as more pets were adopted from their shelter than ever before. 

“We have seen an increase in both fostering and in adopting because people are working from home or they are quarantining. Or they're gonna, for the foreseeable future, be working from home anyways,” Oakes said. “And so they see that as an opportunity to spend time with an animal, where they normally wouldn’t. It’s really been an incredible time for animals.”

At the Humane Society Waterville Area, almost anyone can foster an animal. 

“We have a group on facebook called HSWA Foster and we tend to post animals that need fostering in that group. Anybody that has been approved in that group can apply to be a foster for that animal,” Oakes said. “We do have some criteria that we follow, like we require any animals in the foster’s home to be up-to-date on their vaccines.”

Unfortunately, in some shelters, animal life is not always the priority. Some states even mandate animal euthnasia in the event that a shelter is at maximum capacity. The Humane Society Waterville Area, however, identifies as a no-kill shelter because they do not believe it is ethical to euthanize an animal solely for the preservation of shelter resources. 

“We are considered no-kill because we do not euthanize animals for space or time. We reach out and we find other options for animals,” Oakes explained. “For example, if we have a dog that we know could be placed in a home but we are not finding anybody in this area - well, we actually had a dog like that. We transferred him down to an organization in New York City that helped to rehabilitate him so he could go into a forever home.”

Fortunately, laws in the Northeast have more protective regulations in place regarding animal welfare compared to other regions of the country. In Southern states, for example, euthanasia mandates are the norm. 

“We took in over 500 dogs from the South last year, alone, and found them homes up here. They’re highly adoptable dogs, but they just don’t have the space,” Oakes said. 

It’s not always the people in the shelters, but the lack of protective regulations in either the county or state that sometimes mandate unethical practices.  

“It’s a really tough situation,” Oakes explained “There are some wonderful people who are trying their best to help, and they’re saving all of the dogs that they possibly can. Most of the shelters up here do their best to take the burden.”

On a more optimistic note, the Waterville shelter made some helpful discoveries during the pandemic that will help refine their future adoption practices. 

“Because of COVID[-19], we have had to modify that, and it's only adoptions by appointment now, which is what a lot of shelters are doing,” Oakes noted. “We found that that has lowered the stress level of all of the dogs tremendously because it can be a lot of stress on a dog in a kennel to have strangers walking by and putting their fingers in their kennels. It’s unexpected, but it's been a blessing in disguise for the dogs especially.”

Overall, the Humane Society Waterville Area’s unconventional efforts to increase pet adoption prioritized animal life from the outset, an ethos which many other organizations could learn from. Even amid a pandemic, this shelter put in the work to prioritize their animals’ welfare and made a discovery that could change the future of animal care for the better. 

~ Jenna Boling `24