Angel Paws’ goals are to help animals, be financially sound

Published 2:00 pm Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Angel Paws Adoption Center, the animal shelter operated by the Iberia Parish Humane Society, has changed its policies to reduce overcrowding and improve animal health. Its next goal is to guarantee it’s financially secure to continue caring for animals. 

“Money does trickle in to cover what we don’t raise, but it’s something you can’t foresee,” board president Autry Berard said. “We’ve been lucky in the past where we’ve had those funds have come in.”

Berard said the shelter’s annual Paw-ty raises about $32,000 for the shelter and its Walk in the Park fundraiser brings in between $5,000 and $6,000. It costs about $146,000 to operate the shelter, however, leaving donations to cover more than $100,000 in expenses. 

This year, Angel Paws is one of the 10 nonprofit agencies in the Teche Area selected by The Daily Iberian for its Help the Helpers campaign. The campaign spotlights a program each day to encourage readers to consider donating to one or all of the agencies during this holiday season.

Shelter director Rocky Gates had 20 years of experience running her own animal rescue before taking over Angel Paws in March. 

She said the shelter generally has about 100 to 125 animals on any given day, which is just about evenly split between cats and dogs. 

“We take in any dog or cat that we have room for,” Gates said. 

But that’s where the problem comes in. 

Gates said she has to turn away up to 30 cats every day.

“It seems like there’s a never ending supply of kittens,” she said. 

She said she would like to develop a low-cost spay/neuter program for cats similar to or in conjunction with Spaynation in Lafayette. 

Gates also said the shelter is somewhat limited in the types of dogs it can take because it doesn’t have the capability to place single dogs in kennels. 

“They have to be able to get along with other dogs,” she said. 

“We may not be able to handle a dog with a naturally aggressive temperament.” 

But with the animals that the shelter has accepted, Gates said, it has been successful in having adopted. 

She said the shelter has been using Facebook as well as a site called Pet Portal to get pet information out to up to 19 different sites where people can search for animals. Gates said people have responded, coming from across the state and even out-of-state.

In addition to the increased web presence, Gates said having new hours, including weekends, allows more people to see what the shelter has to offer: happy, healthy animals.

“Adopt an animal first,” Gates said. “I know there are a lot of good breeders, but people would be surprised at the breeds we have. Just come visit us. Come see our new facility.”

Donations to Angel Paws and or other featured agencies can be mailed to Help the Helpers at The Daily Iberian, P.O. Box 9290, New Iberia, LA, 70562, or delivered to the newspaper office at 926 E. Main St. Checks can be made payable to Help the Helpers.