Ashland Virginia is a
small suburb a couple miles outside the large city of Richmond Virginia. Randolph Macon College calls Ashland home
which means the town is full of college students, professors, and
employees. Even though the town is
considered a suburb Ashland does not fit the description. Some houses stand three stories high while
some only have one floor, but every house has a nice size yard. Cats, dogs, and other animals are common
hear. It seems like there are at least
five or six dogs on every street.
Hunting is also a common activity in Ashland Virginia. Hunters will take to the woods with packs of
up to 20 hounds to assist in finding their prey. With all these K9’s a lot get loose and the
county pound doesn’t have enough man power to keep them all off the
streets. That’s where the Hanover Humane
Society comes in.
The Hanover Humane Society is a non-profit organization
that does a lot for not only the K9 residents of Hanover County but their owners
and the residents that don’t own pets as well.
The Humane Society does many different things to help the
residents of Ashland but one is finding lost K9’s new homes, and they do this
many different ways.
Alva Hughes a former volunteer at Hanover Humane Society
explained to me about the foster parent system.
A volunteer can sign up to be a foster home for a dog while Hanover
Humane finds a permanent home for them.
The example she gave me was of a dog named “Five”. Five was found walking around in a field with
a number five spray painted of his side.
It was thought that he was a hunting dog but when nobody claimed him he
was put in a foster home while he waited to be adopted by a permanent family. What is so great about the foster program is
that the foster parent can also try to adopt the animal and it gives the animal
a chance to be better socialized before he/she finds their new home. But being a foster parent is a very big
commitment, there are many ways people volunteer and help the Hanover Humane
Society.
Ms. Hughes was a helper at the pound when the Hanover
Humane society had eight cages in the pound for their dogs. She told me that the Hanover Humane society
used to pick eight dogs that were going to be put down because of various reasons
and keep them in the eight cages. One of
the things she would do is take a dog one at a time into a separate enclosure
and let them exercise, play with them, or even walk the dogs that were already
home trained. She told me that the dogs
wouldn’t want to go in the cages because they have been taught not to do
so. It was extremely important for dogs
that were already house trained to stay house trained because that would help
them in their case to be adopted.
This has changed in the last couple years as the Hanover
Humane Society purchased the Yopaka Kennels.
This gives the Hanover Humane Society a lot more room to care for stray
dogs and give care to dogs in the community.
The kennel can hold up to 71 dogs and the upstairs apartments in the
house will be used as living quarters for the 24 hour staff that will be
working at the Yopaka Kennels. Dogs that
are boarded are kept separate from the rescue dogs but each will have their own
individual dog run. (A dog run is a separate enclosure outside of the indoor
part of the kennel. The dogs have the
option of going outside or staying inside.)
The Yopaka Kennels also offer a gift shop, grooming
services, and the paw paw path a walking trail that winds through the woods
around their facilities.
The Hanover Humane Society does a lot for Hanover
County. They make sure that these
animals aren’t running loose through neighborhoods and in the streets where and
encounter could end bad for animal and human, but they give these animals a
good chance at a better life. If there wasn’t
a Hanover Humane Society a lot of these dogs would probably have to be put down
because of space running out at the county pound. The residents of Hanover County and their
dogs are thankful for the Hanover Humane Society and the volunteer services of people
like Alva Hughes.
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