HOPKINS CO., KY (WFIE) -
The final design is approved and construction is underway on a new animal shelter in Hopkins County.
There's several advantages to this new shelter including the fact that it's much bigger, but the humane society says they're hoping to also offer a handful of new services.
Adoptions are a big part of the humane society's day to day operations and manager Charles Gentry says with the new facility they'd like to start a micro-chipping service that inserts a small tracking device into newly adopted animals.
"That way if the dog gets lost or something to that effect, ends up back at the shelter or somewhere else, even at a vets office or another shelter, then they can scan them for that micro-chip and locate where the owner is and get them back home," Gentry said.
Another expanded service is vaccinations which are something they only currently offer to puppies, but Gentry says they hope all animals will get them soon.
"Hopefully if they come in and they get contact with the sick animal then they won't pick up those diseases," Gentry said.
Community Development Director Mike Duncan says there were two things they stressed related to health when it came to their final design.
"You need to stop contamination of waste and air filtration, and so that's one of the two things we worked on," Duncan said.
Along with a section for offices, the new shelter will consist of two halves that are basically identical. One will be for healthy animals and one for those that need to be quarantined.
"Having that separation, I think, is going to really help decrease the number of sick dogs or at least the increase of them when you get one sick one in there. Here we're very limited on where we can contain them and isolate them," Gentry said.
"It's taken quite awhile, about a year working on this project. Now's the good part where you start the construction and everybody can see and I think the community will be more excited," Duncan said.
The humane society hopes to have a few fundraising opportunities to help fund the move. They hope to open the new shelter within the first few months of next year.
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