“Did you bring your dog to work with you?”

It might seem like an odd question, but every once in a while, Customer Service Representative Brenda Rarden gets asked about the barking that members sometimes hear in the background of their phone calls to the Spencer County office.

“If I leave the drive-thru intercom on, you can hear them outside throughout the day,” she laughs.

No, Rarden doesn’t bring any four-legged friends with her to the office; it’s just the good boys and girls of the Spencer County Animal Shelter, which is located just behind the cooperative’s Spencer County office on Spears Drive.

But though the shelter will be moving locations in just a few months, its ties and proximity to Salt River Electric will be even stronger than before.

“It was a win-win”

In August, Salt River Electric announced that it had awarded Spencer County Fiscal Court a $330,000 interest-free loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help in the construction of a new animal shelter for the county. The funding was initially provided to the co-op as part of USDA’s Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant (REDLG) program, which is designed to promote economic development and community services in rural areas through zero-interest loans provided to local utilities, which are then relented support community projects, like the animal shelter in this case.

“They [Salt River] work diligently in the counties to provide assistance, “Spencer County Judge-Executive Scott Travis explains. “The assistance from the RECC became available, and we thought, ‘absolutely…’ it was a win-win.”

The county’s shelter and animal control services have expanded greatly since they were first established, we lover a decade ago, sharing a facility with the county road department.

“This was where animal control was established, in this building,” explains Executive Director Victoria Shelburne. “It started out just with a back door back here, and there’s a little 12-foot by 12-foot room, with some dog crates in the back room. Then we moved into little bit bigger room, and then we got the maintenance bay here for the kennels. It’s grown a lot.”

Shelburne, who has served as executive director since 2021, says they’ve worked to make the space they have their own, working to update and add items to the facility which will better serve the shelter’s canine residents.

For Shelburne and her Animal Control Officers Rachel Showalter and Baylee Todd, those services include cleaning the kennels, enforcement calls, calls for stray dogs and transportation to the veterinarian, among other things.

Though dogs are the primary focus of the shelter, Shelburne says the receive calls about all different kinds of animals.

“We get more pig, goat, horse and cow calls than you’d think,” she laughs. But the need for a larger, more modern space has become obvious to Shelburne and her team. Over the past three years, they’ve taken in roughly 100 dogs per year. Seven months in to2024, they’re already approaching 200 dogs, most of them puppies.

Room to grow

Besides needing additional space to properly shelter the canines, the department also finds itself needing more room to better treat the animals, which includes educating owners.

“Education is a big thing for us,” Shelburne says, noting that sometimes pointing out a problem and its solution is all it takes.

“The way people look at animals is completely different for each person,” she says. “We’ve had dogs [brought] in that are covered in fleas, and we say, ‘Hey, here’s a $15 treatment that will take care of [the issue].’”

The department has strong support from county officials, who knew that a new facility to house the shelter would be beneficial as animal services become more needed.”

With this new administration [in Spencer County], Scott Travis came in and he really saw the need for a new shelter facility,” explains Shelburne. “He came over like once a week when Baylee [Todd] and I were going through the puppy stage; he would come over, and check how we were doing, if we needed anything.”

When it came to finding something in the community that would benefit from the REDLG program, co-op officials knew a modern animal shelter would be the perfect thing.

“The primary objective of this REDLG program is to help fund services and projects that will benefit people and communities we serve,” Salt River’s President and CEO Tim Sharp explains. “After talking with Judge [Scott] Travis, we knew that anew animal shelter would be a great use of this REDLG program.”

Welcoming volunteers

Once completed, the new facility, located off of Highway 55 just behind Dollar General, will feature nearly a dozen kennels, each with their own drainage troughs and entrances to a fenced-in area outside, a quarantine area to take in cats, and an area for livestock behind the building, to name just a few additions.

And while Shelburne, Showalter and Todd are excited for these new amenities, they can all agree on one major benefit: having more space for visitors and volunteers.

“When people realize what you’re doing for the community, and for the animals, [they’re] more receptive to say, ’I’m going to volunteer my time,”’ says Shelburne.