June 27, 2022 address to Fairfield County Council by Samira Yaghi, Fairfield Animal Shelter Volunteer Rescue Coordinator
I come before you with a desperate plea for the animals.
I’ve spent the last five plus years putting a band-aid on the needs for our shelter animals. And by band aid, I mean getting them out to rescues, fosters, and adopters to always make space for new intakes; fundraising for their medical needs through social media and events.
But those band aids are no longer sticking.
We have reached very dangerous times with an unprecedented and overwhelming crisis – influx of dogs like we’ve never seen before.
For five plus years, we have dreamed of a new facility. Not a posh facility, but an adequate holding place that is safe, clean, humane – that allows the animals proper indoor outdoor time, fresh air, adequate heating and cooling.
We dream of a shelter that does not look and feel like a dungeon such as does our intake building. Solitary confinement is what that building feels like. We dream of a shelter where animals do not have to be housed in flimsy 10 by 10 pens outside that are poorly put together and not stable from any wind blowing at them causing them to fly away, which happened just a few weeks ago.
We dream of proper outdoor housing with proper shade and protection from the elements. We dream of not stacking overcrowded animals in crates throughout the building.
What does that say about this county? What does it say about our level of care and compassion? It’s embarrassing, but more importantly, it’s heartbreaking. Not only to me, but to everyone that walks through that shelter and witnesses it.
We have a responsibility, a duty to provide, at a minimum, the basics. Some of those basics are not even met here in Fairfield. When the temps in a building that houses animals is between 85 and 90 degrees in the dead heat of the summer, it is disturbing.
Some of our animals are housed in the heat outside at high risk of heat strokes.
Our shelter doesn’t even have a proper refrigerator for staff and volunteers, nor a break room, or a table for someone to eat their lunch. We don’t have a meeting room or a corner to sit and discuss with prospective adopters or foster people.
This council has a fundamental duty and responsibility to provide adequate and humane living conditions for these animals, especially when housing long term. You have a responsibility to provide the care, the medical, the nutrition, and enrichment to help maintain these animals’ well being physically and mentally. But we don’t even have the level of staff needed to properly care for the number of animals the shelter houses.
I ask, I beg of you all, to please start prioritizing the shelter in more financial ways and provide more support. These animals matter. They are your responsibility. This is your backyard, your county animals and your community..
Let’s do better, Fairfield.