Wantage Pound improved, but barking still upsets neighbors

Wantage — Conditions at the Wantage Dog Pound are satisfactory, a new state inspection says. What’s more, the adoption rate has leapt since Wantage began showing photographs of adoptable pets on the township Web site and listing them on petfinder.com. Just since the first of the year, twelve dogs and six cats have found new homes. What’s more, ten lost pets have gone home, including nine dogs and one cat. But the animals that remain are a source of irritation for the residents of an age-restricted housing development at Clove Hill, located just behind the pound, who came to a recent township committee meeting to complain that the constant barking of the dogs housed at the facility is destroying their peace and quiet. On Tuesday, the township site, www.wantagetwp.com, featured pictures of three rabbits, and ten cats, and the same animals are shown on the petfinder. Com Web site. A furor erupted last year about alleged conditions at the pound when local veterinarian Linda Grau and CLAWS Cat Shelter owner Laurie Walsh said that the facility wasn’t being kept clean and that too many animals were being euthanized. Walsh had served as a volunteer and Grau had visited the pound and had treated many of the cats Walsh had rescued from the facility. Also, in an Aug. 18 inspection report, state inspector Gwyn Sondike cited the Wantage Pound for having dirty buildings, grounds and enclosures; flies in the cat room; dirty feeders and pans; incomplete or inaccurate records; and improper quarantine facilities. Beginning on Jan. 9, to help cut costs at the pound, Wantage began euthanizing animals on site, instead of sending them to the Port Jervis animal control facility and paying a fee. Veterinarian Nancy Hallam-Smith authorized acting animal control officer John Abate to euthanize animals considered “unadoptable” with injections of sodium pentobarbital, the method recommended by the American Veterinary Medical Association as the most humane and rapid method of ending an animal’s life. An association report says the drug painlessly shuts down the neurotransmitters in the brain in about five seconds, causing the animal to lose consciousness. Death occurs within a few minutes. So far this year, six dogs and thirty-four cats have been euthanized. State inspector Heather Bialy told the township to hold all animals collected for the required seven days, after finding records that showed that a Wantage animal control worker had collected 12 cats and euthanized them within the day. But there are still problems to be solved. Renovations of the dog pound building are planned for June, when the township will build a new isolation room and add two more dog runs. Now, sick animals are housed in the boiler room. The Clove Hill residents are more concerned about the noise. Resident Joan Gengaro told the committee that although the animal control officer has tried to solve the problem by bringing the dogs inside earlier in the day, the solution isn’t good enough and the barking still is too loud and too constant. The barking dogs, Gengaro said, keep Clove Hill residents from having the same right to quiet enjoyment that other Wantage Township residents have. A township ordinance says “no person shall allow any dog in their keeping, custody, control or ownership to bark, howl, cry or make other noises for any period longer than one-half hour between the hours of ten at night and seven in the morning or allow a dog on two or more occasions to make noise for intervals of more than one half-hour at any time of the day or night.” But township officials say that the dog pound is exempt from this law. The Clove Hill woman said she thought the township ought to think about either abandoning plans to expand the pound or reducing the number of pound inmates by ceasing to take animals from neighboring towns. She also suggested that Wantage restructure the pound to house only cats or contract out dog-pound services. In 2006, Wantage provided both animal control services and dog pound space to Franklin Borough, Hamburg Borough, Sussex Borough, Newton and Stillwater. In addition, Montague and Hampton contracted with Wantage for animal control services but use other facilities to keep the animals. Branchville and Lafayette employed their own animal control officers, but contracted with Wantage Township for space. In early March, Marianne Smith of Hardyston asked Wantage Administrator Jim Doherty about entering an agreement for animal control services, but Doherty told her that the township couldn’t consider expanding. The township continues to provide services to all the municipalities except Sussex. Wantage severed its agreement with Sussex in December 2006. Last year, Wantage housed 201 out-of-town animals, of which 104 were euthanized, and 304 Wantage animals, of which 93 were euthanized. Speaking to Clove Hill residents, Mayor William DeBoer said that he had been in touch with developer John Maione and had discussed using landscape improvements such as a row of blue spruce trees as a sound barrier against the barking. Citing the loss of revenue that ending service agreements with neighboring towns would cause, DeBoer also said that the committee must do what is best for all residents and taxpayers and not just those of Clove Hill Manor. In addition, the animal control officer told Gengaro that he has been studying other sound-proofing methods, but still needed to survey other pounds and shelters using the methods to discern how effective they had proved to be.