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No Kill Shelter In Liberty County.....
Not to be confused with the free adoptathons in Hinesville...


Yes, we are a no kill shelter. We actually refer to ourselves as a "common sense no kill". We do not put down an animal in OUR humane shelter because of the time that it has been here. We had one dog for 1 year and 5 days and found her a home...we committed to her, we found her a forever family.
Many people do not realize that there are two complete facilities housed at 279 Briarwood Circle, Hinesville.
To explain, we are a non profit organization that is housed in the same building as Liberty County Animal Control. When you pull up to the building, Animal Control is painted on the wall to the left, we are painted with the arrow on the right..
No, this is not the best of conditions, but we make the best of what we have. And our "no kill" facility has saved many many lives since 1979. Granted, the shelter has not been no kill but about 10 years. Since the current board has been in office we have made many improvements and saved many lives.
Again, we are housed with animal control which is a county run facility. They have a job to do and that is to pick up stray and abandoned animals in Liberty County... If your neighbor would be more responsible for the animal life that he has in his care, then there would be less to pick up. If your neighbor would spay/neuter your pet, we would have less boxes dropped off with 6-8 puppies or kittens in it. Or found thrown by the road, or in a trash bag.
It is not animal controls fault, the counties fault, or our fault that there are hundreds of animals dumped every month in Liberty County.
The agreement that Liberty County Animal Control and Liberty Humane Shelter has is that Liberty Humane Shelter will save as many lives as we possibly can by "pulling" animals that are on death row to our no kill facility.
WE hold up to agreement to the best of our ability. We hold up to this agreement every week, every month and every year. Please remember we are TWO different entities functioning under the same facility.
Let me explain about "common sense no kill" Are we going to allow a kitten that is gasping for every breathe suffer? Are we going to let a puppy with parvo that has vomited, and pooped out blood and is dying suffer? Are we going to put a dog that has been to 2 vets and confirmed that the dog is child aggressive and has actually bitten a child live? Our answer is no... That is because we have enough descency to put the animals welfare first and to put our community first. And if anyone has a problem with it, send me your number and the next kitten or puppy dying, I will call you to come hold it as it suffers and see how long you will sit there before you are crying for us to call someone.
And when the next dog comes in that we have worked with, put through obedience courses, conferred with a dog therapist, and it still jumps at your childs face and misses by a hair, I will gladly send it home with you to see if you can work with it... NO, I wouldn't because I have an obligation to this community to put family friendly, healthy, animals up for adoption.

Let's talk...Heartworm positive.. To treat heartworms can run anywhere from $200.00 - 800.00 dollars. Would you like to sponsor an animal for us? No, let's face the cold hard facts. We can save the heartworm positive animal, spend the money to give him shots, spay/neuter, and treat it for heartworms and it may die during treatment or the real fact is, because we pulled the heartworm positive dog and dedicated all that money toward that animal, the others were left in their kennel to be put down on Thursday.. The cruel fact is, we do not have the money to treat and care for the heartworm positive dogs.It breaks my heart everytime the dots come up and we have to walk back under the tunnel and mark "no", heartworm positive on his form... So, please until you spend a day or two with me at the shelter, please do not judge our decisions.
Roughly, it takes the shelter $100.00 to save an animal from animal control, best case scenerio... no sickness, no ringworm, no excessive worms, no kennel cough, no demodex, no sarcoptics.. This means, we put that money into the animal within the first few weeks they are there.
Kittens and puppies get a series of 3 shots along with 2 Felv for kittens and the bordetella for puppy. They get wormed with 2 wormers, heartworm prevention every month as long as they are there. They also get rewormed during the course of their stay, many get it, every two weeks and sometimes we use 2 different wormers on them. They also get spay/neutered before they leave, they get a rabies shot before they leave unless they are too young, and they get microchipped. Also they get a test to determine if they are felv/fiv negative and depending on the age of the puppy, determine heartworm status.
Adult cats and dogs get the two sets of shots along with 2 felv for cats and the bordetella for dogs. wormed, rabies, microchip, fiv/felv or heartworm test.
So, as you can see, we are doing our part, we go above and beyond what many other shelters and rescues do.
Let's all remember we are a non profit organization. WE run solely on donations by the citizens of Liberty County..
As a member you can take part in the decisions, you can attend the meetings, or you may want to help us with the 6-8 fundraisers that we have to have each year so that we can save the abandoned and stray animals...
Black dogs, black cats, come walk through.. You will always see a black dog every day at that shelter.. There is always more than one..
Black cats, actually, we have several.. so whoever says we do not take them, should come walk through and get their facts straight before they comment.
Also, let me tell you about walking through to save the animals...Who decides if they are family friendly, healthy, and highly adoptable animals? The staff and Board decides based on the information, medical tests, temperment tests, and our collective opinions about the animal.
Two of us walk through and look at the animals, We decide which animals that we believe will be family friendly adoptable animals. We, then, spend some time looking at them, play with them, and do some of the testing such as food aggression and friendly tests on them. If the animal fails the tests, we can not consider taking them. If they pass, Then we do the blood tests on them.. If they are negative we commit to taking that animal so animal control does not look for a rescue for it.
If the animal is positive, we take that hard walk to put no on it and apologize to the animal that we just can not do it..
This task is absolutely the hardest part of the shelter..
We must decide the fate of that animal using the time that we have, based on the resources(money) that we have and based on our hands on training with the animals.
We struggle everytime we have to make the walk. There have been times when we make our decisions on the ones we will take and I send the employees away so that they do not have the responsibility of looking that animal in the eye and putting NO on that paper..So Please do not judge what we do...
We are human, we all make mistakes, but we are doing the absolute best that we can.. And this is not an easy passion that we have..
It is a emotional roller coaster, it is a pschologically draining thing that we must do.. But we do it to save the ones that we can..
We take pride in our animals, in the improvements we have made, and the difference that we have made in the lives of those animals and the lives of the families that we have placed the animals in.
Why can't we save them all?? They are not all savable...Some are mean, some are disease ridden, some are extremely food aggressive, some are unhealthy..those, I can mark "no" with justification. The one's that we must decide "is the most family friendly, healthy animal" are the "no's" that I struggle to write on the paper. The fact that money or limited space has cost that animal its life is almost unbearable.
Finally, let me reassure you that there is in fact a "no kill" shelter in Liberty County... It's name is LIBERTY HUMANE SHELTER
If you can make a donation to help save another life, please help us.
We are struggling to stay open, to save lives every day...
"the more you give, the more can live" is on our shirts.. and we will do everything that we possibly can to remain open and functioning for these animals. Please help us..
The fate of this shelter lies in the hands of our community.
At the end of June, we had saved 273 animals from animal control and owner surrenders. And we have had 260 successful adoptions. In July, we have already had 25 adoptions...
WE need your help to continue on our mission to save the lives of the animals in Liberty County that have been abandoned.
Lastly, let me say "be responsible, spay or neuter your pet" you can help prevent future deaths of thousands of animals in this county and in the surrounding counties.
We and every other organization that adopts an animal from a shelter/animal control facility is required by law to have that animal spayed/neutered within 30 days. So, for those organizations/rescues that are not doing their part, this in the future will mean more unwanted animals, more animals put down in facilities around the United States.

Also, microchip your animal, either at your vet or at our shelter, this little chip placed in the shoulder area has returned animal after animal to its owners. Even onees that were taken from New York and found in Hinesville by Animal Control and returned back to its family after 5 years.

Please take care of the lives that God has put in your hands...if you don't, who will?

Sincerely,
Sandra Frye
Please visit our sites at:
www.libertyhumaneshelter.com
www.myspace.com/libertyshelter
libertyshelter@aol.com