KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Happy ending for neglected animals

Happy ending for neglected animals

By Jeff Ferrell - bio|email

DESOTO PARISH, LA (KSLA) - In a KSLA News 12 follow-up:  The four dogs recently found neglected and hungry are no longer suffering in the heat in DeSoto Parish.  It was neighbors who first came to the rescue.  And now, the solution also came from a private citizen. 

Last weekend neighbors came to the rescue of four pitbull dogs, all-but- abandoned and growing thinner and thinner, chained-up in the backyard of a home just off Linwood Avenue in the northern part of the parish.  One neighbor told us, "it just breaks my heart.  Like I said, I go over and we try to chuck food to them because we don't have any animals, you know." 

Four days later the dogs are gone.  The DeSoto Parish Sheriff's Office got involved, along with a concerned citizen, who is now caring for the dogs.  "It pleased me.  I was real glad, 'cause I hate to see an animal starve to death," said longtime neighbor Loyce Ratliff, who lives right across the street. 

Handling such cases will soon become a whole lot easier.  "This is the site plan," said DeSoto Parish Administrator Steve Brown, as he unfurled several layout designs and spread them across his office table in Mansfield, Louisiana. 

Brown then gave us a sneak peak at plans for the soon-to-be built animal control center.  "There's four hundred acres of airport and there's six hundred acres around the airport...The animal shelter will be at this location right here," pointed Brown, to a spot near a parish work building. 

Brown predicted that construction could likely get underway by late October and wrap-up by mid-to late March of 2010.  Total cost for the animal shelter:  Nearly 800-thousand dollars.  "And we opted, rather than go for quantity, we have focused on quality," added Brown, referring to the roughly 60-animals it will be able to house when it opens its doors next spring. 

And there is a potential  Phase II of the project:  "If the demand is there we can grow into the demand simply.  The design will accomodate that with a simple extension on one end," added Brown. 

Until then, situations like the one we uncovered with the four pitbulls will require the help of others, according to Brown.  "We do use some of the private sector facilities here, you know, some of the rescue facilities, we'll work with them." 

But until their animal shelter can open, Brown told us that the DeSoto Parish Police Jury is not in the animal control business, yet.  That day can't come soon enough for some residents and law enforcement.

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