Paul Bass Photo
Laura Burban, director of Branford’s Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter, believes between 19,000 and 25,000 dogs imported from Southern states will make their way to Connecticut this winter. And she is not happy about that.
Burban’s shelter covers Branford, North Branford and Northford. In her years as the head of the shelter, she has undertaken any number of legal efforts in order to help the animal population her shelter serves.
“Do we need more out-of-state of dogs? My personal feeling is we have to first answer a different question. And that is should our own dogs be taken care of first? If we do that, then we can look at helping others.
In an interview on WNHH radio’s “Legal Eagle” program, Burban discussed the life-death situations animals face at shelters across the state.
The underlying issue is how long a town or city animal shelter holds an animal. As it turns out, every town and city is different. If a shelter has a one-week minimum stay before a dog is put down, then that Connecticut dog get little time to be adopted.
“Why should we bring in more dogs when we have our own dogs in our state dying because we can’t find homes for them? Or we can’t house them long enough?”
Each town has different rules because each one sets up its animal shelter differently. In some towns the mayor or first selectman is in charge; in some towns it is the police department. Sometimes it is the finance director, Burban said. “Some shelters keep animals six months; some 10 days.
This is a concern of a lot of people. We want to give them a chance. They may be fearful and they may be withdrawn. It is difficult for us to put a label on a dog in a week. It is difficult to put a time frame on the personality of a dog in a week’s time.”
Burban said many rescue organizations across the state come to the aid of dogs about to be put down.
As for dogs being shipped from southern states to Connecticut, she said typically southern states have more animals because there is no big push to spay or neuter dogs in the south.
“So they reproduce more. Some people don’t believe in spaying an animal,” she said. “The bottom line is we want to make sure our dogs are adopted out first.”
Burban also discussed how Connecticut laws affect animals and animal rights in the state today. One issue is increased penalties for animal cruelty. Another is the possible creation of an animal abuser’s registry. But to create such a registry, she said, “You have to have judges convicting offenders. And that is rare. That’s the primary problem.”
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to the full episode.
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I'm glad this director gets it. There's no need to import out of state dogs and/or cats when still so many die in shelters north of the Mason Dixon. The reason why more puppies and kittens are born in the south, however, isn't those of us down south don't believe in spay/neuter or that our communities aren't supporting sterilization projects, it's actually because Mother Nature works against us more in the South. Milder year round climate lends for longer breeding seasons and sometimes year round breeding seasons, therefore many more are produced than up north. We also don't get the hard freezes down south like northern states which also kills off many of the younger or weaker cats/dogs that aren't being cared for. Most of the animals transported by northern rescues from southern shelters are puppies, pregnant moms about to deliver a litter, small toy type breeds or purebreds. They aren't saving the big mix breed adult dogs or adult cats (because their shelters are full of those, too). Do we really wonder why mainstream public still has the "puppy only mentality" when so many rescues feed that addiction? imagine if those rescues put the money it costs them to transport pups up the Eastern Seaboard into spay/neuter assistance how many litters would be prevented? that is what will ultimately help reduce shelter deaths in both southern AND northern shelters.