06/01/2026
There has been a quiet war going on for several years between PAWS animal control for the county and the city of Niceville. PAWS is not a county entity, it is a private organization hired by the county for animal control. I will not go into the long history of problems with this arrangement but prices kept going up and services going down. PAWS cut off Niceville citizens from animal control and the result is rampant feral cat breeding, abandoned animals and dangerous dog attacks. The result has been for example, 33 kittens dumped on my doorstep last year, of which I shouldered the burden and treated ringworm, 33 baths a day for 6 weeks….my poor staff. AIDS and leukemia tests, vaccines, neutering the males, antibiotics, etc. We did place all 33 but the economic and labor cost were astronomical. Now our wonderful police department has shouldered the dog of this issue, they are boarding dogs, feeding puppies, taking care of them on weekends and in general taking a lot of their police time taking care of stray dogs. We have recently contracted with them to board the dogs here, vaccinate, neuter the males and in general be their care giver. They will not do owner surrender, nor can I. The dog must first go through the police department and then here and if owner can’t be found we will try to place them, but time is short, they won’t be here forever.
This arrangement is helpful, but there are still problems, mainly cats. I have offered reduced vaccines and neuter of male cats for the last year hoping by removing the inseminators we might not have so many kittens out there, but as we are approaching kitten season I had 4 brought in yesterday so I feel that it will be even worse. There is nowhere to take kittens. I have decided to just go big on this issue and will take in myself kittens less than 10 weeks. We will vaccinate, de worm, test, neuter males and treat illness, than try and place in a new home. I however could use some help for this
1. Donations to fund this spring effort(money, cat litter, cat/kitten food)
2. Physical help if you want to assist if we are doing 33 baths a day again lol.
3. Social media to help us place them, includes videos, telling the stories of each one and in general taking these innocents off the streets where they will be eaten by foxes, coyotes, owls, hawks or worse yet placed in a bag in dropped off in a creek on the reservation.
In addition, some of these dogs that we will be working with will be unadoptable, if they are aggressive it becomes a serious liability issue for the clinic to place a known dangerous dog and we won’t do it. There are also serious health issues that make an animal unadoptable. I am not going to be like some shelters and claim to be a no kill shelter but at the same time shipping the unadoptable off to another kill shelter. I will take care of all of it here and I don’t want any armchair vets telling me how terrible I am that I won’t keep a 9 year old aggressive blind pit with heartworms for a year hoping the perfect owner might show up. If you complain, we will give you that dog and let you deal with the consequences.
The adoption fee on both kittens and dogs will be zero, but they may not be sterilized. I am one person and time is short here. Neuters are easier, there is just no time for spays. I could probably qualify for grants, but I have no time to pursue this, but if you want to help, that would be a good way to contribute.
