08/01/2025
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THE GOODSHIP LOLLIPOP: HOW THE BARSTOW HUMANE SOCIETY WAS SAVED
Since 1964, the Barstow Humane Society has been providing our city with animal control and shelter services in some form or another. At present, they do both. That’s 59 years of dedicated service, and if you think I exaggerate when I say “dedicated,” consider the variety of needs 80 caged animals require on an hourly basis.
And then there’s all that stuff they do outside the facility, in the streets of Barstow or in other towns like Palmdale where they were at last Sunday, looking for homes for a bunch of cats.
The job inherently requires a level of commitment greater than the highly paid baristas at our two Starbucks and is, in many ways, comparable to the care LPN’s provide their patients at Barstow Hospital . . . just for a lot less money.
But it’s for sure that each has the same level of love for those they care for.
Most people can’t do it. Most people won't do it. It takes a heart for animals, and there is no person at the facility with a bigger heart for her work than Linda, the Manager.
She’s been at it for 13 years and has yet to have a vacation.
She doesn’t complain.
Ten hour days, six days a week are normal. Being short-handed is routine. And needing supplies and donations a constant. COVID almost turned the lights out at the shelter, but Linda found a way. She does everyday. What sustains her is the joy that comes from placing an animal with a family. And what angers her is the cruelty some people inflict on those whose only purpose in life is to love.
She turns the anger into fuel.
The worst of it, she says, came during COVID.
Because people were house-bound, they got pets to keep them company. “Pandemic Pets,” they were called. And then when the restrictions were lifted and people started going back to work, they couldn’t care for the pets, so they released them into the streets or they took them back to the Humane Society.
“It was never worse,” Linda, the facility Director describes the situation, referring to the time prior to the pandemic.
The County was paying its full share. And so was Adelanto. But not the City. They had reduced their contribution to $1,500 per month. And that made Linda’s job tougher. “Usually we had two or three people cleaning and I would do my manager stuff. But I had to cut all those people. So I was cleaning and watching the front desk at the same time.
“I'd have one person come in for three hours [while] I did the rest of the area myself. And then, I'd run back and forth to the front desk because I had to keep us afloat.”
Afloat.
Given the mission with which the Humane Society is entrusted, it’s like she was the Captain of the Goodship Lollipop and it was sinking. It broke her heart to lay off staff who, to her, are family. But faced with increases in the cost of vet care, food, supplies, employee salaries and benefits, and utilities, coupled with an increase in the number of animals needing to be cared for, and a shortage in manpower and funds, Linda turned water into wine.
Not literally, of course, but how she navigated a course through the COVID years and kept the Human Society operational is nothing short of a Herculean effort, if not simply a miracle.
“The utility companies were helpful,” she adds. “They worked with us. And had it not been for the Adelanto contract, we’d not have made it.”
In order for the shelter to stay afloat, a pay increase was needed from the agencies they contracted with. The City of Adelanto and San Bernardino County immediately agreed to the increase. The City of Barstow declined. It was a hard decision to make, but in order for the shelter to stay afloat, the City of Barstow had to be released in 2023.
That has changed . . . and for the better!
But the two years that there was no relationship was hard. She thinks back to that time and measures the distance she and her staff have traveled since COVID. It was a journey fraught with countless challenges and, many times, heartbreak because, sometimes, some animals couldn’t be saved. Linda and her staff will do everything they can to find a home for the animals placed in their care, but some are too sick or simply can’t be placed.
Euthanasia is an absolute last resort.
Linda continues, “The group of people that are in place now, not only from the Humane Society, but from inside the city . . . really believes in the direction [we are now] going.
“The Police Department, which is responsible for animal control by way of the City Charter, [is] on board. [And so is] the City staff [and Councilman Williams.] The relationship that might have been scarred two and a half years ago, has never been stronger.”
She smiles. It’s a nice smile; without artifice. Having survived the worst of it, she can envision a future in which the Humane Society fulfills its mission. The challenges remain. They always will. But she’s part of a team now. A team focused on one goal: animal care.
Not one to boast, nor is she comfortable with praise, Linda is happily at the helm of the Goodship Lollipop as she and her team chart a new course forward . . . a better way to solve the problems caused by humans, and not the animals.
