Francesca Zagami
Asst. Photo Editor
frzagami@valdosta.edu

The setting sun over Valdosta colors the clouds with soft purples, gods and reds. The silhouette of a girl balanced on her tip-toes in front of the giant red stop sign at the corner of Green Street and Gordon is striking. She disappears, leaving behind a white sheet of paper held to the sign with scotch tape.             LOST DOG is printed in bold black type at the top.
The poster lacks a picture. The description is vague. The dog has been gone for three days.
The Missing Pets Bureau reports that every week over 5,700 cats and dogs are lost or stolen each week in the United States. Over 300,000 cats and dogs go missing every year. Factoring in other pets from turtles to horses makes the number almost incalculable.
The silhouetted girl clearly wants to be reunited with her lost dog. Linda Patelski wants to help. But time is running out.
Patelski is the director of the Lowndes County Animal Shelter. There, within the 6,000 square foot facility, Patelski makes a living doing what she loves, even when it means doing what she hates.  For instance, when the silhouetted girl walks into the LCAS to inquire about her missing dog, Patelski will likely have to inform her that waiting even one day for Buddy is too long.
At LCAS, workers hope to reunite or relocate as many displaced animals as possible. Unfortunately, lost pets can be difficult to distinguish from abandoned pets and stray animals. Patelski and her team become detectives when the animals arrive, looking them over from snout to tail for identifiers and clues.
“We go to extremes here,” said Patelski. “We don’t have to, but we feel like we should. Because everybody loves their pets. We play detective to return the pets to their owners.”
Animals without evidence of domestication are held for three days before they are evaluated for adoption. These animals often exhibit signs of neglect, lack collars or tags, and are without distinguishing features. Owners of pets like these would have only three days to find their pet before it was either euthanized or deemed eligible for legal adoption.
The girl’s poster indicated that her dog walked with a limp and wore a hunter green collar. Assuming the dog didn’t slip out of the collar, he would be given two additional days before the adoption evaluation began because he clearly belonged to somebody.
Patelski wonders about the original owners of the pets that are adopted from the shelter. She recalls a young woman who showed up terribly excited to reclaim her dog only to discover that the dog had been legally adopted the very same day. Patelski helped the woman contact the adopters, who happened to be breeders, and the adopters offered the woman another of their puppies out of compassion.
That’s one of the happier stories Patelski has seen unfold on Harbin Road. When the door opens and the bell rings to announce the arrival of the girl with the poster, Patelski will hope against hope that the girl’s dog will not meet the same fate as the 6,000 animals that were euthanized at the shelter in 2008.
Patelski, tucking back errant strawberry-blonde strands as they escape from her ponytail, is all too aware of every pet that has lost its life here. The proud owner of four horses, three dogs, two cats, and one fish, Patelski wants to keep them all.
Miss Kitty, authoritatively perched on the counter, is proof embodied. The calico came to the center as a kitten and after a difficult surgery; she needed special love and care from the staff. Although clearly loved by the staff, Miss Kitty is still waiting to be adopted. The adoption evaluation consists of three major components.
The first is health. When animals are brought in initially, they are examined and treated for any immediate concerns. Animals with serious emergency issues are sent to the Humane Society.   When they are being evaluated for adoption, the main concern is diseases. Animals are not automatically euthanized because of illnesses, but because of the close quarters the animals are kept in, communicable diseases are high risk factors.
The second is temperament. Animals are primarily evaluated bases on their temperaments toward people. If the animal is aggressive toward the staff, the safety of the workers, visitors, and other animals must be considered. Animals that are only aggressive toward other animals can often be accommodated by being given their own separate cage. However space is limited.
Thus, space is the third component of the adoption evaluation.  The love for animals that makes Patelski desperate to give them all a spot at the shelter is also the same love that forces her to choose. Overcrowding a shelter creates health concerns for both the workers and the resident animals. Often difficult calls must be made to avoid large scale tragedies.
Patelski oversees most of the difficult calls. She wants to save as many pets as possible but it’s just not possible to save them all. So Patelski concentrates on the 1,008 pets they helped find a new home and the 441 pets that have been reclaimed by original owners in 2008.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is the motto at the LCAS. When they are talking to the silhouetted girl, they will repeat it several times along with the standard advice: Get the microchip implanted. Keep current photos. Keep updated contact information on the national pet registry. Pay attention to your pets’ identifying marks and how they change. Don’t let your pet out the back door to use the bathroom and expect them to come back.
Above all, don’t wait. The clock is ticking.