Residents Advocate for City-Run Shelter in 2014

The activist group Bowie Citizens for Local Animal Welfare (CLAW) wants to keep Bowie's lost pets local.

That's why at Monday's budget workession CLAW plans to call for a city-run facility which would house lost animals for three to five days. Advocates are hoping the Bowie City Council will include it in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget.

Currently, when a lost animal is picked up in Bowie by the city’s animal control department, it is brought to a holding facility at city hall. An email and/or text alert is sent out to residents registered for pet pickup alerts, and if no one claims the animal by the end of the day, it is transported to the county animal management facility in Upper Marlboro.

CLAW President Connie Carter said this system does not give pet owners—particularly those that work—sufficient time to come and retrieve their pets and that it adds an additional step of driving to Upper Marlboro to claim the missing animal.

A city-run, short-term shelter, she said, could solve this problem.

“We envision this as being, the animals that are picked up and brought into city of Bowie shelter they are held for three to five days before they are taken down to the county shelter,” Carter said.

This window would give residents time to realize their animal was missing and ease the burden of retrieving the lost cat or dog.

CLAW is so committed to a city run shelter that they are ready to contribute $100,000 to get the shelter running, and they have an additional $50,000 pledged if the city does sign off.

Carter said based on CLAW’s research, $100,000 would be enough to build a short-term shelter, but the money could be used to refurbish the city’s old police trailers at the Kenhill Center instead.

Once the shelter was established, the city would be responsible for the day-to-day running of the facility. 

Bowie Mayor G. Frederick Robinson said he and the council would consider a city run short-term shelter, but that he’s not yet ready to support the establishment of such a facility.

“I appreciate and respect the people that are advocating for it but I remain unconvinced that given the county has a facility that’s nine miles out to the city that it’s an appropriate expense for us to duplicate that,” Robinson said.

He also said he would oppose any new expenditures that would require raising taxes, though Carter says with the shelter, that is not a concern. Carter thinks that the revenue stream generated by animal redemptions and things like microchip clinics and low cost spay/neuter clinics would offset the cost of running the shelter.

Carter agrees that the county facility in Upper Marlboro, where she is a regular volunteer, is much nicer and larger than the old facility in Forestville.

“They can take a lot more animals, but they have less staff, so they have fewer people taking care of many more animals,” Carter said. “We want to try to keep the animals in Bowie away from the high stress, exposure to contagious diseases.”

CLAW has been advocating for a city-run, short-term shelter for three or four years, and Carter said she's confident it it will be included as part of the city’s budget this year.

“We have worked very closely with the council members. We have tried to give them what we have felt is an answer to their questions,” Carter said.

A city-run shelter is in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan for the Fiscal Year 2014 budget and will be consider by the council at Monday’s worksession.