MALVERN, Ark. — According to Malvern Mayor Brenda Weldon, the city's animal shelter is overcrowded and understaffed.
With 37 dogs and 27 kennels, Weldon said the shelter just doesn’t have space for all of them—and now it is temporarily closed.
The issues come after the shelter's only two full-time employees left.
"That's why the shelter was closed,” Weldon said. “It’s just temporary until I can get some staff in place, hopefully by next week."
Weldon said the employees left because they "realized this wasn't for them."
"I just think they didn't realize that there's just a lot to it," Weldon said. "You have to spray down the kennels, which involves a lot of dirty work, and I think it's just a little more than they bargained for."
Weldon said even though the shelter's now closed, the animals are being taken care of by part-time employees and anyone else who'll help out.
But sometimes, volunteers aren’t an option after one was attacked by a dog earlier this year.
“After this attack,” Weldon said. “I did visit with our city attorney, and she recommended that we have no volunteers here, without an employee, because of the liability."
Weldon said adoptions are down, and rescues in town are at capacity too.
She said a rescue from Bentonville visited the shelter earlier this month, and she hoped that they could relieve some of the stress, but since then she hasn’t heard back from that group.
Weldon said the shelter doesn't want to euthanize, but with dogs in the streets the shelter can't take in, it may be their only option.
“Euthanization is the very last thing we want to do,” Weldon said. “We don't want to do that, but at some point in time, we've got to lower this population, so we're hoping that maybe people watching out there will realize we're in a crisis and could help us out."
Weldon said the city is building another facility to house 14 more dogs, but it likely won't be ready until next year.
"If we don’t reduce our number of animals here, then we have no more room for any other animals," Weldon said. "That's not fair to our citizens that live here. They want the service of us taking care of these problems."
She said that in the meantime, hiring full-time employees might be the shelter’s best hope.
"We're hiring a new animal control supervisor and a new animal control officer,” Weldon said. “We’re going to get through it. I have no doubt. It's like everything else. You work through it, and it will all work itself out."
Weldon said there is one silver lining for the otherwise overcrowded shelter- their cat area is totally empty at the moment.
“We do not have any cats right now,” Weldon said.
Weldon said anyone interested in adopting or volunteering should contact the shelter at (501) 304-0000.