Mason County Intermediate School students are working to collect items and raise money for the Mason County Animal Shelter.
A group of Student Technology Leadership Program students, who call themselves the Dog Squad, are working on several ideas for the shelter.
Margie Henderson, STLP advisor for MCIS, said the students are working to collect items and money to improve the overall quality of life for the animals at the facility.
Henderson said the students were made aware of the needs of the shelter by Richard Newberry, assistant county judge-executive. After interviewing Newberry, they decided to put together not only a supply drive, but a long-term plan for the shelter.
“One of the things the kids learned was the shelter is over capacity,” Henderson said. “And, it’s not updated. He’s told us taxpayer money takes care of the shelter, but there isn’t enough money to take care of what they need.”
Hailey Henderson said the students wanted to do something to help the animal shelter.
“We are sending out flyers to get people to donate items for the shelter,” Henderson said. “I feel happy that I can help. I love dogs — they’re my favorite.”
Patrick Carpenter said raising money and supplies for the shelters is important to him, because he has rescue dogs.
“It’s fun, engaging and it’s going to help a lot of animals,” he said. “I have three rescue dogs. One came from this animal shelter in Maysville. His name is Flash. He’s eight months. When we went to get him from the shelter, there were a bunch of people who were there to get him, too.”
Ryan Owens said there is a maze for dogs to get exercise, but in the winter it is too cold for them.
“We want to get them a tarp that they can put on top of the maze so the dogs can get exercise in the winter,” he said. “It needs taller walls so dogs don’t jump over it. It’s also not completely finished, so we want to go out one day a month to work on the animal shelter and the maze.”
Henderson said the students have several other ideas to help the shelter.
Kynslee Thomas said some of the ideas include connecting the animal shelter to adoption apps to help get more animals adopted, put together a color run to raise money and have families sign up one day each month to work at the shelter as a volunteer.
“I’m really happy about it,” she said.
Henderson said the students want to work on the apps as a way to give options to the shelter for animals who are considered “unadoptable.”
“There are animals that are considered unadoptable,” she said. ” Mr. Newberry said they are a no-kill shelter, but there are some animals that can’t be adopted. So, there needs to be other options.”
Henderson said the shelter also lacks an exercise yard and a bathing facility.
Owens said there are dogs that go outside but have to walk through a hallway that could cause issues with illness spreading.
“If a dog is sick and on its feet, it goes through the hallway and some diseases can spread to other dogs,” he said. “Some shelters now have a doggy door in the dogs’ rooms so they can go outside like that instead. Mr. Newberry has to take them out himself — he has to take each one out. Then, when they get sick, they have to euthanize them.”
Logan Smith said the whole project is near to his heart, so much so that he used his birthday to help the shelter.
“For my birthday, I asked for pet food,” he said. “I was able to get 10 bags of mostly dog food for the shelter. It was really good timing, because the next day was Thanksgiving. I did it because I normally get toys, but I don’t really play with them, because I’m not into a lot of that anymore. A friend of mine did a similar thing, but for canned food, so I decided to do it with dog food, since my STLP group is all about dogs.”
Henderson said her favorite part of the project is the work day.
“I’m proud of everything they’re doing, but I think the work day is my favorite,” she said. “I think it’s going to be great.”
Henderson said there are some eighth grade students at the middle school who have also requested to team up with the students on their project.
