By KATHLEENE PARKER
White Rock

Strange. A Daily Post article mentions Los Alamos County Council approving a revised animal-code ordinance. Why did I suddenly have a feeling of dread?

The words, the ordinance “modifies…sterilization requirements,” were most concerning. Also, why passage of this ordinance as a citizen’s advisory committee recommendation of a few years ago—that the shelter be removed from police-department authority—remains ignored, or perhaps just swept under the rug? Perhaps that continued police paradigm in shelter management—rather than national shelter standards and management to reduce future problems—is much of my concern.  

The article didn’t clarify whether the ordinance modification means that, finally, Los Alamos will do what most shelters in northern New Mexico long have: require that all animals leaving the shelter are “fixed,” so that more generations of strays don’t arrive later. Or do the modifications mean that already ineffectual Los Alamos animal-sterilization requirements are further weakened or, worse, gone, replaced by a misguided return to some 1960s shelter-management paradigm?

Surely, when New Mexico shelters are so inundated that animals are, literally, being turned away—often to be dumped along lonely country roads—Los Alamos would do nothing to worsen that crisis.

Surely, we should do what Española long has: Ensure that all animals leaving our shelter are neutered and (as Española does) given medical care by veterinary staff. When I adopted my dog, Buddy, from our shelter, he was clearly very sick with what turned out to be parasites and giardia—both dangerous to humans and both something that should have been treated before adoption.

I await an ordinance less focused on recovering “costs incurred” and more focused on creating a shelter to solve problems, one we can be as proud of as Española, justifiably, is of theirs.